The hidden wave of local austerity hitting the poorest in London
Plus: park campaigners lawyer up, the Vagina Museum saved, and a solution for "ghost marks" on the Elizabeth line
Morning — this week’s national news has been dominated by the government’s plans to cut £5bn from the UK’s disability benefits bill. But here in London, some of the capital’s poorest residents are facing a separate financial hit — one that’s received far less attention. Borough councils have quietly started scaling back vital support schemes, meaning that thousands of low-income households are now facing council tax bills they’ve never had to pay before. In some cases, their bills could jump by as much as £30 a week. Campaigners warn the cuts will push more families into debt and poverty. Our investigation into London’s hidden wave of local austerity leads your round-up below.
Plus: park campaigners lawyer up, the Vagina Museum saved, and a solution for “ghost marks” on the Elizabeth line.
In case you missed it: a ‘wake-up call’ or ‘witch-hunt’? On Saturday we published journalist Sam Gelder’s excellent in-depth look at Tower Hamlets council, which is currently being monitored by government envoys. Sam’s piece explores the long-running tensions, rivalries and resentments that make this borough’s politics so unique in London.
What we’ve spied
💸 Some of London's worst-off residents risk being pushed further into poverty, as several boroughs quietly cut back a “lifeline” local benefit. The Spy can reveal that at least 15 boroughs in the capital have approved or are in the process of approving cuts to their council tax support schemes, which help low-income households pay their council tax. By the start of this week, all London councils had set their council tax rate for the coming year, with most opting for the maximum 4.99% rise amid strained finances. But it's a double blow in some boroughs, which are now requiring their poorest residents to pay a share of their council tax bill for the first time. Exact figures depend on the borough and its tax bands, but the cuts can be up to £30 a week for a household — the cost of a budget weekly shop.
Some of the biggest cuts for the coming year that we've identified include:
Brent: The north west council is cutting the maximum support available to its poorest residents from 100% of their tax bill to 65%. For a household living in a Band A property, it's a cut of £9.60 a week, and in a Band D property, £14.40 a week. In a statement from the council, included in full at the bottom of this email, cabinet member for housing Fleur Donnelly-Jackson said its previous scheme was "no longer affordable", with costs growing to £21m a year, the same as its rubbish and recycling service.
Barking & Dagenham: The east London council is reducing maximum support from 85% to 63%. A spokesperson for the council cited the financial strain of “increasing demand for social care for vulnerable adults and children”.
Hounslow: A cut in maximum support from 100% to 75%. The council did not respond to our multiple requests for comment.
Lambeth: The council is cutting maximum support from 100% to 80%. The council didn’t provide an official comment in time for publication, but a spokesperson stressed to the Spy that its support scheme would “remain one of the most generous in London”.
Newham, Sutton, Barnet and Hillingdon have also cut their support schemes for the coming financial years. Others, like Enfield, enacted a cut last year. Meanwhile, Waltham Forest is keeping its maximum support fixed this year, but cutting it for those in higher income bands. One illustrative example of the impact was provided to councillors in a December report:
Mohammad and Ishtaq are aged 40 and 48 and have a 12-year-old disabled child and two other children aged 8 and 16. They receive Child Tax Credit, Working Tax Credit, earned income of £269.00 per week and carers allowance. Their disabled child receives both elements of DLA. They have a current Council Tax liability of £32.33 per week
They currently receive £27.48 per week Council Tax Support because their income is at or below the minimum amount set by the Council for a couple in their circumstances.
Under the Council’s proposed scheme they will receive £11.96 per week, a reduction of £15.52 per week in their council tax support. They do not fall within any of the financially vulnerable groups and their earnings place them in band 3.
In January, Waltham Forest councillor Tom Connor was suspended by the local Labour party, which has a majority on the council, for refusing to support the cuts. “A decision that would increase the financial hardship of those residents already known to be in poverty is not something I could vote for,“ he told the Waltham Forest Echo.
The campaign group Debt Justice told the Spy that council tax support is a “vital lifeline” for households with low income, and that the cuts could be avoided with more funding from national government. “Further cuts will only result in more debt for low-income Londoners, forcing more into poverty and destitution,” said Toby Murray. “Council tax debt is a bad place to be - filled with unaffordable fees and charges, aggressive bailiffs and even imprisonment”. Murray added: “We know that people in council tax debt are likely to be cutting back on essentials, skipping meals, and suffering under some of the worst and most aggressive debt collection processes in the country”.
London Councils, the umbrella organisation that represents the capital's boroughs, told us that the cuts are “a symptom of the massive ongoing pressures facing town halls across the capital”. We also presented our findings to Sadiq Khan’s office, but a spokesperson for the mayor declined to comment on the cuts. They instead pointed to City Hall policies to help low-income Londoners, like free school meals for primary pupils and investments in affordable homes.
