Lambeth still wrestling with estate regeneration plans as options appraisal slips further into 2026
Lambeth Council is continuing to grapple with the long-running question of what to do with three of its major housing estates, with new documents revealing that work on the latest …
Black News 
Lambeth Council is continuing to grapple with the long-running question of what to do with three of its major housing estates, with new documents revealing that work on the latest “options appraisal” has slipped further into 2026.
An officer decision published this week approves a relatively small increase in consultancy fees for the firm advising the council on the future of Central Hill, Cressingham Gardens and Fenwick estates.
The increase itself is modest — £27,433 — taking the contract with property consultancy Montagu Evans from £998,113 to £1,025,546. The additional cost will be covered within the existing capital budget for the council’s New Homes Programme.
But the report also highlights a broader issue: the regeneration question facing these estates is proving more complex, time-consuming and politically sensitive than originally envisaged.
The consultancy team was appointed in 2024 to lead the council’s latest options appraisal, producing HM Treasury-compliant business cases to help determine a “preferred option” for the future of the three estates.
The work had originally been expected to run until 2025. However, the council now says the programme has become “protracted”, requiring additional viability analysis and extending the timetable, with the business case work now expected to run through to the end of 2026.
The financial details illustrate how the extension has occurred. While stock condition surveys on the estates came in significantly under budget — saving around £121,000 — the wider multidisciplinary consultancy work has increased by around £149,000 because of the extended timeline and additional analysis required.
The net effect is the relatively small additional cost now being approved.
More significant, however, is the continuing uncertainty facing residents on the estates themselves.
All three estates have been caught up in Lambeth’s long-running debates over estate “regeneration”, which have stretched back more than a decade. Over that period, proposals have been revised, paused and reworked several times, leaving residents waiting for clarity about the long-term future of their homes and neighbourhoods.
The current options appraisal process is intended to establish a fresh evidence base before the council settles on a preferred approach for each estate.
Council documents state that the work will support decisions about the “renewal” of the estates and sits within Lambeth’s wider housing strategy, which aims to increase the delivery of affordable homes in the borough.
However, the revised timetable means that the latest round of analysis is now likely to run beyond the point when Lambeth Labour had hoped to present its renewed case for estate regeneration.
With local elections scheduled for May 2026, the extended programme raises the possibility that any final decisions could fall to the next administration at Lambeth Town Hall.
Should political control of the council change, a new leadership could revisit or reassess the regeneration strategy — potentially opening up another round of questions about the future of the estates.
For residents who have already seen years of consultation, reviews and policy shifts, the latest report underlines that the issue remains unresolved — and that the long-running regeneration debate in Lambeth still has some distance left to run.
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