Camden’s ruling Lib Dems and Tories have pursued an aggressive policy of council house sell offs despite last year’s concerns that property developers making a quick buck at the expense of homeless families and the taxpayer.

Camden Labour has reaffirmed its commitment to stopping the sell-off of desperately needed local housing, and concentrate on raising needed housing repairs money by commercial property disposals instead.

Finance spokesperson, Cllr. Theo Blackwell said: “‘Flipping’ of former council homes to make hundreds of thousands of pounds for private developers’ pockets will shock Camden’s taxpayers. It’s also a daily tragedy for the thousands of local families that languish on the growing housing waiting list. The choice at the next election is between Lib Dem/Tory support for sell-offs and Camden Labour’s promise to immediately halt privatisation of desperately needed housing.”

Housing Minister John Healey recently confirmed yet another boost for affordable housing with news of a nearly £250 million investment to provide 3400 affordable homes and creating around 5,000 jobs across the country.

In all, 43 Housing Associations across 97 council areas and within every region of the country will benefit from the funding boost.

Camden is set to receive the highest amount, £42 million for 284 homes.

All the new homes announced this week will be affordable, with more than four in every five built for low cost rent, and the rest for first time buyers.

Labour Group leader Cllr. Nasim Ali welcomed the £42 million investment – the largest sum in the country:

“Every councillor knows that housing is the number one concern local people have at our surgeries. Locally Labour’s never stopped lobbying for more affordable housing, so £42 million for 300 new homes is fantastic news. It’s the largest settlement in the country and this will help families in overcrowded housing as well as first time buyers. This stands in stark contrast to the Lib Dem-led council and their policy of auctioning off council flats on the open market.”

Sold as part of Tory-Lib Dem Camden’s council house sales programme, a three flat home on the Russell Nurseries Estates in Aspern Grove only left council control at the start of last month, when it was snapped up at auction for £560,000.

Now just one of the flats is being marketed for buyers at the sum of £250,000 – a price the estate agent described on their website as “unbelievable” – allowing the buyer to make a substantial profit almost overnight.

This is despite the fact that there are 18,000 people on Camden’s waiting lists.

Camden Labour’s opposition finance spokesperson Theo Blackwell said:

“There were always real questions about property sell-offs because the housing market is so volatile but taxpayers will be gobsmacked by this. Camden Council presented someone, practically overnight, with the chance to make a sweet profit from our council housing stock.”

The figure exceeds the 50% expectation set when conducting the controversial changes to the GP contract in April last year.

The change, bitterly opposed by the Conservatives at the time, followed the first national GP Patient Surveys in 2007 and 2008 which indicated that there were around six and a half million patients who were unhappy with their GP practice’s opening hours.

These patients said they would find it easier to access services if they could make appointments at the weekend, in the evening or early in the morning.

Camden Labour’s spokesperson Theo Blackwell said:

“Locally there has been a steady increase in the number of practices offering more flexible early morning, evening and weekend opening, with 29 out of 41 now doing so. It’s great to see local services becoming more flexible and responsive to local people and working families.”

As a result of “new priorities” for the London Development Agency, budgets for Kings Cross Construction Training Centre and the Camden Working Job Brokerage, which help out-of-work residents back into the jobs market, have been removed just when people need such help the most – and in an area ready to be regenerated.

Thanks to Boris, from the end of next month the Camden taxpayer now has to step in to safeguard these vital schemes, with £4 million of extra money, roughly equivalent to 2 percent extra on council tax a year for local households.

Tory/Lib Dem-run Camden council described Boris’ plans as leaving them with the need “to fill the financial hole left by the ending of the LDA area programme in March 2009″. Labour councillors add that the schemes help the most deprived parts of south Camden and Islington and are needed as we enter recession.

The Camden Executive is due to consider a direction from Labour, Lib Dem and Tory backbench scrutiny councillors this evening (25th February) to start a campaign to reverse the cuts.

Since opening its doors in June 2004, Kings Cross Construction has registered approximately 4,000 people; more than 2,000 have gained a construction-related qualification and a further 1,000 have gained employment in the industry.

Perversely, a brand new construction centre is due to be opened on site on 23rd March. Camden taxpayers will now have to foot the entire bill for the future programme.

Labour believes that providing jobs and training for a strategic site like this should remain a London priority, and not just fall on the Camden taxpayer.

Opposition finance spokesperson Councillor Theo Blackwell said:

“Kings Cross is finally ready to be built, so it’s totally perverse that Boris Johnson is choosing this of all times to cut funding to such successful schemes serving communities in need of more jobs and skills. The Mayor should restore the funding to Kings Cross Construction immediately.”

Out-of-touch councillors want more money for their work at Town Hall, despite their panels not having any decision-making powers.

Meanwhile, Camden is one of the only councils not to have developed a proper economic plan to help local businesses and residents through the recession. Other councils have helped homeowners, created jobs or cut council tax or charges.

Camden currently doesn’t have a plan to help the local economy, despite having large reserves. Camden has amassed some of the highest budget reserves around – £80 million – by cutting services over the last three years.

Even so, this year the council plans to cut social care budgets for older people by £1 million and raise fees and charges for other services.