🌳 The 20-year failure to create a country park in south London may finally be coming to a head — campaigners have lawyered up and posted a legal letter to Sutton council offices. Earlier this year, we published a piece on Beddington Farmlands, a site on the border Sutton and Croydon that has been earmarked for a nature reserve the size of Hyde Park since the 1990s. Various corporate entities have been given permission to use the land for commercial purposes — first for a landfill and then for a waste incinerator — but on the condition that they shut down operations and turn it into a public country park by 2023. Two years on from that deadline and it's still barren, to the dismay of ecologists, who say local wildlife has been going extinct in the absence of habitat restoration.
But this week, we understand that the Wandle Valley Forum (WVF), one of the local ecological groups that has been campaigning for the site, has sent a legal notice to Sutton council, which has yet to take enforcement action against the owners of the site. The letter was written on behalf of WVF by the environmental law firm Leigh Day, and puts Sutton council "on notice" that the WVF "expects them to take enforcement action" if there are further delays to the project. A spokesperson for Leigh Day explained to the Spy: "We've not made an application for judicial review at this stage, but we have written to the London Borough of Sutton on behalf of Wandle Valley Forum outlining their concerns about the delay in compliance with the restoration conditions for the reserve". The Spy contacted Sutton council for comment, but we've yet to hear back. Watch this space.
🔻 London’s Vagina Museum has been saved from immediate closure, after a crowdfunding campaign raised over £70,000 in a week. The museum, dedicated to “busting the stigma of gynaecological anatomy”, had faced permanent closure at the end of this month, after its landlord required rent to be paid quarterly instead of monthly, which would have tipped its reserves too far into the red. But the museum’s managers now say they’ve “raised enough to save the Vagina Museum in the immediate future” and will be staying at its east London location. The museum started as a series of pop-ups in London around 2017, when its founders discovered that there was a penis museum in Iceland but no vagina equivalent anywhere in the world. They moved into a railway arch in Bethnal Green on a permanent basis in 2023. The crowdfunder is still open, by the way, with organisers hoping to raise enough to get beyond their “shoestring budget” of recent years.
🚨 A woman in her 20s has died after a van crashed into pedestrians on the Strand on Tuesday. Three others were hurt in the incident, which took place close to King’s College London and Somerset House at around midday. A 26-year-old man was arrested then released on conditional bail on Wednesday. The Met Police has said it does not believe the crash was terror-related.
📚 Mayor Sadiq Khan has stepped in to stop book libraries being removed on the Underground under a fire safety crackdown. Last week it came to light that TfL had begun removing free book swaps from stations like Highbury & Islington and Oval, having been warned by the London Fire Brigade that the "combustible materials" posed a fire risk. But a source close to the mayor has told the Times that Khan has now "stepped in to reverse the decision as soon as possible". The removal of the book swaps, some of which have been around for 20 years, generated an immediate backlash online, with many lamenting the potential loss of “a much-loved community resource”.
📖 Even more library news: a developer has confirmed that the £1.1bn extension of the British Library is going ahead. The real estate company Mitsui Fudosan has said that the project, which will open up the library across three sides and create 700,000 sq ft more space, is expected to be completed by 2032. The extension has had planning permission from Camden Council since last July, but Mitsui Fudosan has only now confirmed it will be proceeding with the development.
🍺 In a blow to the Blackhorse Beer Mile, a brewery in Walthamstow has been forced to close after falling behind on rent. The Hackney Brewery & High Hill Tap on Blackhorse Lane has announced that it will be closing its tap room at the end of the month, having been unable to convince Waltham Forest council to forgive its rent arrears. The Standard reports that several other breweries forming the Blackhorse Beer Mile have closed due to the council’s rent crackdown — Beerblefish, which shut its doors last week, and the Wild Card brewery, which shut last October. The crackdown comes as Waltham Forest council searches for £14.3m in savings. A loosely related piece from the Spy archives: our look at the threats to the Bermondsey Beer Mile in November 2023.
🚇 Lift failures on the Underground have doubled in the past year, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. Sent by the London Liberal Democrats to TfL, the FoI shows that lifts were out of action for 6,197 hours in 2024, compared with 3,301 hours in 2023 and 2,480 in 2022. The BBC has spoken with one campaigner, Jennie Berry, who says TfL need to be “held to account” over the failures and needs to repair lifts faster. “Countless times I've had to climb up the stairs by myself and ask strangers or friends or whoever's with me to carry my chair up the stairs. It's the same for a lot of disabled people across the board,” Berry says. In response, Nick Dent, director of operations at London Underground, apologised for the failures and the data would be reviewed. Elsewhere: TfL has confirmed that cyclists will be able to use a free shuttle when the Silvertown tunnel opens next month.
🚕 The London cabbie could be extinct in 20 years, according to a think tank’s analysis. The Centre for London (CoL) has found that the number of taxis licensed with TfL has fallen by a third over the past ten years — from 22,000 in 2013/14 to 14,000 in 2023/24 — and, at this current rate, there will be no black cabs on the capital’s roads by 2045. The CoL suggests several policies to stop the decline, including bigger loans for new electric taxis and making the infamous Knowledge test easier. But Steve McNamara, the general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, played down the prospect of cabbie extinction. “We’ve been here since the time of Oliver Cromwell, and we aren’t going anywhere soon,” he told the Guardian.
