The Woodford bridge has been closed since July 2023 and local residents are forced to follow lengthy diversions. The council estimates it will cost £50m to repair.
At a special meeting on Thursday (27th February) to decide the local authority’s budget for the next year, the opposition unsuccessfully proposed a motion to redirect community infrastructure levy (CIL) money to rebuild and reopen the bridge.
CIL is levied from property developers to fund local infrastructure projects, but only once their work has begun.
Cllr Canal said it was “shameful” there had been “no [material] progress,” after 18 months of inspections and concrete testing.
He said “furious” residents’ lives had been “inconvenienced massively,” adding: “We have a Labour government, a Labour council and a Labour mayor.
“These should be halcyon days, ambrosia flowing through the rivers. And yet there is still no money to fix the bridge.”
In response, Cllr Rai said he had met with Transport for London “several times,” and held meetings with the Mayor of London’s office and the Department for Transport.
He added that CIL can be “unpredictable” in nature and was not a guaranteed source of income.
At the same meeting, Redbridge councillors approved a 4.99% council tax hike – the highest it can go without a public referendum.
That will mean residents in an average band-D property will pay an extra £8.30 each month from 1st April, as their yearly bill climbs to £2,189.
Tenants in social and ‘affordable’ housing will also see their rents go up by 2.7%.
Redbridge Conservative Paul Canal, who leads the official opposition, voted against the “gouging” hike and blamed Chancellor Rachel Reeves “damaging” decision to raise National Insurance.
He added that while the “budget was balanced,” some savings would be “very hard to achieve”.
The Bridge ward councillor rhetorically asked the Labour administration “who they could blame” now that Labour was in power nationally, but was met with a chorus of “You”.
The town hall overspent by around £22m last year, as it struggled to rein in pressures on housing and social care.
Cllr Rai said the “extreme” austerity measures introduced by the Conservative government in 2010 had “turned people into problems”.
The directors of each department have all been instructed to make cuts wherever they can, which deputy leader Vanisha Solanki said would lower the shortfall to around £15m.
The budget for 2025/26 has allocated £205m to build new temporary accommodation while £38m will go towards building permanent homes, which it says are necessary to reduce expenditure.
The town hall will also spend an extra £20m on its public highways, with a combined £4.2m going towards resurfacing pavements and roads.
Elsewhere, £8m has been earmarked for new leisure facilities – including an expanded centre in Wanstead, a climbing centre in Ilford and the long-delayed lido in Valentine’s Park.
The town hall was allocated £71.2m in funding by the central government in December, but the leader warned it would prove “inadequate”.
The Redbridge Conservatives proposed that the council trim its planned spending by around £128m over the next two years, by scrapping plans to purchase homes. They also suggested cutting extra funding for the lido and refurbishing various leisure facilities, while redirecting money into CCTV and resurfacing ‘major’ roads.
The motion was ultimately shot down by the Labour-run council.
