I was astonished to get a complaint last week from residents in my ward in Brixton about a Lib Dem who was elected to represent Wells Ward in Streatham.  Residents living in Sandhurst Court on Acre Lane spent almost 10 years trying to buy the freehold for their block.  I was supporting them right from the start.  Once they had bought the freehold, they put in proposals for an extension on the roof to fund much-needed improvements to the whole block, including insulation, redecoration, a new lift, and plans to make the building use renewable sources of energy.   Residents in all 57 flats backed the scheme.

So you can imagine their surprise when they received a letter from Streatham Lib Dem Julian Heather explaining that the Lib Dems were OPPOSING the scheme.  This wasn’t a sudden outbreak of honesty from an unlikely source, it turned out to be another case of Lib Dem bungling.  Cllr Heather, who was recently embroiled in a scandal after calling council staff Nazis on Holocaust Remembrance Day, spotted the proposal on a list of planning issues.  Assuming that the residents must be against the plan (he didn’t bother asking them, of course, or any of the ward councillors) he saw an opportunity to stick his nose in – presumably trying to grab a few more Lib Dem votes in a ward where they routinely battle it out to avoid coming fourth. 

Residents, of course, were outraged.  After nearly a decade of struggling to get control of their own block, here was a meddling Lib Dem from outside their area telling them he’d be blocking their plans to improve their homes.  After residents told me what he was up to, I fired off an email suggesting he shouldn’t interfere in things when he wasn’t aware of the background.

I wasn’t surprised to get a rather churlish response.  What did surprise me, though, was how Cllr Heather signed himself off.  This Lib Dem elected to represent part of Streatham signed himself off as a councillor “working in Brixton Hill Ward”.  Well, the more he ‘works’ in Brixton Hill Ward the more he’s likely to put people off voting Lib Dem if this case is anything to judge him by.  But more interestingly, I wonder what his residents back in Streatham Wells Ward will have to say when they find out.  If you live in Streatham Wells and you wonder why you haven’t seen your Lib Dem councillor for a while, it’s because he’s abandoned you and gone to work in Brixton instead!