September 2024

At last night’s Housing Scrutiny Committee there was clear evidence of a split emerging in the Council. Witness after witness came forward to speak about their experiences of housing services, each describing horrific variations of the same conditions – Poor quality contractors, victim-blaming by Council staff, and leaving small problems to become big, structural problems.  

Amongst all this, Lambeth’s Director of Housing, Sophie Taylor, came forward and made an admission that we have never heard from her political equivalent, Danny Adilypour, saying: 

“Where we do struggle is where we have roofing issues, water ingress, leaks, structural damage. So that is where we do struggle, I think. We can acknowledge that. We can do the mould wash, we can do the surveying, we’re often treating that and it’s coming back and we have to investigate again.[...] Because what we’re seeing here is buildings that need major structural investment. That’s what’s causing these problems time and time again.” 

This is the first time we’ve heard such a direct concession that there are severe structural issues across the housing stock, let alone acknowledging the farce of applying sticking plaster solutions to those problems and expecting them to work. If Sophie knows this, then so will Danny. Is there a split in the Council when it comes to transparency and willingness to act?