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.”