Wandsworth Council will ask tenants to fund an £884 million borrowing programme through rent increases, according to budget papers published ahead of Wednesday’s Full Council special meeting.
The Wandsworth Council housing budget for 2026-31 shows the Housing Revenue Account surplus is projected to collapse 86% over three years — from £16.2 million in 2026/27 to just £2.2 million by 2028/29 — driven by fire safety overspend and delayed repairs. To plug the gap, the council plans to borrow £884 million over the next decade while raising rents by 4.8% this April.
The financial crisis stems directly from years of fire safety failures that cost the council a damning C3 grading last year. Council documents now admit repairs overspent by £9 million in 2024-25, with 80% of the council’s housing stock still unsurveyed for safety risks.
Fire safety failures driving borrowing crisis
The £9 million repairs overspend revealed in Paper 26-7 follows the September 2024 Fox House fire that displaced 60 residents and exposed systematic failures. An audit published in November found 16 of 25 tower blocks – 64% – had overdue fire safety actions, with the council receiving a Priority 1 recommendation to fix the failures.
The C3 grading from the Regulator of Social Housing in February 2025 identified 1,800 overdue fire safety actions across Wandsworth’s housing stock. A scrutiny meeting in April revealed the council had surveyed only 6.5% of homes, placing Wandsworth near the bottom among London boroughs.
Paper 26-7 confirms that position has barely improved. The Wandsworth Council housing budget documents show 80% of stock remains unsurveyed: approximately 20,000 homes where the council doesn’t know if critical safety measures are in place.
The £9 million overspend includes repairs and refurbishment of vacant properties, general repairs, and building and fire safety works identified through stock condition surveys. The revised repairs and maintenance budget of £52.4 million represents a £7.4 million increase over the original £45.0 million budget.
The council now assumes it can find £4.5 million in “efficiency savings” from repairs over the next five years; a projection that relies on fixing problems the council has spent years failing to address.
£884m borrowing with no breakdown
The Wandsworth Council housing budget plans £884 million in external borrowing over 10 years, adding to the £129 million the council has already borrowed internally from its own reserves.
Paper 26-7 provides no breakdown of what the £884 million will fund. The borrowing programme appears in Table 2 as a single line item spanning 2026-27 through 2035-36, with annual borrowing ranging from £38 million to £159 million.
This opacity continues a pattern established in December when Cabinet Member for Finance Cllr Angela Ireland’s “no debt” claim collapsed within 48 hours. Ireland told Cabinet on 1 December the council had “no debt,” then finance papers confirmed £129 million in internal borrowing two days later. When pressed at Full Council, Ireland admitted she didn’t know the current internal borrowing figure, estimating “£160 million to my knowledge.”
The Housing Revenue Account overspent by £25.9 million in 2024-25, part of a £40 million overspend across the council that forced it to dip into reserves. Paper 26-7’s financial projections show the annual HRA surplus declining from £16.2 million in 2026/27 to just £2.2 million by 2028/29 — an 86% drop driven by fire safety failures, delayed repairs, and mounting capital financing costs.
Tenants paying through rent increases
Council tenants will see rents rise 4.8% from April 2026, approximately £7 per week to the average £154 weekly rent. This increase follows the government formula allowing councils to raise rents by CPI inflation plus 1% – currently 3.8% CPI plus the 1% uplift.
The Wandsworth Council housing budget projects rent income rising from £114.1 million in 2025-26 to £141.3 million by 2030-31. That £27.2 million increase over five years will service the borrowing costs while funding the repairs the council should have completed years ago.
Service charges will also rise, though Paper 26-7 provides no detail on the increases planned. The budget assumes service charge income growing from £24.7 million to £30.4 million over five years which is a £5.7 million increase paid by tenants for building maintenance, estate services, and communal repairs.
Paper 26-7 makes no mention of disrepair settlements despite the council facing multiple Housing Ombudsman investigations. In May, the ombudsman slammed the council for a four-year leak failure, highlighting defensive responses to legitimate resident complaints.
What tenants can do
Tenants concerned about rent increases or fire safety failures have several options:
Challenge rent decisions: Contact your ward councillor before Tuesday’s Full Council meeting. Find your councillor’s contact details through the council website. Councillors representing wards with significant council housing include Cllr Aydin Dikerdem (Cabinet Member for Housing, Shaftesbury & Queenstown), Cllr Matthew Tiller (Deputy Cabinet Member for Housing, Roehampton), and Cllr Jenny Yates (Cabinet Member for Transport, Roehampton).
Report fire safety concerns: If you have concerns about fire safety in your building, contact the council’s housing team directly or report to the Housing Ombudsman for disrepair issues. The ombudsman investigates cases where councils fail to maintain safe housing conditions.
Attend Full Council: The meeting takes place Tuesday 4 February 2026 at Wandsworth Town Hall. Public seating is available and residents can observe the debate and vote on the Wandsworth Council housing budget.
Pattern of borrowing warnings ignored
Critics warned about mounting debt in March 2025, when the council announced plans to borrow an additional £140 million by 2029-30. That warning came as total debt was projected to reach £1.9 billion, with £80 million in interest payments due over five years.
The HRA borrowing of £884 million sits on top of that wider debt burden. Combined with the £129 million internal borrowing confirmed in December, the Housing Revenue Account alone will carry over £1 billion in debt, all of it serviced through tenant rents and ultimately repayable by future generations of council housing residents.
Paper 26-7 projects HRA balances falling from £194.3 million in 2025-26 to £149.4 million by 2030-31. That £44.9 million decline over five years provides a financial cushion, but only if the £4.5 million efficiency assumptions prove realistic and no further crises emerge.
The budget assumes no major incidents requiring emergency spending, no additional regulatory failures demanding urgent investment, and repairs costs falling despite 80% of stock remaining unsurveyed. If any of these assumptions prove wrong, the financial pressure on the HRA intensifies.
Wednesday’s vote will determine whether this Wandsworth Council housing budget becomes reality or whether councillors demand greater transparency on what £884 million in borrowing will actually fund.
