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Love Lambeth

The ambitious regeneration of Somerleyton Road is set to take a huge step forward, after councillors gave the green light to plans to build hundreds of new homes at the site. Lambeth Council’s cabinet last night [14 January] approved a strategy for building over 300 homes – 50% of them...
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Here is the original idea. I went to meetings about this.
 
Gramsci said:
Going to have to re read this all properly. But WTF is happening in the Labour group.

At meetings over the years Ive repeatedly said that the Council should stop selling off assets and been regarded as a left wing loony.

Now long time New Labour Cllrs are questioning this. What is going on? I genuinely do not understand this.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it had me head scratching. Especially how the Chair and Vice Chair of Scrutiny are the two main signatories calling in the issue to be considered by... Scrutiny. Most odd.
 
Now read the call in to scrutiny committee. Plus the council report on Somerleyton road

Council officers answer to the call in not yet done

I think the call in is right. The scheme was to be developed by Homes for Lambeth. Who didn't do anything for years.

Know post Kerslake the Council officers and Cabinet have decided to sell off the site ( on 999 year lease) using a development agreement with a developer to ensure it gets the outcome it wants. To maximize a capital receipt it would need to sell the land with no strings attached.

The five million capital receipt council has decided on will only cover costs Council has spent on site up to this point. I take it that the previous money spent to deliver it as Council led project has gone down the drain.

One of the reasons Councils sell land is that it brings in money to spend elsewhere. I this case it won't.

Piss poor effort by Council.

Another issue the dissident Cllrs bring up is that Council agree that only 30 percent will be affordable housing. And that's dependent on Council get grant from GLA.

This to my mind does not sound a great deal for Lambeth residents.

Officers report says they have to give the developer enough of a profit to take on the site

The call in also rightly points out that post Kerslake/ HfL this way of working with council owned land sets a precedent.

So it's not just about this site . It's about how Council works with developers across the borough.
 
CH1 said:
I would have thought the chair and vice chair of scrutiny committee are doing exactly what their job is there.
Click to expand...

It is still surprising as they are loyalists.

It points to divisions in the Labour Group.

Normally this kind of thing would not be tolerated.
 
Tricky Skills said:
Buzzed: Internal Lambeth Labour dissent finally surfaces as five rogue Councillors go public with criticism of the Cabinet’s plans to pimp out Somerleyton Road redevelopment
Click to expand...

Having read this and the reports I'm going to ask to speak at the meeting.

The dissident Cllrs are right.

I took part in the early discussions on Somerleyton Road and this post Kerslake decision to sell it off to developer for measly 30 per cant affordable housing , no community stewardship of site and the Capital receipt going to make up for the money the Council has already spent on getting the site ready is imo a big watering down of the promises made years back on the development of this site.

One of the key Council owned sites in Central Brixton.

Im fed up with having gone to all these consultations over the years to find them ending up like this.

BTW thanks for putting this on Brixton Buzz as it would have passed me by otherwise. Shows how useful Brixton Buzz is.
 
Gramsci said:
It is still surprising as they are loyalists.

It points to divisions in the Labour Group.

Normally this kind of thing would not be tolerated.
Click to expand...
I think this happened before - over the 2006 closure of the Maudsley Emergency clinic.
I don't remember the exact timing or power machinations - that period had a Lib Dem/Tory coalition followed by a big win Labour council.
The Chair of Social Services Scrutiny when the row over the Maudsley occurred was Angie Meader (Lib Dem) - who opposed the closure.
I looked her up - she served as a councillor from 2002 - 2010 and was Mayor of Lambeth in 2008.
So her making a fuss about Lambeth and Southwark council mental health spending cuts as Chair of Scrutiny did not prevent her being honoured as Mayor a couple of years later.
An opposition party Mayor in Lambeth - those were the days!
 
Tricky Skills said:
Buzzed: Lambeth in the top 3 of UK Councils for ramping up business rates over the past five years
Click to expand...
Something very wrong with the so called "research" behind this article. As others have noted the rate is not controlled by Lambeth - why it is now called National Non-Domestic Rate.

So Lambeth apparently collecting dramatically more has to be down to some combination of:
  • New commercial buildings brought into use;
  • Previously empty buildings now re-occupied;
  • End of mandatory rate relief (? Check whether figures for all years gross or net of this?)
  • Less generous discretionary rate relief for charities etc. ( which would be a decision for Lambeth)
 
lang rabbie said:
Something very wrong with the so called "research" behind this article. As others have noted the rate is not controlled by Lambeth - why it is now called National Non-Domestic Rate.

So Lambeth apparently collecting dramatically more has to be down to some combination of:
  • New commercial buildings brought into use;
  • Previously empty buildings now re-occupied;
  • End of mandatory rate relief (? Check whether figures for all years gross or net of this?)
  • Less generous discretionary rate relief for charities etc. ( which would be a decision for Lambeth)
Click to expand...
Yep - wouldn’t an alternative reading be that the council has helped business grow and so rates have increased. Unlike Jason Cobb to attack the council for little reason….
 
