Southwark Council Rejection: Female-Only Lesbian Venue

Southwark Council: Corporate complaint
Our reference: 39001922
10th July 2025

Dear Jenny Watson

Thank you for your request for a review of your complaint that we received. I have investigated this matter, and I am writing now to let you know my decision.

Your complaint

According to our records you are unhappy with the way Southwark Council responded to your safeguarding request.

My Investigation

I would like to start by extending my sincere apologies for the delay in handling your complaint. The complaints investigation team have received a high volume of complaint escalations. Since each complaint is individually investigated, the task of working through the backlog has taken much longer than expected. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that the delay may have caused you some uncertainty and for that I am sorry. Thank you for your patience.

To investigate your complaint, I have inspected the correspondence history in relation to your request for premises under the Equalities Act. My investigation also involved liaising with the Head of Sustainable Growth, the Director of Planning and Growth, the Head of Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion, and the Head of Law, Governance and Assurance.

My Decision

I do not uphold your complaint. The reason for my decision is outlined below.

Complaint History

In your email dated 2nd April 2025, you expressed your frustration after the Council directed you to private letting agents in response to your request for a venue for your Community Interest Company (CIC), that supports lesbian and bi-sexual women, survivors of violence and neurodivergent women. You explained that "despite clear alignment with the Council's Public Sector Equality Duty, your safeguarding-led venue request had been redirected to a private letting agents and treated as a commercial enquiry."

On 10th April 2025, your complaint was responded to at stage 1 of the Council's complaints procedure. The response explained that the Council is delivering a prominent facility for the LGBTQ+ community at Bankside Yards. It went on to explain that a number of affordable workspaces will be provided to let to LGBTQ+ groups and is intended to provide safe and inclusive workspaces, that may be a good solution for your organisation LCommunity CIC. It explained that the facility is scheduled to open in late spring 2026 and that you could be put in touch with the future operator. The response also signposted you to the LGBTQ+ Community Space at Hopton Street which is supported by the Council.

On 18th April 2025, you emailed to express your dissatisfaction over the response. You outlined the following:

• You submitted the most recent safeguarding request to Southwark Council legal department on 14th April 2025. However, the application had been active and ongoing for several weeks. Furthermore, you had not received a formal acknowledgement or substantive legal response.
• At the time of writing, you had not received acknowledgement, confirmation of assignment or any indication that Southwark Council has initiated appropriate legal or equalities review procedures.
• You want to know if the safeguarding request had been reviewed by the legal or equalities team.
• You want to know if your request had been assigned to a responsible officer for schedule 3 and Public Sector Equality Duty assessment.
• You want to know the current status of the legal submission.

My findings

After reviewing your complaint as well as a review of the information you so kindly provided to me, I am able to respond to the points you raised in your complaint escalation.

After reviewing the correspondence history, I have established the following:

• On 27th March 2025, you emailed the Properties Enquiries inbox and explained you had tried to reach them by phone and was unable to. You submitted a formal expression of interest for a not-for-profit lease proposal for a Southwark-owned arch or small commercial unit at a peppercorn or reduced rate.
• On 29th March 2025, an email was received where you made a request for available spaces.
• On 30th March 2025, you emailed the Council to explain your situation and requested secure council-owned premises.
• On 31st March 2025, your email was responded to from Alex at Community Southwark.org to explain that they are not the Council and do not have direct access to venues. They suggested you sign up to Community Southwark and complete a Premises Need form.
• On 31st March 2025, you responded to confirm your sign-up and explained more about your organisation.
• On 1st April 2025, your email dated 27th March 2025 was responded to by the Commercial lettings team. The email explained that they do not have many commercial properties available at that time and that most of the Council's vacant commercial properties are now dealt with by Kalmers Commercial.
• On 3rd April 2025, an email was received from the Executive Assistant to the Leader of Southwark Council.
• On 4th April 2025, your email dated 30th March 2025 was responded to. It explained that your email had reached the homeless persons inbox.
• On 10th April 2025, you were emailed in response to your email to the Leader. The email explained that the Council is delivering a prominent facility for the LGBTQ+ community due to open in the spring of 2026.
• On 11st April 2025, you responded to escalate your request as a safeguarding-led venue under the Equality Act 2010 and PSED.
• On 14th April 2025, your email was responded to. The email explained that the Council had due regard for the PSED under the Equality Act and is approving a new space at Bankside Yards.
• On 14th April 2025, you responded to express your dissatisfaction over being directed to third-party organisations and explained that you would be escalating.
• On 1st May 2025, your email was responded to. The email explained that the Council did not agree with your interpretation of the mentioned legislation and provided details of how to escalate your dissatisfaction.

The timeline above demonstrates that your request and correspondence were acknowledged and responded to. I appreciate that the responses did not contain the information you had hoped for. However, I am satisfied that you did receive a response and that, although the interpretation of the legislation was different to your own, you were provided with a substantive response.

To ascertain whether the Council's Legal or Equalities Team reviewed your request, I was provided with the Council's Governance Lawyers' briefing notes to Cllr Cryan. The document makes reference to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) under Paragraph 27 of Schedule 3 of the Equalities Act 2010. In addition, an inspection of the Council's internal correspondence has revealed that the Head of Equalities Diversity and Inclusion had discussed your request with the Council's Assistant Governance Lawyer.

Please note, the complaints procedure is not in place to interpret or challenge the interpretation of statutory legislation. However, I am satisfied that the Council have indeed considered your request appropriately by gathering information from both the Legal Team and Equalities personnel. If you would like to challenge the interpretation of the legislation you refer to, you are advised to seek independent legal advice.

I would also like to address the handling of this complaint. Southwark Council's complaint policy states that all complaints should be acknowledged within 3 working days and responded to within 10 working days at stage 1 and 20 working days at stage 2. This did not happen. Please accept my sincere and unreserved apologies for the delay. Thank you for your patience whilst I have carried out a thorough investigation of your complaint.

This is our final response to your complaint. You may now complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Website: https://www.lgo.org.uk/how-to-complain
Telephone: 0300 061 0614

If you have any questions, please email [email protected].