Labour’s strength is its strong track record leading the council, says council leader Lib Peck.
That, combined with “a costed and comprehensive manifesto, will make Lambeth a better and fairer place,” she told the Blog.
“Voters can see the things that we’ve actually done, such as putting record investment in our roads and cracking down on crime and anti-social behaviour,” she said.
Peck also highlighted the party’s emphasis on keeping Lambeth’s children’s centres open, building a first generation of new council homes and its women and girls strategy.
One of the key things the party wants to tackle is Lambeth’s housing crisis, Peck says.
“We want to continue to build genuinely affordable new homes, we really want to work with the mayor of London to try and tackle homelessness and we also want to drive up standards for private renters – which now make up a third of people in the borough.”
Housing is a thorny issue for the council, which has faced controversies over its plans and consultation for regenerating the Cressingham Gardens estate and others. Other controversies, including changes to the borough’s library services, have been singled out by Labour’s opponents.
But Peck says these issues have not come up all that much during doostep canvassing and she feels that this is because voters understand the challenges the council faces.
“We’ve endured government grant cuts of 56 per cent. Many local authorities have shut their libraries and I’m proud that we’ve managed to keep 10 of our libraries open. In our town centre libraries, we’ve managed to increase the opening hours. We’re actually providing more activity from that library than ever before,” she says. “That’s completely contrasted with the situation around the country.”
Despite her confidence, Peck says that she is “never complacent about elections, you have to work for every vote”. She adds that “for the first time, we are facing a united opposition with the Greens and Tories working together to get rid of Labour.
“We’ve been a strong team, standing up for our residents and standing up to government and making sure we get the best deal for Lambeth,” she says. “The important thing for me is we’re able to retain control of the council and are able to make the place fairer and better.”
Record investment in roads, well we ain’t seen any of that in Tulse Hill unless you mean a few painted 20 signs on the road. That must have cost a massive sum! The 20 mph zone in its current guise in Tulse Hill is one big joke.
Since when is leading the council a strength, in a working class borough? It’s a “no-brainer”, Councillor Peck, and attempting to capitalise on having a history of leading the council might just lead people to examine the depths Labour have plumbed in Lambeth.
Speaking of depths being plumbed, any evidence besides fever dreams for the claim about Greens working with together the Tories? It looks like something a comms specialist would write – something that’s constructed so it’s just about deniable as meaning what most people will take it to mean. There’s no “united front” against Labour, but if there were, it would be what you deserve, given the lies about libraries, the estate demolitions, the lies about finances and the blatant waste of our Council Tax. Less that a fortnight ago you yourself lied about the number of council homes built in Lambeth. We can’t trust you.