Labour’s Jahdia Spencer won the West Thamesmead by-election – but little more than one in eight voters cast their ballots on the last Thursday before Christmas.
Spencer won 464 votes – 45.1 per cent of the vote – while the housing campaigner Steve Day, standing as a Liberal Democrat candidate, took 336 votes (32.7 per cent).
Every other candidate in the Greenwich Council poll got less than 100 votes, and the turnout was just 14.9 per cent.
Reform UK’s Ruth Handyside was third with 92 votes (8.9 per cent), the Conservative Siama Gulnar Qadar had 82 votes (8 per cent), while the Green candidate Anji Petersen got 55 votes (5.3 per cent).
While Day – the chair of the residents’ association in Royal Artillery Quays, a riverside development in the ward – had high hopes of achieving what would have been a shock result in an area once considered one of Labour’s safest seats, he still achieved a swing of 20.4 per cent towards the Lib Dems.
Day has accused the Labour council of not doing enough to help the 1,000 residents in Royal Artillery Quays who are trying to force Barratt Homes to boost its plans to remove dangerous cladding on the estate.
Leaseholders there are having to pay for extra “waking watch” patrols – with service charges of up to £6,000 a year – and have often been unable to remortgage or sell their properties.
Spencer’s candidacy had raised hackles within the Labour Party because local members in West Thamesmead did not have a say in electing her – she was picked by the party’s London region instead. The 26-year-old joined the party two years ago and has spoken of wanting to return to Bermuda, where she was born, to take up politics there.
In her victory speech, Spencer said she was “honoured” to be elected. “I’d like to thank the residents of West Thamesmead for believing in me and believing in everything I’ve said,” she said.
Spencer will join ‘Lade Hephzibah Olugbemi as a councillor in the ward, and her election brings Labour back up to 51 councillors in Greenwich, against four Conservatives.
The circumstances of the election had raised the prospect of a first Liberal Democrat win in Greenwich since 2006 – and had led to bad feeling on the ground between the parties. The poll was called after Chris Lloyd, the area’s Lib Dem representative, resigned from Greenwich Council after moving out of London to be closer to his family in Wales.
Lloyd had been elected as a Labour councillor but quit a year ago after accusing one of his colleagues of making a homophobic remark to him, eventually joining the Lib Dems.
Before resigning Lloyd had tried to put forward a motion expressing support for residents in the Royal Artillery Quays development in their battle with Barratt. But Olugbemi withdrew her support at the last minute, meaning the motion had to be withdrawn.
After Lloyd resigned his seat, Day then stood to replace him, capitalising on the issue – and hoping to force the issue of Royal Artillery Quays’ cladding onto the council’s agenda.
He told The Greenwich Wire after the count that he hoped to stand again in the next council election, in May 2026.
“Of course I’m disappointed, but I’m going to build on this,” he said. “Although I stood on building safety, they need to know that I care about other matters in the ward and I need to prove what I do and I’m going to help the community.
“I talked to one lady that just wanted a bench in the bit of grass opposite her concrete jungle flat. That’s all she wanted. I could have fought for her and I will still fight for her, but in a different role instead of being a councillor.”
Asked what advice he would give Spencer, he said: “Get up to speed on building safety because Royal Artillery Quays needs you – and don’t pull out of any motions this time around.”
Story courtesy of greenwishwire.co.uk
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