Lambeth tells ALMO to improve or close
Labour councillors in Lambeth have given their troubled arm’s-length management organisation a one-year ultimatum to improve or close.
The Labour administration of the council says management company Lambeth Living must improve its services and gain two stars in its inspection or face the sack. In its manifesto, the Labour group says it will put the service under new management if it fails to meet a number of standards by May 2011, when the ALMO’s Audit Commission inspection is due.
The manifesto says: ‘Council tenants and leaseholders have put up with substandard housing services for too long.
‘We will give Lambeth Living 12 months to improve the quality of repairs, reduce the time taken to re-let empty homes, keep rent rises down and improve the service to leaseholders or we will sack them and put the service under new management.’
Steve Reed, leader of the council, said if the ALMO failed to meet certain standards, it would consult on alternative ways of managing the housing stock, including bringing it back in-house.
He said although his warning to the ALMO was serious, he had confidence staff would be able to improve services. ‘I very much hope that they do find a way to improve the service, but we have had to be clear with them that they need to get the two stars they need to draw down their funding,’ he said.
The ALMO needs to get two stars in its 2011 inspection to access £250 million of decent homes funding from next year. But last year a report from the Audit Commission found housing services in the borough had deteriorated under Lambeth Living.
A spokesperson for Lambeth Living said: ‘Lambeth council is quite right to insist on high standards for Lambeth Living.
‘We look forward to meeting these challenges, further improving services, and delivering housing for a better life by achieving two stars from the Audit Commission and obtaining decent homes funding for the benefit of residents.’
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Readers' comments (16)
TEEJAY | 20/04/2010 10:05 am
Lambeth Living is a complete disgrace. Estates are dirty, dangerous no-go areas at night with many properties standing empty and vandalised. The repairs service is almost non-existent: even if you have water pouring through your ceiling you are told 'we don't have the money'! Sack the lot of them!
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Peter | 20/04/2010 11:01 am
Pot calling the kettle......? What a strange ultimatum!!
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Lambeth resident | 20/04/2010 4:22 pm
The estate in Lambeth are not the awful places one of the other comments have said. Many of the estates have been transformed, with new windows,kitchen, central heating systems and other improvements. Naturally everyone wants more and better services but Lambeth have generally done a very good job under difficult economic times. The previous liberal democrat adminstration allowed £3million of our money to be frittered away because of their incompetance. They also tried to gerrymander the borough by selling off the beautiful houses at the junction of Vassall Rd and Brixton Rd. No doubt the though social housing tenants were too friendly to the Labour party. No party gets it all wrong or all right instead of playing political pointscore the parties should sit down after the election and work out a plan they all support. Sadly from H&F the lessons must be learned that social house tenants are not going to be pushed around. Thank you Lambeth Labour for keeping our council tax frozen for the past two years. In these difficult times it has been a godsend.
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An Actual Lambeth resident | 20/04/2010 10:00 pm
Lambeth resident is not living in Lambeth! if you have then you would see what has happened within the estates. Repairs, Cleaners and security are non-existent. Continuing rent increase's this year for less service's - we have been paying for their mistakes for years and we still are.
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TEEJAY | 21/04/2010 9:51 am
Lambeth Resident is fortunate to be living on an estate that has seen improvements, but as An Actual Lambeth Resident says the repairs & cleaning services are now virtually non-existent. As for the Lib Dems selling-off council housing, the current Labour administration has allowed a deficit of, probably, £16M in the HRA - this is why rents have increased dramatically and your repairs are not being done! So forget about 'no increase in Council Tax' - they are 'taxing' the lower paid & the poor in the borough who live in Council housing by increasing the rents!
They are also selling-off even more council housing - some of the best Victorian street properties in the borough are going for a song at auction, to the delight of private developers! Selling off the family silver because they can't balance the books!
A bunch of complete incompetents.
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Lambeth Resident | 21/04/2010 11:11 am
It is you that is not living on an estate. The estate that I used to live on until fairly recently ,an estate that
my brother still lives on in Tulse Hill has vastly improved over the past few years. Naturally he would prefer it to be better but certainly he did not have new kitchens,central heating or windows while the Liberal/Tory coalition was in power. As I said before no party gets it totally wrong or totally right. The Liberals did good things in Lambeth and so have Labour. Housing in Lambeth needs to be taken out of the political arena altogether. The ALMO could be improved to make it more representative and democratic. However putting a few politicians from the various parties on it isnt the answer. The Liberals,Labour or the tories are no saints they all do things for political advantage to their party and polling position but it is still unfair to say that things have not improved.
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Lambeth Resident | 21/04/2010 11:14 am
For the record I will be voting Liberal Democrat at the General and Labour and the Greens at the locals so I am hardly a labour or any other party hack. I vote for good people.
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screwed | 21/04/2010 1:58 pm
housing in lambeth has allways been a joke.we were promised double glazing over ten years ago .freezing over cold winters .rotten window frames patched not replaced.lies damm lies and statistics as an excuse ever since
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Lambeth Resident | 24/04/2010 6:29 pm
Screwed sorry your block didnt get new windows but if you have a look around the borough a good part of the housing stock have had these and other improvements. As I said before housing needs to be totally taken out of political control. The ALMO could have done this but sadly it hasnt up to now. However there is cause for hope. I do hope after the local government elections all the parties work together to solve this growing and incessant problem. Basically we need new homes and we need our housing stock improved. Gerrymandering just isnt kosher in my book no matter what party does the gerrymandering. As I said before both the liberals and labour have done good and bad things in Lambeth. We are still counting the cost of the £3million of council tax payers money that went astray under the Liberal/Tory administration.
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Eastward Ho | 26/04/2010 4:45 pm
@Lambeth Resident "housing needs to be totally taken out of political control" - RIGHT, and managed by who ? A private company who will put their profits and their performance over any proper assessment of housing needs. In the local Councils round here who have given the assessment of Housing needs to the LSVT RSL, surprise, surprise, they have either mismanaged it appallingly, or have ensured they have cherry picked the best tenants for themselves and pushed the worst on other RSLs.
Sadly, ALL the political parties think Council Management = A VERY BAD THING
RSL/Private Management = A VERY GOOD THING. That's about the size of it.
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