Sign our petition to save the Lambeth Country Show
In December 2025 the then Labour supermajority administration decided to cancel the Lambeth Country Show, held every year in Brockwell Park. They said Lambeth could not afford it anymore.
We immediately started a campaign to save the Country Show, hoping to alert residents of Labour’s scheme and to put pressure on all parties to commit to restoring the Show for 2026. The Lambeth Greens later joined in, promising in their 2026 Election manifesto to bring it back.
Fast forward to August 2026 and the new Lambeth Green Minority Administration are giving out contradictory signals. In election leaflets they still say they are going to bring it back. But when Liberal Democrat Councillor Tam Langley questioned the Green Party at a recent council meeting, they would not commit to bringing back the Show (Page 33).
We didn’t accept this from Labour and we won’t accept it from the Lambeth Greens.
Lambeth Liberal Democrat leader Matthew Bryant ran the numbers before the election in our Alternative Budget.
The exact amount it costs, and where the money goes, is unclear, as always with Lambeth. For instance they claimed it cost £1,000,000 in December, compared to £400,000 just a few months earlier. We were suspicious that Lambeth mismanaged the Show, either losing sources of income or failing to control costs. We, of course, asked detailed questions of the council to check their sums.
Labour tried cancel the Show back in 2012, led by current Labour MPs Steve Reed and Florence Eshalomi (then Nosegbe). After a huge local outcry, including pressure from your local Lib Dem councillors, they backed down.
Can it be afforded?
Labour said they can’t afford the cost of the Lambeth Country Show. The Greens seem cagey now that they’re in charge.
But money would be available if it were not for the incredible incompetence of Labour run Lambeth. So the money should be available now Lambeth’s voters got rid of Labour back in May.
Labour wasted £67m on their disastrous Homes for Lambeth scheme. The interest on this money alone would be enough to pay for the Lambeth Country Show forever.
And they wasted £1.6m a year on Phoenix House, a council building left empty for years!
In a council budget of £440m, the cost of the Show is barely 0.1%. We can afford it, with just tiny increases in efficiency.
We can save the Country Show
We can save the Country Show if enough people locally show they care. We saved it in 2012 - and we can save it again. We just need the Lambeth Greens to stick to their Manifesto.
