Lambeth Council deputy leader Rezina Chowdhury – who was in charge of the policy – said for the first time on Monday that the scheme is now “dropped”, rather than shelved.

Cllr Chowdhury didn’t say when it was cancelled, despite the opposition Liberal Democrats pressing that question. It was at last November’s cabinet meeting that she said it was “paused, pending financial review” – indicating a policy change, without announcement, in the last three months.

But fellow Labour deputy leader Danny Adilypour has now said the plans were never more than a suggestion by council officers in the first place, and that elected councillors ditched them in “early” 2025.

The details matter to both sides of an increasingly fractious debate between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, ahead of local elections in May. Both parties are now accusing the other of “misinformation” of the electorate – with increasing suggestions that it’s deliberate.

The LibDems insist that Labour has dropped the plan only recently, in the face of political pressure and because of LibDem opposition. Labour claims in its campaign material that it “took one look at the plan and vetoed it” last year, of its own accord – and says the LibDems were just trying to scare voters. Local residents and police raised concerns last month that dimmer streetlighting could compromise safety.

“The cost and effectiveness didn’t stack up,” Cllr Chowdhury told a meeting of Labour’s governing cabinet of senior councillors on Monday evening. “I have concerns about ensuring we remain consistent with our borough ambition to be one of the safest in London, and so the programme was dropped, not paused,” she said.

Officer error

The scheme’s continued inclusion in forward-planning papers on Monday, in an “agreed savings” section, was an “error”, Cllr Chowdhury (who is the councillor for the Streatham Hill East ward) said.

That prompted finance director Zena Cooke to suggest that it had been “left from the previous quarter because the review hadn’t been finished, but the decision had already been taken”. The plans were not listed in the separate papers covering the council’s capital spending programme, she noted – “so it definitely has been stopped”.

This all seems to suggest that as the “decision-maker” for the scheme, Cllr Chowdhury simply pulled the plans, without announcement, at some point between late November and this week.

But that in turn wouldn’t fit with what Labour has said on its campaign material – or what fellow deputy council leader Danny Adilypour (councillor for the Streatham Common and Vale ward) has told *StreathamStuff*.

“Cllr Chowdhury consulted colleagues on this and we agreed with her, so it was communicated to the officers early in 2025 that the proposal did not have political support and it therefore wasn’t progressed,” Cllr Adilypour said.

Only ever a “suggestion by officers”

“The proposal never went beyond being suggested by officers, so it would be wrong for anyone to claim otherwise. There was no formal meeting or decision on this, as the proposal didn’t pass the first hurdle… The leaflet rightly corrects the disinformation that has been circulated about this.”

The council launched an “engagement process” on 9th June 2025, for suppliers of the “adaptive” system. And council documents have previously detailed planned savings from the scheme across the next four years.

The apparent discrepancy prompted an increasingly infuriated Matthew Bryant, LibDem deputy leader, to ask when the plan was dropped – only for council leader and meeting chair Claire Holland to bat the question away.

The idea that “Labour councillors took one look” at the plan was a “complete load of rubbish,” Cllr Bryant (councillor for Streatham Hill West and Thornton) said. “The only people spreading misinformation about this are the Labour Party.”

“In this very cabinet a year ago it sat in your proposal for your savings for the year. You took one look at it – and you approved it. Two weeks later it was in the budget papers - don’t shake your head Councillor Chowdhury! – it was in the budget papers that were approved at the budget council on the 5th of March, you took a second look and it was approved.

“I would ask her, when was that decision taken to scrap this scheme – because it’s evidently only been taken within the last month, and that’s probably because of pressure and the realisation that residents were deeply unhappy about it and it didn’t stack up.”

“Thank you, councillor,” Cllr Holland replied. “All those points have already been answered. I’m just trying to see if there were any actual questions – sorry – I think that’s already been said – please don’t interrupt like that. Please. This is not a public meeting. You can’t interrupt like that… It’s already been answered and you can go back and look at the record of this meeting by both the cabinet member and the section 151 officer [finance director].”