Labour says that money saved by doing less should be given back to local people in the form of a council tax rebate in April.

Labour opposition finance spokesperson Theo Blackwell said:

“At a time when people are feeling the pinch, the Lib Dems should not be voting themselves bigger pay packets.

“It’s doubly wrong that the Lib Dem councillors, presiding over massive reserves, haven’t yet come up with a plan to help local businesses and residents with the downturn, but have worked up a nice fiscal stimulus for themselves!”

Camden’s fees and charges raised from residents currently bring in £85 million a year, £30 million of which are raised from parking charges and fines. Labour is asking the Council to identify VAT-rated services and pass on the full cut either by reducing fees or giving users a one-off sum at the end of the year.

A poll of 34 finance officers by Local Government Chronicle revealed that a third of finance officers and chief executives are expecting to leave their prices unchanged, while another third will only pass on part of the cut. However, some councils, have passed on the full cut for a range of services.

Opposition Labour spokesperson on finance, Theo Blackwell, said:

“If local shops are passing on the 2.5% cut, then so should the council. They shouldn’t be hoarding cash at this time, they should be giving it back to people who pay parking charges, use our swimming pools or other services. People are worried about the cost of living, and the council should recognise this.”

The JCP in Cambridge Avenue, used by many residents on the Camden side of the Kilburn High Road, had been threatened with closure.

The proposal to close the centre was made as part of a national review by Job Centre Plus. If it gone ahead, jobseekers would have had to go as far afield as Kentish Town, Highgate, Willesden or North Kensington.

The local Labour campaigners argued that the JCP was needed in an economically disadvantaged area like Kilburn, especially given the economic downturn. In September this year 6.2 per cent of people on the Camden side, and six per cent of people on the Brent side of the Kilburn High Road were registered unemployed.

But a joint effort by Labour MP Glenda Jackson, together with Labour London Assembly member Navin Shah and Labour local councillor Mary Arnold, made sure that the decision by the Department for Work and Pensions was reconsidered.

Glenda Jackson MP said:

“Along with my colleagues Cllr Mary Arnold and Navin Shah AM we are delighted that our efforts to save Kilburn Job Centre have been so successful. Many thanks to all those who campaigned with us and particular thanks to the Labour government who yet again has shown it is prepared to help real people at a time of real difficulty. The Job Centre is a vital resource to our area and it is really wonderful it has been saved.”

Kilburn Cllr Mary Arnold added:

“This is great news as it’s something I have been campaigning on for a long time. It shows this government does listen to local people and it shows the effectiveness of lobbying ministers rather than simply shouting at the sidelines as the Lib Dems do.”

New council development proposals are to introduce a new “sliding scale” of 10% to 50% to cover the amount of affordable housing required on developments of less than 50 homes – the vast majority of all developments in Camden.

The effect of this, warn Labour councillors, will be to reduce the amount of affordable homes required from developers and hamper attempts to reduce Camden’s massive housing waiting list.

In October Mayor Boris Johnson ditched Ken Livingstone’s commitment for 50% affordable housing.

The new Local Development Framework, currently being consulted on by Camden council, states under “Camden’s Preferred Development Policies” (Vol. 2, p.20):

“The Council is aware that the 50% affordable housing target cannot be delivered for schemes that are close to the threshold, and is unlikely to be deliverable for schemes which provide less than 3,500 sq m housing (approx 35 dwellings)…”

“The Council will take the following positive measures to bring forward schemes that reach or exceed the 10 dwelling threshold:

“The 50% target will operate on a sliding scale, subject to development viability, with a norm of 10% for 1,000 sq m (gross) of additional housing and 50% for 5,000 sq m (gross) of additional housing – considered to be sites with capacity of 10 dwellings and 50 dwellings respectively.”

Opposition Labour spokesperson Theo Blackwell said:

“The Council’s commitment to obtaining 50% affordable housing from new developments would be fatally undermined by this approach. The Conservative/Liberal Democrat administration is watering down our access to new housing by this measure, and trying to cover it up in the smallprint.”

“This will reduce the council’s bargaining position with developers to get benefits for local people, who even more than ever will plead poverty in order to get the best deal for themselves. Developers will rush to get fewer and fewer affordable homes, rather than more.”

“The vast majority of developments in Camden would be captured by this proposal. If you think about the area south of the Euston Road, where space is so limited, we are most unlikely to get any affordable housing at all under this proposal – whereas, as we speak, there is a small development in Whitfield Street which is yielding 50% affordable housing on a site of 22 dwellings.”

Responsibility for civil registration passed from the Crown to local authorities last year, ensuring that equality legislation now fully applies to the service. This should have meant that the service changed to balance the needs of people from different cultures and faiths.

However, in Camden services remained unchanged – bringing further pain to families who have been effectively told by the council that they can’t bury their relatives according to custom on weekends because “the offices are shut”.

Labour councillor Abdul Hai, who took up the issue, said:

“One in five of Camden’s population are from the Muslim and Jewish backgrounds. The current weekend and Bank Holiday services are inadequate to meet the needs of these communities. Any loss of a loved one can be a traumatising and difficult time for any family and the last thing they need is a barrier to having a same-day funeral and burial service.

“The council should be assisting people at a difficult time like this rather than hindering.”