Beaufoy Institute up for sale

Because of cuts to Lambeth Council's funding made by the Government the Council has been forced to dispose of various sites in order to protect our frontline services. Over the past few years various options for educational use for the Beaufoy Institute site have been explored, and none have come to fruition. The council will begin the process of selling the Beaufoy site on Saturday. Lambert Smith Hampton are managing the bidding process.

Cllr Paul McGlone said:

“These plans should be good news for everyone – local residents should see the building brought back into use, while the sale of the building will raise funds for the Beaufoy Trust to help disadvantaged young people in Lambeth, and also vital funds for the council to invest in local schools, roads and housing at a time of such major cuts in Lambeth’s government funding.”

· The receipts raised from the buildings sale would be spilt between the council, to invest in services for local residents, and the Beaufoy Trust, a charity which seeks to support disadvantaged young people through education and training.

· The building is listed so could not be torn down. Instead it would be redeveloped, bringing back into use a building that is a local landmark and of historical significance.

· The building has been empty for around a decade.

· The decision to dispose of the building was made by cabinet in February 2011. The council’s disposal programme aims to raise £100 million over four years to invest in vital services, such as schools, roads and housing, at a time when the council’s budget has been slashed by cuts in capital grants from central government of 60%.

· There is no covenant in place that says the building must be used for education use, but the building’s sale will raise vital funds that will help the Beaufoy Trust continue its work of helping young, disadvantaged residents.


Background : The Beaufoy Trust

The Council is the Corporate Trustee of the Beaufoy Trust, but the issues around the dilapidated Institute building which has been ‘mothballed’ for a decade and the actual Trust have become muddled over the years. The Council has been seeking a solution to resolve this confusion, separate the building from the Trust and re-establish the Trust to focus on what it was originally set up for.

The modernised charitable objects of the 100 year old Beaufoy Trust are set out in the Trust Scheme, and state: “The object of the charity is the promotion of the education for the public benefit of persons under the age of 25 who are in need of financial assistance and resident in the area of benefit, with a preference for the promotion of vocational training”. ‘Vocational training’ is defined specifically, but covers education, training or instruction capable of improving prospects for employment. The area of benefit is also defined, but is broadly North Lambeth. Importantly, once the Beaufoy Institute building has been sold, the money can be used for the purposes of the Trust, which has delivered nothing for over a decade. Importantly, The Capital Community Foundation (CCF) has confirmed that it is interested in the trusteeship of the Beaufoy Trust being transferred to CCF once the sale of the property has been completed by the Council. This will make the Beaufoy Trust completely independent from the Council, with a capital sum of money to invest and be used for local vocational training in the future.

A bad night for democracy

Many residents will have heard about the disgraceful antics of a minority of protestors at Wednesday's Council Budget meeting, who occupied the chamber and forced councillors to meet in private.

Our colleague Mark Bennett has an excellent blog which describes the events and gives his perspective.

How Lambeth’s proposed budget could affect Prince’s ward

Lambeth Council has been hit by the biggest cuts to local government in living memory. The Tory- Lib Dem Government is slashing funding to Lambeth by a third over the next three years, which includes a 12% cut this year.

The Tory- Lib Dem Government has chosen to target poorer inner-city areas like Lambeth for the biggest cuts. By comparison, wealthy areas like Surrey, Dorset and Buckinghamshire are only facing cuts of a couple of percentage points.

Over the past four years Labour has been proactive in making efficiencies in Lambeth – cutting £30 million from the budget to prioritise frontline services. We now have to make £79 million is savings in a shorter period of time. We will do everything in our power to save money by cutting management costs and the back office, but cuts on this scale will result in reductions to services. We hope new cooperative models of ownership will allow some services to be delivered in new, more efficient ways.

Lambeth’s proposed 2011/12 budget has a sharp focus on residents’ priorities – tackling crime, protecting the most vulnerable, and ensuring frontline services like schools, street cleaning, and youth services are preserved.


Policing
We will continue to fund the extra Council-funded PCSOs on the Prince’s ward Safer Neighbourhoods Team.
A reorganisation of Lambeth Police will mean extra officers released to work exclusively in the North Lambeth Area

Adult social care
Eligibility criteria will not be changed, so the Council will still provide care to those in both critical and substantial need.
Meals on Wheels will continue to provide a daily hot food service

Children and young people
We have protected frontline social workers so they can continue to protect Lambeth’s most vulnerable children
Services for children with disabilities and special needs will be protected
Council-run adventure playgrounds like Lollard Street will stay open, but have their management transferred to the voluntary sector

Libraries
No library closures have been announced, but big savings in libraries need to be made. We pledge to work closely with the Friends of Durning Library to identify savings and new ways of working to try to ensure we can keep Durning Library open.

