Southwark council has dealt another blow to the beleaguered £1.5bn Elephant & Castle regeneration scheme in south London by deciding to withhold single regeneration budget funding from the local community forum.
Southwark council claims it was forced into the move last week by the refusal of the Elephant Links Community Forum to share financial information relating to the long-running scheme.

The forum has responded angrily, calling the council's actions "completely unfair" and accusing it of acting outside its authority.

Richard Lee, director of the forum, said: "The council has no authority to terminate the agreement with the community forum. The bigger picture now sees us without a developer and potentially without community representation. This raises a lot of questions about whether there will be any regeneration at Elephant and Castle at all."

The forum had held a unique position as third developer on the project, but this was terminated after last month's withdrawal of Southwark Land Regeneration as the preferred developer.

The community forum has received £650,000 of SRB money over the last two years, much of which has gone towards paying for independent advisers.

Under SRB rules, the forum is required to make all financial records available for inspection by the council.

A spokeswoman for the council said: "The forum has to give us access to the records, but they have refused to do this since March.

We are not prepared to use SRB money to fund a scheme that continually breaks the rules."

The regeneration partnership board – which has overall responsibility for the project – is to meet on 24 June to attempt to thrash out a compromise.