Southwark Council has unveiled an ambitious plan to combat child poverty, aiming to transform the borough into a more affordable, safer, and greener place to live.
During a Council Assembly meeting on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, councillors adopted a motion outlining the new Joint Administration's vision for Southwark. The plan confronts significant challenges, including a child poverty rate of 43.3% after housing costs, a social housing waiting list of 23,000 households, and 41% of residents reporting feeling unsafe at night.
The Joint Administration, a collaboration between the Green and Liberal Democrat groups, faces a difficult financial landscape, with a reported £102 million funding gap attributed to national austerity measures. To address this shortfall, the council plans to challenged the Government and Southwark's MPs to demand more support to tackle the £102 million gap, and worked with other councils through an Anti-Austerity Summit to fight for a fair deal for Southwark.
Furthermore, the Standing Up For Southwark
motion calls for The Leadership of the Joint Administration to write to the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government, to ask for an urgent meeting to discuss Southwark's financial position.
It also urges The Southwark MPs to publicly call on Andy Burnham and his Government to undertake an urgent re-think of the so-called
Fair Fundingsettlement, in order to ensure that Southwark gets a fair deal.
The administration's core principles are to make Southwark affordable by tackling the cost of living and increasing access to good jobs and homes; safe by supporting vulnerable residents and investing in young people; and green by addressing the climate and nature emergencies.
To tackle the housing crisis, the Borough Action Plan aims to build more council homes, ensuring council tenants and leaseholders are satisfied with the service they receive, and reducing the number of void properties and the length of time properties are empty.
The plan also seeks to make the borough more affordable by ensuring residents in Southwark find it easier to afford everyday essentials and more young people are in good and sustainable jobs and training.
Progress already made includes the launch of a uniform programme for families in need, an accelerated heatwave response, and an investment of £600,000 in Night Time Patrols. In terms of environmental improvements, the Borough Action Plan states that the council will Take serious action on climate by delivering a step change in local adaptation measures with a focus on climate justice, enhancing Southwark's biodiversity and green and blue space, further reducing the borough's emissions, and recycling significantly more of our waste.
The council is committed to developing a full Borough Action Plan over the next four years, guiding the Joint Administration's work. This will include a major borough wide budget participation campaign, ensuring residents' voices shape the budget.
However, specific details on the development process and explicit opportunities for public consultation beyond budget participation are yet to be fully outlined.
The council's priorities for the next four years focus on affordability, climate action, the housing crisis, safety, and environmental improvements, as detailed in the Public reports pack for the Council Assembly meeting on Wednesday, September 23, 2026.
