Hackney mayor candidate campaigns under way as by-election looms

Colvestone Primary School parents Hendrik Elstein and Mike Cooter for whom school closures is an important issue

It's 18 months since the last time of asking, and voters are about to be sent back to the polls again in Hackney to choose another directly elected mayor to run the borough, after the last one was forced to quit.

On the Pembury Estate, I watch the Greens going door to door, in search of voters who might be willing to switch sides.

The Green Party were the runners-up in the Hackney mayoral race last year with 17% of the vote.

Labour won it with a significant lead of 59.1% of the vote. So this is a tough target but the Green candidate Zoë Garbett - a Dalston councillor who is also standing for London mayor - thinks recent events in Hackney could help her.

In between knocking on doors, Ms Garbett told me: "Lots of people feel let down, they feel like they've been misled. We do politics quite differently in the Greens and I think it's about rebuilding that trust with residents, listening to them, including them in decisions."

Hackney 2023 mayoral by-election Green candidate Zoë Garbett

Hackney is one of five London boroughs where voters directly elect an executive mayor to run things. Under usual circumstances there wouldn't be a local mayoral election here until 2026.

But a by-election was sparked in September when the Labour mayor Philip Glanville - who had been in post here since 2016 - was forced to step down.

That was after it emerged that he had misled the council about when he'd stopped socialising with a former Labour councillor called Tom Dewey, who had been arrested for possessing indecent images of children. Dewey was given a one-year suspended sentence in August.

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Mr Glanville had claimed to have had nothing more to do with Dewey after finding out about Dewey's arrest in May 2022.

But a photo surfaced of him at a Eurovision party with Dewey on the evening after he had been told about Dewey's offences. It was that lack of transparency that led to calls for Mr Glanville to step down. In his resignation letter Mr Glanville said attending the party had been an "error of judgement".

Mayoral by-election candidate for Labour Caroline Woodley

It's amid that controversy that the new Labour candidate, Caroline Woodley, who is a councillor and a member of the former elected mayor's cabinet, is trying to set out her own stall.

I caught up with her leafleting in Stoke Newington. She said: "It's not really about one person. I'm about Hackney Labour and things that we want to do as a team for this borough and that tends to have been reassuring to people on the doorstep. To be honest, what they want to talk about is the condition of their home, or of their neighbourhood, or of their child's education."

Children's education is a controversial issue here due to the council's plans to close several primary schools in response to falling pupil numbers, which has sparked protest from parents. One of the schools that could close is Colvestone Primary School near Ridley Road Market.

Hackney resident Clair Battaglino opposes LTNs

Mike Cooter and Hendrik Elstein each have five-year-olds at the school and think there hasn't been enough public consultation. This is a claim that the council rejects.

Speaking to me outside the school, Mr Cooter said he thought the issue could sway voters: "We think it's an important issue for the mayoral election because it gets to the heart of fundamental questions around local democracy."

Mr Elstein added: "It should be a huge factor because education is the most fundamental issue for any political direction."

Another controversial issue is Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) in the borough, which are loved by some and loathed by others.

Resident Clair Battaglino, who is opposed to LTNs, took me to see the how the London Fields LTN, where cars cannot freely drive through, is diverting more traffic into her road instead.

Independent candidate Peter Smorthit

She said: "I think for lots of people, they will vote in self-interest, so people within the LTNs, will come out in favour of the candidates who will assure them that their LTNs will stay. But more LTNs will disadvantage the people on the sacrificial roads. I've been here over 40 years and I have never seen a more divisive issue in this borough."

It's an issue that is clearly playing into the by-election campaign. Independent candidate Peter Smorthit has said he would remove LTNs.

So has the Conservative candidate, Simche Steinberger, who has been a councillor in Hackney for 18 years. Showing me around his Springfield ward he told me LTNs are a problem.

Conservative candidate Simche Steinberger

Mr Steinberger said: "One of the most important things for the residents is to stop these LTNs. Should I become the next elected mayor, I will, myself, go in my ward in Mount Pleasant and rip out the first LTNs on the following Monday after being elected."

Affordable housing is another thread running through this campaign, Labour has promised 1,000 new social rented homes in the borough by 2026.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate Annoesjka Valent wants more focus on housing repairs.

Liberal Democrat candidate Simon De Deney

The Liberal Democrat candidate Simon De Deney says the borough has become unaffordable and that if he was elected he would "build the thousands of affordable homes, and social housing that we need to make Hackney affordable again for us and our children".

The mayoral by-election will be held on Thursday 9 November. A change in the law means voters at polling stations must take photo ID with them to be allowed to vote.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate Annoesjka Valent wants more focus on housing repairs