Cllr Farrell Monk calls out Camden Council's mismanagement of housing complaints

Fortune Green Councillor Farrell Monk has written to the Camden New Journal, expressing his disbelief surrounding Camden Council’s shocking finances and performance in relation to housing repairs. He reports that tens of millions of pounds are pumped into overdue, inefficient, and inadequate solutions, causing Camden residents to once again pay the price for Labour’s failings. Read the full letter below ↓

At last week’s Resources and Corporate Performance Scrutiny Committee, I had the opportunity to examine the council's finances and performance in detail for the first time as a new councillor and what I found was deeply concerning.

Housing complaints to Camden Council have nearly doubled in just two years. Behind every one of those complaints is a family living with a leaking roof, mould on the walls, or repairs not being done properly. The council is simultaneously overspending on housing repairs and receiving record numbers of complaints about those repairs. 

At the same time, £31million was spent on nightly-paid temporary accommodation for homeless residents. The council's proposed response to the temporary accommodation crisis is 89 new hostel places, four years overdue, and a £10 million programme to buy back former council homes. Which is also being funded by the sale of current housing stock that has fallen into disrepair. I asked at the committee to quantify precisely how much of that £31 million these measures would actually displace which could not be addressed. 

What struck me most, however, was the connection between these two problems that the papers failed to make. Our homes are breaking, we are selling off the ones that we have failed to fix and then paying vast sums out of our general fund to put people up elsewhere.

Underlying all of this is a crisis is the government's fair funding review, which has given Camden a funding settlement is a real-terms cut every single year. Therefore Camden must find £65 million of savings by 2028, rising to £90m in 2029, the largest savings programme in the council's history. This will mean more difficult choices about other services that your council provides. 

The Labour administration will argue that in the absence of central government funding they have little alternative. But as we enter the third year of a Labour government, that argument really doesn't wash. It is Camden residents who are paying the price.