Lambeth Labour to slash sports funding
Almost £1million worth of spending cuts are to be made to sports provision, libraries and parks in Lambeth.
Labour are set to reduce community sports programmes and slash previously planned investment in libraries and parks to save £995,000.
Secret town hall documents, leaked to a local newspaper, revealed the council plans to make the harsh spending cuts between now and March 2008. It reveals plans to:
- Cut £250,000 to oversee plans for developing leisure centres in the borough.
- Cut £200,000 worth of sports development jobs to run community sports programmes for kids, pensioners and other groups.
- Cut maintenance budget for sports facilities by £100,000
- Scale back the sports booking service.
It means a planned expansion of the council’s community sports programme has been binned, but none of the already scheduled activities will be affected.
The plan will also see less park rangers employed to look after the borough’s parks, and cash allocated for floral displays like hanging baskets axed.
Libraries will also suffer, with cash earmarked for new IT facilities and special events axed as part of the council’s cultural services recovery plan.
Leader of the Conservative Group, Councillor John Whelan, said: “If this is a recovery plan then it’s likely to kill off the patient.
“At a time when there is national concern about rising levels of obesity among young people, the borough is cutting its commitment to providing sports facilities by £600,000.
“Further cuts are going to put libraries and parks under threat.”
Councillor calls for smoke detector checks on fire death estate
Following the tragic death of a Lambeth council tenant in a fire at her flat in Petrel Court, West Norwood, Thurlow Park Ward Councillor John Whelan is calling for home fire safety checks on neighbouring properties.
Cllr Whelan, a former member of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, says: “Naturally, my first thoughts are with the family after this tragic death. It is a miracle that her teenage daughter escaped helped to safety by a hero.
“However, it is vital that all the neighbouring properties on the Rosendale Gardens Estate are checked to ensure they have working smoke detectors. This is an old Lambeth estate built in the 1950s — known locally as “The Birdies” — with a lot of elderly and frail residents and there is a back log of maintenance jobs.
“I have urged the London Fire Brigade and Lambeth Council to work together to raise awareness of the importance of having operational smoke detectors preferably hard wired and not operated by batteries. The London Fire Brigade offers free fire home safety checks by qualified firefighters and if something positive emerges from this tragedy it could be that other lives are not put at risk.”
However, Councillor Whelan says that only a fortnight ago a tenant on the Rosendale Gardens estate, where fire killed a 35-year-old woman on November 15, came to his weekly advice centre to complain about a “green light” shining from her smoke detector.
“She told me she had disconnected the smoke detector by removing the batteries,” he says.
“I urged her to contact the London Fire Brigade for a free home fire safety check and will now double check that this has happened.”
Kemi Adegoke selected as Parliamentary candidate in Dulwich & West Norwood
Kemi Adegoke lives in the Dulwich & West Norwood constituency
Kemi Adegoke, a local conservative activist has been selected by the Dulwich and West Norwood Conservatives to fight Tessa Jowell at the next General Election.
Wimbledon-born Kemi has an Engineering Degree from the University of Sussex and is currently studying for a law degree part-time at Birkbeck College. She is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society and currently works as a systems analyst at the RBS group.
Kemi is active in the local community as a school governor at St. Thomas the Apostle College in Peckham and at Jubilee Primary school in Tulse Hill. She takes a keen interest in housing, education and youth issues in South London and apart from her activities as a school governor, is also a board member of Charlton Triangle Housing Association. She also teaches chess to pupils at the Bishop Challoner School For Girls in Tower Hamlets in her spare time.
Kemi says: “It is a privilege to get the chance to chance to fight an election and hopefully represent my local area in parliament. I live in one of the most deprived boroughs in the country and believe that we need someone who actually lives in the area and who understands what is happening locally to represent our interests in Westminster.”
Labour shamed by “one star” for libraries
The libraries and other cultural services have gone into meltdown under Labour according to a report from the government spending watch dog. The Audit Commission rated Lambeth at “one star” for cultural services, despite alleged attempts by the Labour Party to block key critics from meeting the inspectors.
“Labour commissioned a Review of Libraries in 2006, but some two years later the report is still gathering dust on a shelf,” says John. “Since then nearly all the senior officers who were leading the service have voted with their feet and left the Council.
“Libraries in Lambeth are under threat of closure once again given the financial holocaust facing the administration. Leaving a service to wither on the vine is usually the first step to axing it.”
Be a councillor…and see all Lambeth life!
Clare Whelan with Conservative Party Leader David Cameron — committed to diversity
Lambeth Conservatives are looking for community-minded people to come forward and offer themselves for consideration as potential prospective council candidates.
Last month more than 30 people attended an opening evening at the Town Hall to hear about the work of a councillor and how we campaigning on behalf of local people and the community as a whole.
Cllr Clare Whelan says: “Lambeth Conservatives are interested in bringing in new blood to support our existing team and to extend the Conservative platform in local government to other parts of the borough.