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Tricky Skills said:
Buzzed: Internal Lambeth Labour dissent finally surfaces as five rogue Councillors go public with criticism of the Cabinet’s plans to pimp out Somerleyton Road redevelopment
Click to expand...

I put in this to the committee tonight:

I'm a local resident who was involved in the previous consultation on Somerleyton road.

These consultations meetings finally led to the following being decided by Cabinet in January 14th 2019:

The land would stay in effective public ownership through HfL

The whole community would be involved in the development. A community steering group would be set up that would create a Community Stewardship body to supervise the development long term.

That 50 percent of the development would be genuinely affordable.

I support the call in by some Labour Cllrs.

I think the new plan agreed recently by Cabinet waters down what was promised previously by the Council.

Its now 30 percent affordable housing, loss of public ownership to a developer on 999 year lease and the five million capital receipt will only cover the money spent by Council on the site so far.

This does not seem to me a good deal for the local community. Or value for money on a Council owned site.

I therefore request the Scrutiny Committee to send this back to Cabinet with request before any decision is made on this site that the community is consulted about how the site is developed and outcomes the community wants for the site now that HfL can no longer deliver the development.

This consultation must take place before any outside body is chosen to develop the site. If any. As a previous agreement with the local community was to keep this site in some form of public/ community ownership.

As the Cllrs say in the call in this land is owned by the people of Lambeth.

They also refer to the Kerslake report. The Kerslake report says that a problem with Lambeth is how it consults communities.

The Cllrs in the call in say , rightly imo , that the development of this land will set a precedent for future schemes post Kerslake.

I therefore think the consultation needs to be done right to set an example for other schemes.

As I took part in the previous Council led consultations on Somerleyton I was happy in that In that case how they were conducted. Extensive talks took place before any decisions by Cabinet were made.

A problem with Council is that officers leave and knowledge is lost. Good practice gets forgotten.

Another issue specific to this site is the private ownership of a part of it. The site was all owned by Council but years ago a section was sold.

My second request is that the Scrutiny committee ask why the CPO on this land has not progressed and why. As its been a long term stumbling block on assembling the site for development. It's been years now and this has not been resolved.
 
Cllr Liz Atkins and Cllr Paul Gadsby both did a good job putting the argument that this site should not be sold off to a developer.

That other Councils build directly.

I was losing the will to live by end of meeting.

Seven people spoke to committee. The loyalists got three Cllrs to speak to support the Cabinet decision. Both my Windrush Ward Cllr - Scarlett and Donatus. Cllr Dickson also did.

What I found most depressing is how the discussion went between senior officers and Cllrs.

Meeting got bogged down in the details. With officers saying all the time TINA to flogging off site to a property developer and hoping will get 30 percent affordable housing. The other line from officers and the Cllr who turned up to support Cabinet decision was that Lambeth has a housing crisis and what is needed is to just get on with a scheme. Even one that is not that great.

Somewhat annoying that several long term Cllrs who supported the Cabinet and officers plan for site were around when HfL were simply not getting on with it. Cabinet should have been, over the years, making sure that HfL got on with the development.

This is not a question any Cllr asked. Why , if several senior Cllrs and officers say that its now paramount that just get on with it
They were not telling HfL to get on with it all these years?

A few quotes from the senior Cllrs and officers in support of the Cabinet decision

"moral duty to build now" Cllr OHara

"Delay would be irresponsible" Cllr Dickson

"Get on with it" Cllr Donatus
 
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What comes across at meeting like this is how these senior officers work completely isolated from local community.

The previous scheme ( agreed by Cabinet) at least had the aspiration of community involvement.

Listening to the answers the senior officers gave and they decided what is best for the site. They talked to all the "experts" and decided flogging it off to a developer on 999 year lease was the one and only option.

The politics of it gets buried under a whole load of detail.

With officers saying "computer says no".

Cllr Atkins and Cllr Gadsby were making an argument for Council housing built by the Council. With the local elected authority retaining land. They were not saying that all land must be kept. some housing would need to be sold to cross subsidy Council housing. What they were making was a political argument as members of the Labour party.

They were in minority.

I cant say I was impressed by some of the other Cllrs on committee. Basically asking questions of officers and then going how they were
satisfied with answers .

The lack of political imagination is depressing. I'm sure they are perfectly nice people but Cllr Gadsby comments - which were political in the best sense - went over a lot of the Cllrs heads.
 
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Their is definitely a rift in the Labour group over housing.

Seeing three senior Cllrs turn up to scrutiny to oppose the call in did surprise.

Jimbo/ Donatus/ Scarlett are all 100 percent loyalists.

Where this rift will go from here I wonder.
 
Sorry I managed to miss what the committee decided in end.

Cllr Gadsby wanted committee to send the decision back to Cabinet and tell them to look at it again. This did not get support.

