Westminster forced to find extra £8 million after Labour’s buried blunder
Same old Labour: contract and capital review uncovers yet another due diligence failure, taking total waste uncovered past £37 million, with more findings to come
Westminster’s Conservative administration has uncovered another Labour failure. A waste depot project at Mandela Way will now cost taxpayers an extra £7.97 million, after Labour signed off the budget without properly checking the ground beneath the site.
Labour began procurement for a new waste and cleansing contract in December 2025, which needed a new depot at Mandela Way. Labour approved a budget of £5.549 million and started work before the May 2026 election, without doing the basic groundwork first. As design progressed, unexpected ground conditions forced substantial changes to the foundations and drainage. The bill has now risen to £13.519 million: an increase of £7.97 million, almost 144 per cent on what Labour approved.
The failure was uncovered by the Conservative administration’s ongoing contract and capital review, launched to deliver value for money for residents as part of building A City That Works for All. It is the latest in a pattern of Labour recklessness, following the £27 million Geoffrey Osborne scandal and the £3 million Keltbray overspend on Church Street. Labour’s mistakes uncovered by the review now total more than £37 million. Further results of the review will follow in due course.
This comes at a time when Labour’s Government cuts £100 million from Westminster’s budget over the next four years, and residents are being asked which services they want to protect. Local Labour has cost Westminster £37 million through contract and capital failures alone. This is on top of a £19 million reserves raid for a council tax freeze which was never more than an election gimmick.
That is £56 million of taxpayers’ money that the Westminster Labour wasted because of poor due diligence and reckless spending.
Every pound wasted on mistakes like Mandela Way is a pound that cannot go towards stronger enforcement, a clean city and the local services people rely on. Westminster residents are paying for Labour twice: once through local waste, and again through national cuts.
Westminster City Council Leader Cllr Paul Swaddle OBE said:
“Labour signed off Mandela Way without ever checking the ground it was built on. Nobody did the basic homework, and Westminster taxpayers are now footing an extra £7.97 million bill for it, taking the previous Labour administration's total waste to £56 million. That is taxpayers’ money that could have gone towards delivering A City That Works for All: safe streets, a clean city and local services that residents rely on.
This is at the same time as the Labour government is slashing £100 million from the Council’s budgets. Time and again, our review proves the same thing: Same Old Labour cannot be trusted with public money.”
Cllr Paul Fisher, Cabinet Member for Value for Money and Finance, said:
“This is exactly why we launched our review of every contract and project we inherited from Labour. Mandela Way is another case of Labour signing off taxpayers’ money without doing the basic groundwork, literally. Every pound we spend will be judged against one test: value for money, because it’s residents’ money, not ours. We will keep exposing Labour’s waste and deliver A City That Works for All.”
Westminster Conservatives will continue to review every contract and capital project inherited from Labour, cleaning up Labour’s mess as we build A City That Works for All.