“We are strong supporters of David Cameron’s drive to make the party more representative of our diverse community.”
For more details contact Clare on clare@clarewhelan.org.uk.
Tenants face £10+ a week rent rises
Council tenants face a huge hike in weekly rents by next April of between £10 and £14 a week with cuts in services starting almost immediately, especially for those living on tenant organisation managed estates. Heating and lighting costs are also going up and all external decorations have been halted.
Labour politicians are in deep financial trouble due to a £14 million hole opening up in the Council housing accounts after officers bungled the budget for temporary accommodation for the homeless and a failure to balance the rent account.
Cllr Irene Kimm, Conservative housing spokesperson, says: “Lambeth Housing is as bankrupt as Northern Rock was before Brown’s bail out. Every taxpayer will pay the price of Labour incompetence, but our hard pressed tenants who are not on benefits and pay the full rent will suffer most.”
The crisis is so bad that finance officers advised Labour that if they failed to act the finance director would freeze all expenditure using government powers. One option was to introduce an immediate £5 a week rent rise from December just in time for Christmas.
Unofficial estimates say the total bill in Lambeth for Labour’s profligacy could be as much as £22 million. As well as hiking rents, the Council is docking the money given to tenant management organisations by a whopping £3.6 million in the next 18 months.
“Not surprisingly, no senior jobs have been cut although up to 30 middle managers will go,” says Irene Kimm
“No doubt the fat cats in the town hall will go on drawing their salaries to preside over this shambles.”
Herne Hill Junction — green alternative rescue plan
Local residents and the Friends of Brockwell Park are promoting a “green alternative” to Labours plans to build a motorway-style slip road across part of the much loved park at Herne Hill Junction.
Lambeth transport officials have already been briefed on the alternative which would result in only half the amount of green space disappearing so as to improve traffic flow at Herne Hill. The next step is for the campaigners and local people to seek planning permission.
Mayor Boris has authorised spending on a feasibility study for the Council’s traffic scheme, but the commitment so far only goes as far as that, according to a letter from Boris to local Conservative councillors.
Clare says: “The green alternative plan deserves a hearing especially as Labour makes it clear that they cannot provide a similar amount of green space elsewhere to make up for the land taken from the Park. However, we support urgent improvements to make the junction safer. If there are going to be any further delays, interim measures must be considered.”
Labour Agrees £10 a Week Extra Rent Rise for All Lambeth Tenants
Labour Lambeth is increasing tenants rents by £5 a week in December and a further £5 a week in April 2009—this was agreed at a Labour Group meeting on Thursday night attended by only 17 councillors. Only Cllr Kingsley Abrams voted against, but two left before the vote. The increases will hit at least 20,000 households throughout the borough which is one of the UK’s biggest social landlords.
Labour councillors heard a Gordon Brown type crisis lecture from Finance Portfolio holder Cllr Jim Dickson saying this was the “only option” to close the looming gap on the Housing Revenue Account. The rent rise alone is slated to bring in £10 million. The original estimate of a £14.5 million overspend due to temporary accommodation overspending is now thought to be more like £20-22 million, according to insiders among the Lambeth officer corps.
However, this is not the end of the pain for Lambeth residents. On October 1st the Council was unable to pay any Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) Allowances because of “severe financial pressures”. It seems that a reduced payment will be made on Monday October 6th but that TMO allowances will now be cut by £6.5 million over the next 18 months.
Conservative Leader Cllr John Whelan says: “Some of the TMOs are already in dire financial straits and these pressures could amount to a further gap of £12-14 million over the next two years. For example, Loughborough TMO with just 2,000 has a deficit of £2 million—that is a truly amazing figure when you work it out per property.”
Furthermore, council sources say Labour is putting through a cost cutting package in Housing including 15-19 middle manager redundancies aimed at saving £5.5 million which involves eliminated concierge posts and reducing energy bills—including switching off lights in the day.
Cllr Whelan adds: “It goes almost without saying that this is a defining moment for Labour and could literally be their “Bradford and Bingley moment” as I doubt if any measures they take will magic away their problem. With people literally approaching me on the street this saying “when is Labour going” I think it’s time for us to take the message to people that Labour is finished in Lambeth as well as Whitehall.”
Conservatives support parent push for primary school places
Parents campaigning for a new primary school in West Norwood or Streatham hope to organise a meeting with Lambeth Council to discuss a “black hole” in primary school places in the area.
In September the parents of 67 children from the area were denied a place in any of the three primary schools they applied for.
They were eventually placed in emergency classes in Kingswood Primary in Gipsy Hill and Elmwood School in West Norwood, but parents need a long term solution for the crisis and Conservative councillors are supporting their calls for action.
Parents are due to meet education officials soon, hoping a solution can be found in time for September 2009.
Gipsy Hill ward councillor Suzanne Poole said there were potential sites for new schools in the area and these should be looked at.
