Landlord licensing, rent control powers and a land inquiry sit beside by-elections caused by the rules on holding office and an early row over a whip’s allowance
The new Mayor of Hackney has promised a piece of homework that most landlords would rather avoid. According to the Hackney Citizen’s report of 11 May, Zoe Garbett said her first act as mayor will be a full investigation into who owns Hackney, its buildings and its land. She called the mayoralty the start of the fightback and said she would fight a system that treats housing as a way of making money. She also plans to lead a national, cross-borough campaign against austerity and to demand full restoration of local council funding. Her manifesto commits to making new council homes a core priority, expanding landlord licensing across the borough and pressing central government for local rent control powers.
Why Ownership Is the Question
The ownership inquiry fits a pattern of questions that London has been asking for years: who holds the land, who benefits from the rent and who decides what is built. Our own piece on the London housing crisis sets out the general problem, and the Mayor’s inquiry is an attempt to turn it into a map. Councils know what they own. They know less about who owns the private blocks around them, who owns the shell companies behind those, and where the money goes. A public investigation can compile what is already on the record and ask for what is not.
The same idea shows up in the council’s pilot letting groups of residents apply to grow food on unused land, which is described as part of the Mayor’s Who Owns Hackney campaign in the council’s announcement. We cover that scheme in a separate piece on the Right to Grow.
Two Seats That Were Won and Not Taken
The new administration also met two rules about who may hold office. According to Wikipedia’s account of the election, Garbett did not take up her Dalston seat after becoming mayor, because the Local Government Act 2000 bars holding both offices. The Green candidate Manal Massalha won the resulting by-election with 57.7 percent. And James Tilden, elected for the Greens in Hackney Central, did not take up his seat because he worked as a teacher at a Hackney community school, which the page says disqualified him. Noah Birkstead-Breen won the resulting by-election.
These are small procedural facts, and they illustrate how much of local government runs on rules that candidates only learn about after winning. A teacher at a community school is disqualified from sitting as a councillor in the same borough, so a person can win an election and discover that the seat is not theirs. Our short report on a councillor fortifying the front door is a lighter reminder that being elected also changes your relationship with your neighbours.
The Early Rows
The new administration has also had its first arguments. The Hackney Citizen’s front page, as it stood on 9 October, carries a handful of headlines, and I have only the headlines and captions, not the full reports, so the details below are the paper’s summaries and should be read as such.
Labour has accused the Hackney Greens of hypocrisy over the party whip, a role that carries an extra allowance of 6,724.20 pounds, and the Greens say their leadership still saves residents money. The council has scrapped its cap on social care charges, which it says brings it into line with its neighbours, while a Local Democracy Reporter article notes that Tower Hamlets charges nothing for home care. A Green leaflet demands 30 million pounds of divestment at the pensions committee, and the paper reports that council officers have flagged risk with that approach. A cabinet member has acknowledged what the paper quotes as stark disproportionality in school exclusions, a pattern the council does not dispute. And Humanists UK has warned that a council plan to move independent Charedi schools into the state sector could let them select every pupil by faith.
Reading the Rows Fairly
The housing side of the agenda has a long local backstory, and our note on a council housing team being applauded is a reminder that praise for a council department is rarer than complaint.
None of these is a scandal, and all of them are what happens when a party that has campaigned for years has to govern. An allowance for a whip is a modest sum, and the dispute is about consistency. A care charge cap removed is a real cost to some residents, and the council’s answer is that it is aligning with its neighbours. A divestment demand is a political aim that has to survive advice from officers. These are the ordinary stuff of a council, and they will be judged on the detail.
It is also worth noting that the Greens begin with a very large majority, and that criticism from Labour will come from a small opposition. The best scrutiny may come from the paper, from residents and from the Greens’ own backbenchers.
What Residents Can Do
A resident who wants to understand the new administration has simple options. Read the cabinet papers, which are public. Attend a ward forum. Ask your councillor about the Who Owns Hackney inquiry and when its findings will be published. And watch the budget, because promises about housing, care and schools are finally measured in money.
Tenants have a particular interest in landlord licensing. An expanded scheme would require landlords in more parts of the borough to be licensed, which gives the council a lever on conditions. The manifesto commitment is to expand it; the detail of when and where is not in the report I read, and a tenant should check the council’s website for the current position.
For more on the borough’s politics, see our guide to London magazines and comment, and for the wider magazine visit Bohiney Magazine. If you would like your council politics lightened, Newsthump has the right tone. And if you are an elected councillor who also teaches at a local school, please read the Local Government Act before the count.
SOURCE: bohiney.com
