Lewisham has no children's home of its own and pays over £7,300 a week per place. A 5-6 bed council home at 200 Kirkdale is due to open by April 2028.

Lewisham Council plans to turn 200 Kirkdale in Sydenham into a five to six bed children’s home run by the council itself, its first. The £1.68m proposal went to Mayor and Cabinet on Wednesday 9 September (committee report).

The numbers behind the decision are stark. Lewisham currently owns no children’s home provision at all. As of 19 July 2026, 51 of the children in the borough’s care were living in residential children’s homes, and only 12 of them, 24%, were living inside Lewisham. The rest are placed wherever the external market has space, away from their schools, friends and services.

That market is expensive:

  • the average residential placement now costs more than £7,300 a week
  • a considerable number of placements exceed £10,000 a week
  • spend on residential care in 2025/26 was almost £30m, up 69% in five years

The report says the council is “highly exposed to market-driven fee inflation, emergency spot purchasing and limited leverage over price and availability”.

What is proposed

The £1.68m cost of refurbishing the council-owned building at 200 Kirkdale, SE26 4NL, is funded three ways: an £800,000 Department for Education grant already secured, £400,000 from the sale of a council asset, and £479,000 of extra council capital approved in July’s budget. The DfE money comes from a £45m national match-funding pot, confirmed in March 2024, to create 200 new children’s home places in local authority hands.

This replaces a bigger plan. In September 2024, Mayor and Cabinet approved converting three former school caretaker properties into small homes. Feasibility work in early 2026 found viability, staffing, safeguarding and registration problems, and the three-home model has been dropped in favour of the single larger home.

The timetable in the report:

  • contractor appointed by 31 January 2027
  • works on site from 1 March 2027, complete by 1 November 2027
  • Ofsted registration targeted for 1 January 2028
  • home open and operational by 1 April 2028

The report is candid that this leaves “limited contingency”, and that opening depends on Ofsted registration being achieved in time.

What it means for you

  • For children in the borough’s care, this is five or six places where staying in Lewisham, near school and family, becomes possible. It will not move the overall numbers much on its own: 51 children were in residential placements in July.
  • For council taxpayers, the home is designed to pay for itself by replacing bought-in placements, with the savings routed into a reserve that covers maintenance and renewal. On the report’s own model, the reserve still needs further council support in year 11.
  • For neighbours on Kirkdale, the building is an existing council property being refurbished, not a new build. Registration, staffing and admissions arrangements all have to pass Ofsted before any child moves in.

Update, 15 September: the council’s printed decisions from the 9 September meeting confirm the recommendations were approved as set out: the investment, refurbishment and delivery of the five to six bed council-run home at 200 Kirkdale was approved, superseding the three-home model agreed in September 2024, with the additional £479,000 capital requirement noted.

Sources