You pay the cost of bringing housing back in-house

The costs of bringing Lewisham council’s housing management have soared from £600,000 to £4 million.

Those extra costs will be paid by tenants and leaseholders.

Yet the council decided to proceed with its plan without knowing the full cost.

In an astonishing admission, the Labour Councillor responsible for the change said that some costs incurred by Lewisham Homes only emerged when the council “did the doing of bringing the two agencies together”.

Lewisham Homes was a wholly owned subsidiary of the council; a short phone call asking some basic questions would have uncovered the true cost of the Council’s proposal.

The council had no idea how much implementing new regulations would have cost if Lewisham Homes had continued as an arms-length organisation.

Yet avoiding those costs was the main reason given for bringing it in-house.

In the midst of a cost of living crisis, Labour-run Lewisham is indifferent to the extra costs they are going to heap on local residents.

They think they can get away with this because Labour take Lewisham for granted.

Mark Bennett,
Lewisham Liberal Democrats.

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