🔍 And finally, we leave you with:
New posters on the Elizabeth line to prevent dirt marks (BBC)
Backlash against the new posters on the Elizabeth line (TikTok)
Eel Pie Island under threat (Guardian)
Prolific London tagger 10foot’s takeover of the Big Issue (www)
A Shoreditch venue denying it’s the ‘gentrification final boss’ (TikTok)
IKEA announcing it’s opening its Oxford Street flagship store in May (Guardian)
The new statue for peace campaigner Brian Haw going up in Westminster (BBC)
A house in Archway with a swimming pool in the sitting room (TikTok)
A 2000s high-rise flat preserved at Hoxton’s Museum of the Home (TikTok)
Thousands of Roman artefacts being gifted to the London Museum (BBC)
A double-decker bus being lifted above the London skyline (Reddit)
The Tate Modern’s plans for its 25th birthday this May (Time Out)
The London pub with a dedicated elevator for Guinness (TikTok)
The voice in your head when walking through central London (TikTok)
The charms of North Ealing (YouTube)
Mysterious lights on top of a building in Vauxhall/Battersea (Reddit)
Statements on cuts to council tax support schemes in London
Brent councillor Fleur Donnelly-Jackson, cabinet member for housing and resident services said:
“For many years, Brent has had one of the most generous council tax support schemes in London. Unfortunately, due to the dire state of local government finances, this is no longer affordable. Like the vast majority of local authorities, we are facing an extremely challenging financial situation, which leaves us with ever tougher choices to make. As a result, and following a consultation with residents, we have decided to make a number of changes to our scheme. More than 15 other London councils are also re-looking at their council tax support schemes which shows that this is a system-wide issue across local government.
“Our cost of the scheme for working-age households was forecast to rise to a staggering £21.2 million this year. For context, the council spent nearly the same amount last year – around £21.6 million – on collecting rubbish and recycling from 128,000 homes and on keeping our streets clean. The changes to the scheme are expected to generate substantial savings of around £5 million.
“We will continue to prioritise our most vulnerable residents, including those facing exceptional circumstances, by setting aside an extra £1.5 million in our hardship fund to support those who are finding it difficult to afford the rise in their council tax.
“While this decision was not made lightly, it is very important that we protect the council’s long-term financial sustainability, and part of that means better targeting our limited resources towards those in the greatest need, while ensuring everyone contributes fairly to vital local public services.”
A spokesperson for Barking & Dagenham council said:
“Like authorities across the country, the council faces significant financial challenges which will have a detrimental impact on services provided to residents unless they are addressed. This is mainly caused by increasing demand for social care for vulnerable adults and children.
“We've had to make difficult decisions to meet this shortfall and to help protect key services for residents.
“We want to make sure that Council Tax Support continues to be available to support our most vulnerable residents now and in the future. We believe the fairest way to do that is to ask others, for instance those able to work, to contribute more.
“In recognition that some residents currently face, or will face, financial difficulties, the council has allocated £500k to the Council Tax Support Discretionary Hardship fund to directly help those who most need assistance. The GLA have also agreed up to £400k in additional support for Barking and Dagenham Residents.”
Toby Murray of Debt Justice said:
"Council Tax Support is already a patchy and inadequate benefit. Since its introduction we've seen council tax debt in England skyrocket. Further cuts will only result in more debt for low-income Londoners, forcing more into poverty and destitution. Council Tax debt is a bad place to be - filled with unaffordable fees and charges, aggressive bailiffs and even imprisonment.
These cuts are not inevitable. National government could reintroduce the more comprehensive national Council Tax Benefit, which was cut in 2013, or reinstate decimated central government funding for local authorities. Councils can and should take action as well - Council Tax Support should be prioritised in annual budgets as a vital lifeline for on the lowest incomes, and local leaders should recognise that harassing low-income Londoners does not make for healthy and prosperous communities."
A spokesperson for London Councils said:
“Boroughs work hard to support low-income residents but are also grappling with an immense funding squeeze that inevitably means some difficult decisions and cutbacks.
“Central government gave local authorities responsibility for council tax support back in 2013 while at the same time cutting the funding available to councils. The build-up of unfunded new responsibilities handed down to local authorities has helped drive today’s crisis in council finances.
“Boroughs are doing all they can to protect their council tax support schemes but many now cannot afford to. Reductions are a symptom of the massive ongoing pressures facing town halls across the capital. We are looking to the government’s Spending Review and promised reform of council funding to help restore stability.”
A spokesperson for the mayor of London said:
“The Mayor continues to do all he can to build a fairer London for all, including providing universal free school meals for state primary school children, helping low-income Londoners secure millions in financial support they are entitled to, helping older Londoners claim Pension Credit, and investing £3.46bn into building the genuinely affordable homes Londoners need.”