Lambeth faces selling properties to repay a £40M bailout needed for its housing account. Future funding may also be required.
Lambeth’s finance director, Zena Cooke, spoke about this. The money would balance their housing account, which records housing costs and income. Law says they must balance it.
Cooke said selling some properties is possible to help pay back what they owe. They would not sell profitable places or places they want to keep. Expensive, hard-to-fix places might be sold.
Cooke also warned about next year and the possibility of needing government help again. It could be difficult to balance the housing account while keeping up existing housing too.
Lambeth has London’s second-biggest housing waitlist. Only Newham has more people waiting. Many families awaiting council housing are in Lambeth and in Newham.
Lambeth is a large landlord in London, with over 23,000 social homes. They alone got a special bailout, and this bailout was only for their housing account.
Six other councils got general help, with amounts ranging from £10 million to £136 million. Croydon, Havering, Barnet, Newham, Haringey, and Enfield were among them.