The decline of Lambeth’s housing stock has been experienced by thousands of residents living in council homes.

Lambeth Council pinned its hopes on radically improving the stock on £230m promised by the last Government but the funding was dependent on the council setting up an Arms Length Management Organisation (Almo), Lambeth Living, to manage its housing stock, that would then receive a two-star rating in an Audit Commission inspection.

Problems with the Almo, launched in 2008, led residents to complain the service they received had worsened, and meant the council did not achieve a two-star rating before the change of Government in May.

Now the future of the funding is uncertain, despite questions in the House of Commons from MPs such as Chuka Umunna pressing housing ministers on the Decent Homes Fund’s future.

A report from council lobby group London Councils earlier this year showed the housing stock appeared to have hit tipping point.

It stated, even if the Government’s Decent Homes funding became available in 2011-12, the backlog of properties needing work meant just a third of the number of homes falling into disrepair could be brought up to standard each year.

The state of Lambeth housing was also seen as a key election battleground in May. In the run up to the election, the Labour council refused to accept the statistics in London Councils’ report that showed its housing was heading towards 40 per cent non decency.

The Lambeth Liberal Democrats said this week the emergence that half of homes are non-decent exposed “a concerted effort by this council to conceal the increasing levels of non- decency”.

Cabinet member for housing Councillor Lib Peck denied this happened, and said the council had been concentrating on improving the most pressing work on larger external repairs such as roof and window replacements, rather than doing smaller jobs to just bring down the non-decency statistics.

A Lambeth Council spokeswoman said the 49 per cent was just an estimate and was not the actual number of non-decent homes.

She said: “We have updated the data we have on our housing stock, and the figures are now more accurate and include a wider sample of properties. That is why there has been an increase – and is what we would have expected.

“We have already spent nearly £50m in the past year alone on larger repairs to improve the condition of our housing stock.

“The upcoming work needed to bring the additional properties up to standard is less expensive, and so we expect the number of homes needing improvements to fall over the year.”