Lambeth residents face resistance from council in hopes to trigger restructuring referendum
Lambeth residents and campaign groups have met resistance from in their efforts to change how the council is run.
Lambeth council is currently run with a cabinet system, where most powers are given to a small group of councillors.
The campaigners wish to install a committee system, where the council is divided into politically balanced committees who make decisions.
They say it will enable better decision-making, more community involvement and less factionalism at the town hall.
But the council have refused to host an electronic petition about the restructuring on their site.
The council have already issued three legal letters warning they would not host it and that their constitution does not apply to this type of petition, forcing campaigners to use an external site.
Ben Rymer, lead organiser of the petition and a member of the OneLambeth and People’s Audit networks said: “So far, Lambeth – the “co-operative council” – have given every impression of being desperate to avoid a referendum on changing to a more open way of working.
“It is incredible, and very alarming, to see them bend over backwards to find arguments to stop it in the earliest stages. Even though the act aims to push power out to communities, this appears to be the last thing the council want to do.”
The Localism Act 2011 act obliges local authorities to hold a referendum on changing their way of working if 5% of voters sign up.
Organisers are now gearing up for a year-long campaign to trigger a referendum in 2022.
An electronic petition was launched on Thursday, April 8 and in-person signatures are being collected from Saturday, April 10.
Dr Dreenagh Lyle, Chair of the South Lambeth Estate Tenants Residents Association said: “Lambeth’s chaotic, costly mishandling of major works on our estate was caused in no small part by a Cabinet disconnected from the communities they are supposed to represent.
“Lambeth’s twenty-year experiment with a top-down, over-centralised way of working has failed. It needs to go – the sooner the better.”