Environment
Weekly refuse collections will continue.
Recycling will be made compulsory.

Charges will be introduced for green and bulky waste collection
The current road and pavement resurfacing programme will continue, though some smaller potholes will go unrepaired.

Though not directly part of the budget, proposals have already been anounced to increase fees for parking permits

Parks
More events will be allowed in Lambeth’s parks (like Kennington Park and Clapham Common) to generate more income for the Council
The work of the Council’s Park Ranger Service will be split between Grounds Maintenance Staff and the police

Staff
Many residents of our area are employed by the Council. Cutting management and ‘the back office’ means making people’s jobs redundant. There will be significant job losses as management and service structures are reorganised.

Asset sales
Lambeth desperately needs to raise money to pay for crucial capital works – like expanding schools, resurfacing streets and pavements, and improving leisure facilities. We have to sell assets which are not being used fully. In Prince’s ward these are likely to be:

- Beaufoy Institute, Black Prince Road – The Beaufoy has lain empty for many years. Considerable time and money has been spent by the Council on examining options for its use, including a studio school proposal which did not proceed. In the absence of any viable proposals for its use as an educational site the Council proposes to sell the building and the site to raise money for Lambeth’s top priorities.

- Shelley site, Oakden Street – in recent years this school site has housed the Michael Tippett School and the Olive School. It has been empty since summer 2010. The Council does not need the site for further school ‘decants’, and there is no projected demand (or funding) for expansion of primary schools in North Lambeth. A recent survey of residents in the area carried out by councillors indicated that a majority would support selling the site for housing development. We will work closely with local residents on the details of how we go about selling the site, and will support Archbishop Sumner’s School in looking at other options for their aspiration to expand in the future (sadly, no funding is available to meet that aspiration currently).

- Half of the Old Lilian Baylis site, Lollard Street – Thanks to Labour the Sports Action Zone has been using the site for sports and youth activities, and other community groups have used buildings on the site. The Council is working on a proposal to transfer ownership of half of the site to a community trust to continue the sports, youth and community work on the fantastic facilities the SAZ have developed. In the next year we hope to sell the other half of the site (containing the listed school buildings) to a developer to enable a well-designed mixed-use proposal to be developed. Again, we will work closely with the community on the details of this development.

The government has cut our money - so we are forced to cut services

Many residents of Kennington and Vauxhall will be aware that an angry row has broken out between government ministers and Lambeth councillors.

Lambeth Council is reporting Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to a Government watchdog for fiddling the figures over the unprecedented cuts he is imposing on local services. Mr Pickles repeatedly claims that no council will face a cut of more than 8.9% this year when he knows that the majority of councils are facing reductions far higher than that figure. Lambeth's cut this year is around 12%, with more than a third of the budget being slashed over the coming three years.

Mr Pickles has attempted to divert attention from his misleading statements by criticising Lambeth for spending £600 on a poster campaign highlighting how residents put forward their views on what services should be prioritised by councillors. You can take part in the consultation here , and use Lambeth's budget simulator to indicate how you would make the difficult choices that councillors face.

Initial budget proposals will go before the Council's scrutiny committees in the next couple of weeks. The meetings are open to the public and there is usually time for you to put your views forward on the proposals. Details of scrutiny meetings are on the Council's meeting calendar.

Labour councillors have worked hard on the intial budget proposals to ensure that wherever possible savings will be found from cutting back office costs and management. However, tough decisions are inevitable.

Lambeth Council's final 2011/12 budget will be approved at a Full Council meeting on 23 February.

New leaflet from Labour - 'Coalition Cuts Special'

Labour volunteers across SE11 are currently delivering a new leaflet, explaining the scale and impact of the government's cuts to Lambeth Council.

Everybody was expecting cuts to council funding, but the harshness with which the Lib Dem- Tory Coalition has targetted local government has taken everybody by surprise.

Lambeth will have to find £90 million in savings, from a budget of around £300 million. To make matters worse, the cuts are 'frontloaded' to the next financial year, meaning £40 million will have to be taken out of the budget by April 2010.

Labour councillors will be doing everything in our power to mitigate the effects of the cuts, but it is inevitable that there will be reductions in services, job losses, and difficult decisions.

