As a Southwark resident, I take umbrage with my shitty council losing this title to our neighbour.
> A council that’s been failing vulnerable children and leaving social housing tenants to live in squalor has spent more than £25 million on climate and “active travel” initiatives since 2019, The Times can reveal.
> Lambeth council in south London has spent huge sums on rain gardens, low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), cycle lanes and meeting its net zero ambitions despite serious failings across its core services and debts approaching £1 billion.
And for that it gets beat up by the Times. Awesome work, folks. You’d think they’d be embarrassed to publish such nonsense.
Hopefully Labour can introduce some big new tax to unfuck councils and fix some of the damage the Tories did, then fund proper upkeep of everything going forward. Osborne and Cameron deserve so much more anger than they’ve received for the idiotic short termism.
> Despite the council’s difficult financial position, freedom of information requests show that it spent £3.4 million on LTNs and £2.9 million on cycle lanes over the past five years.
That’s really not that much.
Cue locals claiming the squalor is all down to one particular LTN pilot which didn’t work (possibly because of coinciding with large roadworks), which was then removed…
Nothing to do with the huge increase in need coinciding with a decrease in budget per capita…
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Rupert decided to dump on Lambeth.
As a Southwark resident, I take umbrage with my shitty council losing this title to our neighbour.
> A council that’s been failing vulnerable children and leaving social housing tenants to live in squalor has spent more than £25 million on climate and “active travel” initiatives since 2019, The Times can reveal.
> Lambeth council in south London has spent huge sums on rain gardens, low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), cycle lanes and meeting its net zero ambitions despite serious failings across its core services and debts approaching £1 billion.
So!
– It has had its funding cut by[40% in real terms since the tories took power](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/local-government-funding-england), and has been forced to keep selling properties and doesn’t get to keep the money.
– it has a yearly budget of about [£962 million (2022)](https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-03/How-Lambeth-Councils-Money-Will-be-Spent-2022.pdf)
– and it spent £25 million on trying to improve health and commutes by building some stuff for bikes and pedestrians and trying to deal with the looming disaster of climate change
And for that it gets beat up by the Times. Awesome work, folks. You’d think they’d be embarrassed to publish such nonsense.
Hopefully Labour can introduce some big new tax to unfuck councils and fix some of the damage the Tories did, then fund proper upkeep of everything going forward. Osborne and Cameron deserve so much more anger than they’ve received for the idiotic short termism.
> Despite the council’s difficult financial position, freedom of information requests show that it spent £3.4 million on LTNs and £2.9 million on cycle lanes over the past five years.
That’s really not that much.
Cue locals claiming the squalor is all down to one particular LTN pilot which didn’t work (possibly because of coinciding with large roadworks), which was then removed…
Nothing to do with the huge increase in need coinciding with a decrease in budget per capita…