The yr 2024 was an essential one in London for elections. It was the primary yr through which each a common election and elections for Mayor of London and the London Meeting befell. There was additionally a gentle stream of by-elections for borough council seats, contests which have usually seen poor outcomes for whichever get together was in nationwide authorities on the time. The final of those befell on Thursday 19 December with a by-election within the Greenwich Council ward of West Thamesmead.
Thamesmead is considered one of London’s lesser-known however most distinctive suburban cities, straddling the boundary between the boroughs of Greenwich and Bexley. The Larger London Council (GLC) began building within the space within the late Nineteen Sixties on an enormous space of Plumstead Marshes that had been just lately vacated by the Royal Ordnance Manufacturing facility.
The positioning was a warren of small factories and arms testing ranges, scattered among the many marshy terrain downriver from Woolwich. It was cleared and landscaped, although the planners took care to protect lakes and channels to function water options for the brand new city quarter. Thamesmead’s identify was chosen in a public competitors. Within the late Nineteen Sixties, folks took such issues significantly sufficient for this to be worthwhile, leading to a wise end result fairly than, say, “Marshy McMarshface”.
The GLC’s hopes for Thamesmead weren’t totally fulfilled. The unique plans had a world yacht harbour on the river and an extended ribbon of tall condo blocks with views over the Thames, and it’s now present process a serious regeneration. Nevertheless it developed right into a steady, primarily working-class, group and has turn into extra linked to the remainder of London because the opening of the Elizabeth line, with its stations at Woolwich and Abbey Wooden.
The 2-member ward of West Thamesmead was created by boundary modifications in 2022, drawing on territory beforehand within the Thamesmead and Glyndon wards. It’s well-defined by way of bodily and social geography, separated from the remainder of Thamesmead by inexperienced areas and from Woolwich and Plumstead by native historical past and main roads.
Housing on this part of Thamesmead is generally low-rise, fairly than the concrete estates additional east. There’s a combination of tenures – 25 per cent social hire, 27 per cent mortgaged, 40 per cent personal rented or hire free and 7 per cent owned outright. Like a lot of south east London, the inhabitants is generally white (39 per cent) or black (38 per cent) with comparatively few of Asian heritage (11 per cent).
A fluctuating complete of between 1,200 and 1,500 residents of Thamesmead West, a bit over 10 per cent of the full inhabitants, should not on the electoral register as a result of they’re inmates at two prisons, Belmarsh and Isis (the latter derived from an alternate identify for the River Thames). The inhabitants statistics are a bit distorted in consequence. As an illustration, the 2021 Census discovered that 54 per cent of residents had been male.
There was an attention-grabbing background to the by-election, ably set out by Darryl Chamberlain for the Greenwich Wire native web site. To summarise, one of many incumbent West Thamesmead councillors Chris Lloyd, elected for Labour in 2022 and earlier than {that a} Peninsula ward councillor since 2014, fell out with the Greenwich Labour group in December 2023 and alleged that considered one of its councillors had made a homophobic comment to him.
Leaving Labour, Lloyd initially sat as an Unbiased and subsequently joined the Liberal Democrats. However he resigned from the council this autumn on account of transferring out of London to be nearer to his household in Wales.
Lloyd’s defection had given the Lib Dems their solely seat on the council, and so they waged a vigorous marketing campaign to defend it. Greenwich has lengthy been stony floor for the get together regardless of its antecedent, the unique Social Democratic Occasion, having had two MPs within the borough within the Nineteen Eighties. However Lloyd’s time as a Lib Dem councillor had sowed a couple of seeds of revival.
His successor as candidate was Steve Day, who emerged as the primary opposition in a ward that had been overwhelmingly Labour within the 2022 borough elections. Day chairs the 1,000-member residents’ affiliation at Royal Artillery Quays within the west of the ward, which adjoins the recently-redeveloped older part of the Arsenal subsequent to Woolwich city centre.
The event has been troubled, with residents campaigning efficiently to get funding for the removing of substandard cladding from properties there, though there may be unhappiness that the work is but to start out. The cladding concern and excessive service expenses on the property gave the Lib Dem marketing campaign a robust basis in that a part of the ward, nevertheless it had much less resonance in its different neighbourhoods. Day polled a creditable 336 votes (33 per cent) on a 20-point swing, nevertheless it was not sufficient in what had turn into a two-party contest in a ward with deep-rooted Labour loyalties.
The winner was Labour’s Jahdia Spencer, with 464 votes (45 per cent). The Labour machine in Greenwich is well-organised and in gear following three different current by-elections, in addition to the large contests in Might and July. The council’s membership now stands at 51 Labour councillors and 4 Conservatives.
Spencer brings youth – she is 26 – and enthusiasm to the council, and he or she can also be considered one of only a few Bermudians to be energetic in British politics. She instructed Bermuda’s Royal Gazette, “I wish to present Bermudians, and younger folks the world over, that we are able to obtain something we set our minds to.”
The opposite events had been squeezed out: Ruth Handyside for Reform UK got here third with 92 votes (9 per cent), Siama Qadar for the Conservatives was fourth with 82 votes (eight per cent) and Anji Petersen for the Greens – who had completed second in 2022 – introduced up the rear with 55 votes (5 per cent). Reform specifically will likely be disillusioned with their efficiency in comparison with their October end in Belvedere ward, which is on the Bexley facet of the borough boundary however not removed from West Thamesmead. Turnout on this chilly pre-Christmas ballot was a low 14.9 per cent.
Subsequent yr will likely be a fallow one for elections – the following massive crop would be the full borough elections in Might 2026. However there will likely be by-elections throughout the first eleven months of 2025 to supply us with (presumably deceptive) straws within the wind concerning the state of politics throughout London and its intricate native variations. This column needs its readers and the politicians of London and Glad Christmas and all the perfect for the New 12 months.
Help OnLondon.co.uk and its freelancers for simply £5 a month or £50 a yr and get issues on your cash that different folks don’t. Particulars HERE. Comply with Lewis Baston on Bluesky. Picture from Greenwich chief Anthony Okereke’s X/Twitter feed.
