Southwark’s council housing is in crisis.

18,000 of our council homes don’t meet the government’s minimum Decent Homes Standard, which requires homes to be warm, weatherproof and with reasonably modern facilities.

This is because the Lib Dem/Tory coalition running the council has allowed a £700 million gap to open up in its council home improvement budget. 

That means that over 18,000 Southwark tenants, leaseholders and families are living with leaking roofs, drafty flats or crumbling toilets and kitchens.

We think that’s no way to live and we’ve compiled a dossier of real-life examples of people struggling with such conditions to show what some Southwark tenants and leaseholders go through.

Last month the Lib Dems and Tories agreed their new housing strategy. They not only failed to set out properly how they’re going to fix the current problems, but also removed all references to the size of the funding gap. We only know it’s as large as £700 million because the local press reported on it.

Southwark Labour first called on the coalition to set up a cross-party body to come up with a solution to the fundamental challenges facing the council’s housing stock in January 2008. At the time we thought the situation was reaching breaking point and that it required bold thinking and consensual action. They knocked us back. We asked again this month and they knocked us back again. If you have a housing horror story that you would like us to feature in an updated version of No Way to Live on an anonymous basis then email southwarklabourparty or fill in the form at the bottom of this page.