• THE amendments to the council’s budget proposed by the Liberal Democrats on Monday focused on the two biggest challenges facing Camden at this time, tackling climate change and ensuring everyone in the borough has a safe and warm home.

It urged the council to take radical action to reduce the carbon footprint of its own buildings and invest in making the buildings it provides for council tenants free of damp and mould, less expensive to heat, and more carbon efficient.

Our proposals would have funded retrofitting for at least 600 council homes, perhaps significantly more if capital investment could be used to leverage further funds from outside sources.

It included significant funding boosts for the Routes Off the Streets service. Given the failures that led to the Huntley Street evictions and given that Camden has seen the largest increase in rough sleeping anywhere in the country, we thought this should be a priority.

Our amendments also includes funding for additional officers working on tenancy sustainment and homelessness prevention.

Demand for this service area has increased by 39 per cent in the last year, but resources have not. Officers typically have 80 cases each.

There are many factors that are beyond the council’s control that are driving up homelessness, but these are ways we can do something about it.

Every year since the 2018 elections the Liberal Democrat budget amendments have included additional support around rough sleeping and homelessness services, but every year Labour councillors vote our proposals down.

Our amendments also included an exciting boost for music tuition in primary schools, action to clean up our streets and restoring visitor parking scratch cards.

What we proposed would have made a clear and positive difference to the borough and the people who live here.

But, as with previous years, Labour rejected these improvements to the budget and missed opportunities to do better and go further for Camden.

CLLR TOM SIMON
Liberal Democrats
Leader of the Opposition