The neighbouring borough’s financial problems continue to mount, as amid reports of rows with the Labour-run council’s leader, the most senior employee at Brixton Town Hall has had his collar felt for drugs, booze and driving offences
Brixton Town Hall has been rocked by two new scandals in the past 24 hours.
Driven man: Bayo Dosunmu, Lambeth’s CEO since 2022
First, a former Labour councillor in neighbouring Lambeth has been caught up in the growing election day betting controversy, and today news emerged that that borough’s chief executive has been arrested by the police on drink and drugs charges.
Bayo Dosunmu has been Lambeth Council’s £190,000 per year chief executive since April 2022. Next week, he was expected to perform the duties of a Returning Officer for four constituencies in the General Election, including Streatham and Croydon North.
But The Municipal Journal is reporting today that Dosunmu was arrested on Sunday “after failing to stop at the scene of an accident”.
The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that Dosunmu has been charged with possession of a Class A controlled drug, failing to stop after a road accident, driving above the proscribed alcohol limit and using a motor vehicle in a public place without third party insurance. The incident occurred in the Westminster area.
Donsunmu has worked at Lambeth Council since 2019, having spent most of his career in the Civil Service.
Brixton Town Hall: last month, Lambeth was given a £50m capitalisation direction
He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on August 1.
A Lambeth Council spokesperson as said, “Lambeth council chief executive Bayo Dosunmu is currently away from work and the council has put in place interim leadership arrangements.” It is believed that “away from work” actually means suspended from duty. “We are unable to make any further comment due to an ongoing police investigation.”
According to sources on Brixton Hill, Fiona Connolly, the council’s corporate director for housing and adult social care, will cover Dosunmu’s duties “temporarily”.
In an internal message circulated among councillors, they were told that, “The council has strong leadership in place to manage during this difficult period and you as councillors play a vital role in providing that leadership.” Councillors were then firmly instructed to keep their gobs shut…
Well-placed sources suggest that Claire Holland, the Labour leader of Lambeth Council, had had rows with Dosunmu and that the pair did not get along, although others suggest that Holland had often defended the CEO she had helped to appoint. Other sources have described Dosunmu as being “out of his depth”.
This latest scandal follows Lambeth going cap-in-hand to the Tory Government just last month for a £50million “capitalisation direction” – a bail-out – as it becomes the latest council in England to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy.
This has mostly been caused by costs of a compensation scheme for survivors of child sex abuse over decades – including at a home at Shirley Oaks – spiralling to more than £155milion, and continuing problems in winding up Labour Lambeth’s failed, wholly-owned housing development company (sound familiar?), Homes for Lambeth, which had borrowed £79.5million from the council and delivered just 65 affordable homes in five years amid accusations of maladministration.
Craig’s list: lobbying firm founder Kevin Craig, right, donated £100,000 to Starmer’s Labour before he got selected as a GE candidate in Suffolk
Brixton Town Hall is to stage four election counts on July 4, including for the new cross-borough constituency of Streatham and Croydon North, where Steve Reed OBE is looking to extend his time in the House of Commons, where he has been a Croydon MP since 2012, taking on the role after being the Labour leader of Lambeth Council.
So Reed, being lined up for a senior position in Keith Starmer’s cabinet come the week after next, might be a little uncomfortable that one of Lambeth’s Blairite former councillors, Kevin Craig, is the latest, and first Labour candidate, to have been outed as having had a bet on the General Election.
Craig is the latest election candidate to be investigated by the Gambling Commission. But Craig stuck his wager on him losing to the Tories in the Central Suffolk and North Ipswich seat, where he was a candidate. Craig was imposed as the Labour candidate for the seat after he had made £100,000 donations to the Labour Party, which Starmer’s party says it will now return. Which is nice.
Labour has confirmed that Craig had been suspended by the party – though at this late stage, he will still appear on the ballot paper next week with “Labour” next to his name.
Craig was a councillor for Bishop’s ward, and as Brixton Buzz reported 10 years ago, was even the election agent for Kate Hoey, the Brexiteer Vauxhall MP who ended up shacking up (politically) with Farridge’s racists.
He is also the founder of PLMR, Political Lobbying and Media Relations Limited, a firm of lobbyists who offer to provide political influence for a fee. So seems a very snug fit in Starmer’s ethics-lite new New Labour.
Inside Croydon, though, can confidentally preduct that Steve Reed won’t be having a bet on his seemingly rock-solid election prospects. The last time we checked, Reed was rated as a 1-500 favourite (bet a £500 stake to win £1) to win Streatham and Croydon North, odds so mean that the Ladbrokes branch round the corner has closed the book altogether…
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Golly! Another criminal emerges from Lambeth Council.
£190,000 is enough for him to hire an expensive lawyer to put it all down to the stress of his work and get him off with a slapped wrist.