Green council leader admits 'we don't see a way out' of ballooning borough debt

After a recent audit spelt out the stark financial situation facing Haringey Council, Mark Blake speaks to Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter, about the “great shadow of an increasing debt burden”

History can be dissolved into records and dates. It can possess an inert, almost theoretical, significance, concealed by more recent threads of cause and effect. Its other form, however, can be felt sitting coterminous with the present, stifling the future.

In recent months, the Greens at Haringey Council have been making – and being made to live with – both.

When they won the most seats of any party at the local election in May they became the first party in the borough not called ‘Labour’ to do so in over 50 years. It was an upset for the history books.

Yet, as a recent audit shows, the past is very much present at the local authority in the form of an increasingly precarious financial situation.

The audit, completed by KPMG in May and published earlier this month, describes “a continued deterioration in the council’s financial position”, reflected by a “recurrent reliance on exceptional financial support and widening budget gap”.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) spoke to Mark Blake, the council’s new leader, to discuss what the future might hold for Haringey.

“It’s not a great situation to come into,” Cllr Blake admits, warning the council is facing a “great shadow of an increasing debt burden”.

The local authority applied for £54million in ‘exceptional financial support’ (EFS) from the government for 2025/26 and a further £84m for the current financial year.

EFS allows councils to treat some day-to-day spending as longer-term capital expenditure, which is usually funded through borrowing. But as KPMG points out, at current rates, each £1m of EFS borrowing could cost the council “approximately” £62,000 a year in borrowing costs.

At this rate, the last two instalments of EFS alone could set the local authority back an extra £8.5m a year in additional debt repayments. Cllr Blake describes the situation as “incredibly unfair” and “incredibly punitive”, adding: “We don’t see a way out. We see a burgeoning debt.”

He likens it to “a contagion” threatening to infect the borough’s long-term future. “Even if we become the best performing council in the country it’s not going to dig us out of the hole,” Cllr Blake says.

In the 2025/26 financial year, Haringey Council operated with around £143m less in real-term core government funding than it did in 2010 – a 55% drop.

Cllr Blake argues that Westminster must be collectively lobbied by councils to introduce the major policy shifts needed for local authorities to be able to carry on delivering essential, statutory services like temporary accommodation and adult social care.

“We’re not looking for a bailout, we’re looking for a dialogue with the government,” Cllr Blake says.

He believes the government ought to seriously consider a “ban on overnight fees markets” for temporary and emergency accommodation. The local leader argues that market providers in these areas are “charging a hell of a lot” and exploiting councils through “profiteering”.

A price cap on social care should also be considered, he says, adding: “The government has a responsibility to come in and regulate the market.”

The introduction of greater controls on the capital’s rented housing supply is also among the solutions Cllr Blake says need to be discussed.

“Rent controls are not a radical policy,” he argues, referring to their long-accepted role in cities like Paris and New York.

The government’s Fair Funding Review, which concluded last November, means the local authority is benefiting from a £75.6m financial uplift over the next three years. However this sum, although welcome, is unlikely to change the dial on the council’s fortunes.

“There’s a lot of decisions in the past I would not agree with,” Cllr Blake says, referring to choices made by previous administrations. Ultimately, however, he sees the problem as systemic; something that, fundamentally, no party at the council could have fixed.

“We need to work together in a more constructive way,” he says. This is especially true for his minority administration. The Greens are cumulatively outnumbered by Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors, whose support will be necessary to pass any major shift in budgetary policy.

There has been some debate nationally suggesting that the Green Party’s values and level of political experience make its members almost inherently incapable of fiscal responsibility.

But Cllr Blake shrugs off these suggestions, adding: “People will perceive what they want to perceive – we’ve got to get on with the facts.”

Haringey Greens only managed to gain one of the two seats up for grabs at council by-elections held last month. It meant the group missed out on a potentially crucial opportunity to form an outright majority and govern on their terms.

“Back in February we would have been happy with ten councillors,” Cllr Blake claims. The Greens, he says, must do the best they can with the situation – and power – they’ve got: “The balls landed at our feet and we have to get on with the game.”

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