Councillor John Whelan, Conservative Group Leader, says:  “The report finds that the overall service is now weak but by contrast it adds several times that in 2006 Lambeth Housing (as Lambeth Living was then known) was performing adequately and demonstrating improvement.

“The biggest risk now is that it will take too long for the service to recover in time to reach the standard necessary to qualify for £250 million from the Government to meet the decent home standard by 2014.”

CLICK HERE if you would like to download key extracts from the new report.

Cllr Irene Kimm on the Rosendale Gardens Estate

Labour Lambeth let down tenants before it took power in 2006 by failing to tell them it planned to set up the deeply unpopular Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO), now called Lambeth Living.

Setting up the ALMO cost £1 milion at a time when the housing service was already failing.  What followed was a flawed consultation and a rushed ballot.  And in the meantime:

• Neighbourhood housing offices have closed.
• Late night opening hours have been cut.
• Saturday opening has ceased.
• Garden maintenance is appalling.
• Repairs have been cut – failing contractors.

Cllr Irene Kimm, Lambeth’s Conservative housing spokeswoman, says:  “Labour has presided over cuts in the repairs service, lousy performance by outside contractors, while cleaning and garden maintenance is practically non existent.”

300 squatters spent 6 months in Clapham's Limerick Court, costing Lambeth Council £500k

Labour bosses face an investigation over a possible overspend of £22m in housing budgets.  Houses were left empty while the council continued to pay private landlords for their use and it regularly took six weeks for new tenants to move in once occupants had left.

FACT: In one incident 300 squatters moved into Limerick Court housing estate in Clapham for six months, costing the council an estimated £500,000.

Critically, housing officials failed to do their sums properly when the Labour government cut benefit funding.  All these factors led to a shortfall of £6 million last year but the knock on effects may bring this up to around £22 million by March 2010.

An all-party group of councillors has recommended an investigation into the possibility of fraud because private landlords were paid for houses lying empty.  Their report says they were “astounded” at the “reckless” behaviour concerning the use of private properties.

Gipsy Hill Conservative councillor Andrew Gibson says:  “Make no mistake, Lambeth taxpayers will foot the bill for Labour’s mismanagement whatever the outcome of the official inquiry.  The vast majority of tenants have completely lost faith in the Labour council.”

Demands for five-figure sums will be sent to 3,500 leaseholders in the coming fortnight for works such as roof and windows replacements carried out as long as eight years ago.  In almost all cases, the cash demands from Labour Lambeth are expected to be disputed because of the poor quality of the work and its exorbitant cost.

The council has admitted leaseholders were not billed before because of its housing department’s “inconsistent practices” and misplaced files.  This gross incompetence means leaseholders face a lottery over who has to pay as the struggling council tries to balance its books after it racked up huge overspends over the past 12 months.

While the 3,500 will have to find huge lump sums to foot the bills, a further 2,000 will have their bills reduced or cancelled because the council does not have the information required to issue the demands.

Council officers have had to write off up to £4million worth of works because they cannot process them, admitting that thousands of other leaseholders will have to “cope with a large debt in a difficult financial climate”.  An official report warns the council will take legal action against those who do not hand over the cash.

Conservative councillors have slammed the move, with Cllr Irene Kimm saying: “This could not have come at a worst time for leaseholders, who are going to face huge bills because of the council’s incompetence.

“In many of these cases, the quality of the works carried out is poor and the cost to the leaseholders is extortionate.”

Every single tenant will be worse off from April when Labour councillors increase the average cost to every household on Lambeth estates by another £750 a year once rents and five per cent increases in service charges are added together.

Faced with financial meltdown of their own creation Labour Lambeth was within days of hiking the rents by £5 a week just before Christmas.  Incompetent Labour councillors have overspent by £22 million.

Despite agreeing a cuts package including up to 130 job losses for a housing service already at rock bottom, Labour claimed it had no alternative but to impose upon its long suffering tenants a huge increase in rents in the early spring.  To add to the misery, all external decorations have been halted and the remaining concierge services slashed.

Conservative Housing Spokeswoman Councillor Irene Kimm says:  “These savage increases are a body blow to hard pressed families who are already suffering from the government mishandling of the banks and Labour’s disastrous borrowing spree.  Even those tenants who have their rent paid will suffer because the service charges are all going up by an average of 5 pence in the pound and they are not covered by housing benefit.

The full breakdown of how the increase

• The £12 per week rent hike is the maximum increase permitted.
• Charges for garages will increase by 5%
• Charges for parking bays will increase by 5%
• Charges for heating and hot water will increase by 5% – a 65% rise in the past 12 months alone
• Door entry systems will now cost £2.59 per week
• CCTV charges will be £4.20 per week
• Tower block concierge services will reach £4.68
• Caretaking, estate cleaning, window cleaning, communal lighting, disinfection, disinfestation and grounds maintenance charges will all increase by 5%

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.”