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.”

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.”

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.”