Van Gogh Walk, from the LGIU's 'People Shaped Places' report

On this side of the Wandsworth-Lambeth border there is a tendency to sneer at Lambeth. Some of this, I think, dates from the 80s and 90s when Lambeth represented ‘loony left’ councils while Wandsworth was a Tory flagship and sustained by a neighbourly rivalry. However, that overlooks huge improvement in both boroughs since the 80s: even the ever-present comparison of council tax belies the fact that, across London, Lambeth is well towards the bottom end of charges; Westminster and Wandsworth as unusually low outliers.

Wandsworth was a radical Conservative council in the 80s and the early 90s but has increasingly become something of an older statesmen of local authorities. Stable political control and strong financial management mean that it offers few surprises, even when I first joined the council in 1998 it was privately noted that while we had a reputation for innovation, we were rarely innovative. We were never first with any new policy, although we often managed to be the first to make a new policy work after others did the dangerous (and potentially expensive) experimentation.

Lambeth, of course, has not shared that history. It had its radicalism in the 80s and early 90s, but does not entirely share Wandsworth’s political stability. From 2002 until 2006 Labour lost control to a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition. That lack of stability has an impact on the council’s membership, meaning a greater turnover of councillors and, therefore, an arguably richer pool of policy formation.

To get my heresy out of the way: I’ve got a bit of borough envy going on. And I have for a while.

The current source of my envy has been Lambeth’s ‘co-operative council’ work. This envy is driven by several factors, sheer novelty is a big factor: I’m interested in seeing how things could work differently (I recognise the council tax payer and voter does not share my enthusiasm for straying from the tried and tested). More fundamentally, I cannot help but think—pessimistically—that the end is near for traditional local government and, if we want to keep it in any meaningful way, we need to start looking at different ways of delivering services.

Lambeth’s policy was the subject of an LGIU report People Shaped Places. This report, in turn, was the subject of a blog post on Public Strategist, the author of which, coincidentally, lives by one of the projects featured in the LGIU report, Van Gogh Walk, has been a “modest beneficiary” of Lambeth’s Neighbourhood Enhancement Programme1.

Together they make fascinating reading.

The Van Gogh Walk project, put simply, took a backstreet and turned it into a community space. The process attempted to be resident-driven (although the two sources vary in their interpretation of what this actually meant in practice) meaning that residents made the proposals, not simply responded to council consultations.

From the LGIU’s report:

Speaking to George Wright, the project lead at Lambeth Council, he explained: “key to this project was that it was community-led and there was lots of momentum already”. The community already had a good idea as to their aspiration … this marks an important contrast and may explain why the project idea was bolder …
George also emphasised the importance of “Lambeth’s radical and open-minded leadership” in contrast to a risk-averse tendency found in some councils, which can serve as a barrier to new ideas or different ways of doing things … George pointed out the value of what can be achieved through taking these risks, highlighting the sense of community pride that Van Gogh Walk has created – evidenced by the fact there has been no vandalism. “People treat it better because they feel better”.

The Public Strategist blog seems a little more cynical (my interpretation) when describing how the process went in his area2:

The dialogue went something like this:

Council: Tell us what you would like.

Residents: We want to stop speeding and rat running. And have better communal bins. And some other stuff. And a pony.

Council: That’s too difficult. How about we just send the traffic on a more circuitous route round more narrow residential streets in the hope that people will give up and go away. And there’s nothing we can do about the bins. Or the pony.

Clearly there would always be a distance between resident ambition and administrative delivery. However, the project overall does give the impression of something that is better because of meaningful resident involvement.

Of course, you could argue that resident involvement is effectively possible at any stage in any council. People can comment on consultations, raise objections to planning and licensing applications, organise petitions or campaign for changes. They sometimes even email their councillors and, I guess, get a variety of responses.

In the longer term the way they do, or don’t, use services or areas will shape their future. Northcote Road has undoubtedly been shaped by local residents and their demographic (which then raises the question of what shaped that demographic, and there are all sorts of chickens and eggs there).

However, you do not often see something quite as ambitious as Lambeth. Even in programmes with a strong element of consultation, there’s usually an imbalance in favour the council, they have plans which can be shaped, rather than plans that are created in conjunction.

I can’t help thinking about Lavender Hill. I’m certain people don’t want the steady decline, I’m confident they don’t want a widespread conversion of commercial space into residential space. The difficulty is in divining what residents do want. What are the sort of businesses and shops they would want to see, and most importantly use? I don’t think we’ve ever asked in any meaningful way. I have conversations with people (some sparked by posts on this blog), but there’s never been a consistent dialogue.

And what does that mean? Surely, without real dialogue between a municipality and its residents the council becomes little more than a service delivery vehicle, a contractor of waste collection, funder of schools, commissioner of public health. Functions that can be undertaken just as easily at a regional or even national level as they are by a local council.

You might argue that a four-yearly mandate means that isn’t the case, but I’m not sure an election which most people ignore is enough. If local government is to have meaning in the future then it needs to have meaning for residents, and Lambeth might be an example from which we should learn.


  1. I incorrectly assumed Stefan Czerniawski, the author of the Public Strategist blog, lived near Van Gogh Walk. But you know what they say about assuming. I’ve edited my post to make the changes clear, though I don’t think it affects my main point, which is about having a dialogue (and although not stated explicitly, that it needs to be honest and lead to mutual understanding and shared goals). 
  2. Another edit, the italicised words were added to avoid it appearing like the comments related to Van Gogh Walk. 

3 thoughts on “Learning from Lambeth

  1. Thanks for your interest in my blog post and for your interesting commentary about our side of the border.

    I think though I may have inadvertently confused you, as my post touched on three distinct neighbourhoods and schemes. I don’t live in the immediate area of Van Gogh Walk and had no involvement at all in the consultation process with those who do live there. From what I have seen of it just walking through the area, it looks fantastic, which is why I described it in the post as ‘undoubtedly a real success’.

    The dialogue you quoted from my post is about my own immediate local area and though it’s deliberately in informal language, I would stand by its being an accurate summary of the consultation process. The initial demand from residents was probably a bit unrealistic in terms of what could be provided, partly because expectations were not set outstandingly well – hence ‘and a pony’ – but the response from Lambeth was poorly thought through and found very little favour. I think that makes me disappointed rather than cynical – but the critical point is that the two passages you quote are not talking about the same thing so can’t directly be compared.

    What all this has made me think about – and the real point of writing my post – is very much in line with what you say here about Lavender Hill. The first difficulty is in divining what residents want, and is perhaps even harder than it often looks to those doing the divining. But the second is that once we have discovered what is wanted, there may well be reasons – both good and bad – why that can’t be delivered. Going through an elaborate process to address the first difficulty with very limited capacity to address the second may not leave people feeling massively better off.

    I don’t want to decry the attempt Lambeth has made here, which was brave and ambitious. But I don’t think it quite came off, and if we are going to learn from this example, we need to learn from what it didn’t achieve as well as what it did.

    • The problem of having an opinion and wanting the evidence to fit it. I’ve corrected the post to (hopefully) address my error.

      I don’t think, as I said in my footnotes, it changes the main thrust though, that dialogue, shared understanding and mutual goals should be the ideal for local government. And learning from what didn’t work, as well as what did, is important.

      One thing I am looking at (for something else) is the differential between election results across London and the swing towards the controlling Labour group in Lambeth was among the largest in London. There are lots of other factors, and I’ve not looked at ward level, but it might suggest there is some electoral benefit in such engagement, even if it isn’t always totally successful.

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