‘BULLYING’ CLAIMS AND COUNTER-CLAIMS HIGHLIGHTED AT COUNCIL CABINET MEETING
Claims that some tenants on six estates threatened with demolition by Lambeth council had been bullied by opponents of the plans were made at Monday night’s meeting of Lambeth council’s cabinet.
There were also counter-claims of bullying BY Lambeth council from Green party Cllr Scott Ainslie.
Tulse Hill ward Cllr Mary Atkins – in which Cressingham stands – said: “There’s a climate of fear on the estate for many people.”
To cries of ‘Rubbish’ and ‘Who are you speaking for?’ Cllr Atkins added: “The campaign of Cressingham has been intimidating with many residents, tenants and leaseholders refusing to get involved. “The estate is divided and such divisions, as we all know, lead to every difficulty with people.”
In a sideswipe at Lambeth’s cabinet member for housing Cllr Matthew Bennett, Cllr Ainslie told him: “There’s no point in looking exasperated. “If you don’t do the consultation in the first place, stringing these people along, trying to maintain that people are intimidated – you’re projecting the bullying you’re doing onto them.
“The People’s Plan has had more feedback. “People have responded more to that than what the council have put forward – so it’s more representative.”
At the end of the meeting Cllr Bennett – after being confronted by a very angry Simon Elmer of Architects for Social Housing which has put forward alternative plans for Cressingham – told News From Crystal Palace:
“It’s happened on all six of the estates in the regeneration programme.”Meetings, as we have seen this evening, can become very hostile and a lot of people back away from that hostility and say they’d rather not engage in that way.”
News From Crystal Palace – aware that somewhere in all this (not just council estates but libraries too) is an internal row in the Labour group on Lambeth council between a Progress Blairite wing and a Momentum Corbynista wing, asked him if he was a member of the Progress wing.
Cllr Bennett replied: “I subscribe to a magazine called Progress. “I’m also a member of a trade union – Unite.”
Further reading: LABOUR COUNCILLORS “FRIGHTENED ” INTO SUPPORTING CONTROVERSIAL LIBRARIES PLANS May 04, 2016