In the letter and an accompanying video, Council Leader Martin Abrams set out the steps needed to reverse the big financial and social problems confronting local councils, including Lambeth. These include reversing austerity and kick-starting a “social housing revolution” to tackle the housing emergency. Over 4,500 homeless households in Lambeth are currently in temporary accommodation
Cllr Abrams congratulated Mr Burnham on his first day in office and pledged to work with him. But he made it clear that the council would demand support in addressing key problems including “tackling inequality, building the council houses we need and strengthening our communities”.
In a letter to Mr Burnham on his first day in the job, Cllr Abrams identified a list of basic demands, including:
- Relaxing “fair funding” restrictions that he claimed had cost four boroughs – including Lambeth – tens of millions of pounds.
- Scrapping the Right to Buy social housing – and make low-interest loans available to local authorities, enabling them to build council houses.
- Allowing councils to keep the proceeds of the Mansion Tax and the Overnight Levy.
- Fixing “the broken Children’s Services market that sees private companies profiteering from the most vulnerable”.
“As you take office, I want to extend a warm welcome on behalf of Lambeth Council and our residents,” Cllr Abrams said in his letter to the new PM. “As Greater Manchester Mayor you will have seen how a decade of austerity has hollowed out councils’ ability to deliver the services residents rely on. I think we can agree this was not inevitable, but a political choice made by successive Prime Ministers.
“You know, like us, that the consequences of those cuts are felt most sharply, whether in Brixton or Bolton, by the poorest and most vulnerable. That political choice has shifted the costs onto our communities, weakened the social fabric, and left councils to manage rising demand with ever diminishing resources.
“Lambeth was one of many local authorities disproportionately affected by the Fair Funding Review. We struggle to see how a supposedly ‘Fair’ funding review penalises four authorities in this way over this spending review period.”
Cllr Abrams added: “Lambeth is ready to work with you. We share a commitment to tackling inequality, building the council houses we need and strengthening our communities. But we need the tools to do the job.
“A fresh approach to local government finance – one that reverses the disastrous impacts that austerity has wrought and recognises councils as partners – would transform the lives of so many in Lambeth and beyond.”