The other option was to send recommendations to Cabinet. This did not ( I think) get agreed either.

Whole thing was depressing.
 
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Another thing on display at the scrutiny committee last night was the calling in of favours of community groups.

Had someone from the Bloc gym on Somerleyton road to speak. He went on about the gym at length. I wondered what this was about and it's relevance to the call in

Realised he had been got there to oppose the call in. Would have been put up to it by the labour loyalists. Look what we're doing for you so can you go to this meeting to oppose the call in.

The gym apparently has been promised a new premises when the site is finished.

It's the you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours politics of Labour Lambeth.

Not something I like.
 
The dissident Cllrs also brought up issue of capacity building of council staff. In order for the Council to have expertise to develop sites itself.

They asked what was happening with the bringing in-house staff from HfL.

This was in response of officer who said one reason to get a development "partner" was that the Council did not have capacity to do these developments itself.

Following the Kerslake report and HfL is being brought back in-house. Idea being to transfer people from HfL to Council.

Officers reply was somewhat evasive. That it was difficult to retain these people as the private sector had competitive salaries. So Council had upped some salaries.

I got the feeling that senior officers aren't that keen on building up Council capacity. That the take from the Kerslake report is that they they work to develop the partnering model with developers using development agreements.

There were several questions from Cllrs about how watertight these development agreements would be. Rightly imo. Officer assured them they would be.

Cllr Gadsby did say why cannot wait for the housing strategy to come out before rushing to start on this site

In the Kerslake report he notes that Lambeth does not have an up to date housing strategy. This is something that could be consulted on


I think whilst it does not have one policy is effectively being made piecemeal by officers not Cllrs.
 
Guessing an awful lot of Town Hall political activity in Lambeth is going to be on hold for the next six weeks while the first by-election since May 2022 is being fought in Vauxhall ward.
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I see that LDs have complained about way the Scrutiny committee was run.

I agree. I was surprised that Cllr Atkins was not there nor the Green Cllr.

The meeting took place at short notice in summer holidays meant that some members could not attend.

Cant help but feel this was a set up.

www.brixtonbuzz.com

Labour Overview and scrutiny call-in is a “Summer Shambles” say Lambeth Lib Dems

Lambeth Liberal Democrats have written an open letter to Cllr Atkins, Chair of the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee, regarding the emergency vote on the proposed Somerleyton Road developme…
www.brixtonbuzz.com www.brixtonbuzz.com
 
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Ive emailed the LD Cllrs to thank them for taking this up.

Now appears that some Cllrs wanted the date to be later on as this is summer and understandably not a time of year that is good for meetings.

Which is standard. Couple of community things I do do not meeting in August.

Im getting more than irritated with my ward Cllrs for turning up to scrutiny to oppose the call in. Which I thought was a perfectly reasonable call in.

It is getting clearer that this break down in control freakery discipline of Labour Group meant that the date was set so the dissident Cllrs would not be able to attend. And that the supreme leadership could get its on message Cllrs to corral support to get this rebellion squashed. Thats Donatus/ Jimbo and Scarlett

How nauseating local "democracy: is at times.

Im no supporters of LD nationally but if they keep this up why not vote for them? As Lambeth is run by right of party its not exactly that they are that politically different.

My usual one is the Im pissed off with Labour so vote Green / Im going to not vote lines.

In Spain its different. Have mainstream PSOE ( equivalent of Labour party) and Sumar / Podemos ( equivalent of Corbyn). Both parties need each other to run Spain.

Here its two party system.

The unstated social contract is that both are broad churches.

However Starmer is liquidating the left / soft left of party. So imo the unsaid social contract is going.

Im wondering if some of the Cllrs dont like this.

The support for this rubbish scheme for the Somerleyton road site is coming from the right of party.

Some Cllrs might think one has to at least make an effort on issues like housing. In order to keep the core vote onside.

Not just say sell it off to developers.

Cllr Donatus at the Scrutiny committee said it is perhaps not a great scheme but things have to be done quickly so get on with it.

This is typical attitude from the right of party.

It is basically supporting private developers.
 
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A lot of pressure was put on the members of the Committee to stick with the Lambeth Labour line ahead of the meeting. One of the prominent Councillors who addressed the Committee did the phone around, reminding party members of their party responsibilities.

It looks like the heavy squad worked.
 
BusLanes said:
LDR reporting at MyLondon found Lambeth council acting oppressively again. Leaseholders who managed to get significant discounts being asked to sign confidentiality agreements.

www.mylondon.news

Residents who won thousands off council bill asked to not tell neighbours

One leaseholder branded the council 'bullies'
www.mylondon.news www.mylondon.news
Click to expand...

More than anything else it's the bullying that annoys me. Telling people they are putting at risk the settlement if they don't sign a non disclosure agreement is not on for a supposed "Cooperative Council"

And article shows this was bullying behaviour. As the one person who refused still got the money. So Council had no right to try to make people do this
 
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