Distressingly, cuts on this scale are not even necessary or sensible. As Lambeth's finance chief Paul McGlone explains:

'Like other countries, Britain has big debts from bailing out the banks to save our economy from collapsing. All parties supported that. But while Labour wanted to pay off the debt at a rate the country could afford, the Lib Dems and Tories have pushed through plans to cut services hard and deep - creating the risk of another recession and higher unemployment. It's like trying to pay off a mortgage in five years instead of over 25 - you wouldn't do it, and nor should the government'.

Council approves historic budget for Lambeth

Last night Lambeth's Full Council approved the Labour budget for 2010/11, after a debate in which the Lib Dems and Tories appeared to have given up.

The headlines for the budget are:

-A Council Tax freeze for a second year

-£30M of waste cut out

-Healthy reserves for lean times ahead

-Investment in new and expanded services, including lunch clubs for older people, youth services, better noise nuisance services, and anti-crime measures

The Lib Dems' 'alternative budget' was roundly criticised for being irresponsible and completely incoherent.

In the debate Prince's ward Councillor Mark Harrison said:

'Labour's budget continues the previous three years' positive investment, which has benefitted Prince's ward massively. Our expanded Safer Neighbouhoods Team is working well and involving residents in the policing of the area. The Better Neighbourhoods Programme has resulted in resurfaced pavements and roads, and new trees across the Ethelred Estate. Labour's huge investment in our schools has seen Lilian Baylis increase its GCSE pass rate by 15% in just one year. The increased spend of the Housing Capital budget has seen major works to improve more than 1000 homes on the Vauxhall Gardens, Ethelred Towers and Whitgift Estates.

'Even in my position as the Council's newest member, I'm fully aware of the historic nature of this budget. this is the first time in recent decades that an adminstration has managed to freeze council tax whilst preserving and expanding services and reserves.

'Compare this to the Lib Dem plans - cutting the vital 'Invest to Save' programme to pay for an unaffordable council tax cut and a 1/2 million pound fund purely for Councillor Bradley to dangle at Vassall's voters - plumbing new depths of Lib Dem fiscal irresponsibility. This Labour budget reaffirms my pride in standing for election as a Labour councillor in Lambeth.'

Vote for your preferred project

Lambeth Council is inviting residents to decide how the council spends some of its budget in 2010/11.

As part of the Lambeth Community Action Fund, £250,000 has been allocated to local projects and the local community will choose which ones get the money.

This is the first ever participatory budgeting scheme run by the council. The scheme is called "Your borough, your budget, your choice!".

Participatory budgeting involves local people directly in making decisions on the spending priorities of the council.

"This new initiative will give citizens a greater say on how council funds are allocated to community projects," said Councillor Jim Dickson, Lambeth cabinet member for finance and resources.

"I urge all residents to get involved in deciding which projects are funded - your choice will really make a difference."

The council has shortlisted twelve projects, which have been divided into three bands of £125,000, £75,000 and £50,000. People can vote for one project from each of the three bands. The winning projects will be announced at the end of October 2009.

Only Lambeth residents on the electoral register are eligible to vote. Voting takes place between 14 September 2009 and 18 October 2009.

There are several ways to make your choice, including online at www.lambeth.gov.uk/yourchoice, by post using the voting card that you'll find inside the current issue of Lambeth Life or by text to 07786 206 955.

To text vote enter 'Lambeth' followed by the band number and letter of the project you are voting for and then your full name and postcode. For example text: Lambeth 1a, 2d, 3b Sarah Smith SW6 6HT.

Voting ends on Sunday 18 October 2009.

One of the projects in Band C (£50 000) is to replace street signs in Vauxhall and Kennington. The project will involve improvements to street nameplates, street signage and road markings within Vauxhall and Kennington. Where possible, street nameplates will be relocated to locations where they are less likely to be vandalised. Where this is not possible, reinforced anti-vandal coated signage will be installed.

Councillor Mark Harrison said 'I hope as many people in Vauxhall and Kennington will help improve our environment by voting for this project. Vandalised street signs ruin the look of our area.'

Pictured: Mark next to a vandalised street sign in Vauxhall Gardens.

How should Lambeth spend its money?

Lambeth Council are consulting residents on their priorities for the 2009/10 budget.

If you would like to let them know your views you can either fill out the online questionnaire for residents or if you are responding on behalf of a business you can fill out the business questionnaire. To receive a paper copy of either questionnaire you can contact Lambeth by emailing mylambeth@opm.co.uk or calling 020 7926 0866. The closing date for this online consultation is Friday 28 November 2008.