Labour led Southwark Council have announced that over the next four financial years capital investment of £215M will be made to bring the last 33% of council homes up to the Decent Homes standard with a funding gap of £68. To bring these homes up to the Southwark Decent Homes standard will cost £529M.

The coalition government recently announced a fund of £1.6 billion for local councils to bring all residential council properties up to Decent Homes standards, without having to transfer the properties to a housing association or Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). The previous Labour government insisted that council tenants vote to transfer their tenancies into an ALMO, in order to get access to the money.

Southwark Council is currently preparing a £68M bid to the Government in order to bring the existing council housing stock in Southwark up to the Decent Homes standard. I’m delighted to back this new bid for government money to improve our local council homes. It’s thanks to coalition Lib Dem ministers unlocking access to this money for boroughs like Southwark that such a bid can even be made. Brilliant that Labours crazy rules that discriminated against council tenants are going. A victory for common sense and a victory for council tenants. The only concern I have is the quality of the bid Southwark Labour will make.

But this will only get us to the Decent Homes standard which is such a misnomer. When Lib Dems led the council we consulted all Area Housing Forums on behalf of all council tenants – I remember being present at the Dulwich one when it was discussed. Dilemma of fixing up lots of homes with small problems or starting at the extreme end with a few homes with lots of deep big expensive problems was discussed. Overall most people thought a mix of both volume Decent Homes and fixing the very worst would be ideal. Importantly they all agreed the Decent Homes standard wasn’t high enough so a Southwark Decent homes that includes security doors etc was agreed.

At the current rate of spend it will take 10 years to reach the Southwark Decent Homes standard. The first four years to meet the very basic Decent Homes standard is being mapped out by Southwark Labour. Not taking into account the Southwark Decent Homes standard will make it ultimately a bit more expensive – not putting in entry phone wiring with electrical rewiring for example.

With a change of political leadership in 2014 to Southwark Lib Dems we can get back on with meeting that higher Southwark Decent Homes standard that tenants made clear they wanted.