Map of the results of the 2022 Havering London Borough Council election. Conservatives in blue, Havering Residents Association in dark green, Independent Residents Group in grey, Labour in red.
The 2022 election took place under new election boundaries, which increased the number of councillors to 55. The Conservatives remained the largest party and the council remained under no overall control. After weeks of negotiations, Conservative leader Damian White was replaced by HRA leader Ray Morgon on 25 May as Leader of the Council in a coalition with Labour.[1]
Background
History
Result of the 2018 borough election
The thirty-two London boroughs were established in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. They are the principal authorities in Greater London and have responsibilities including education, housing, planning, highways, social services, libraries, recreation, waste, environmental health and revenue collection. Some of the powers are shared with the Greater London Authority, which also manages passenger transport, police and fire.[2]
In the most recent elections in 2018, the Conservatives won 25 seats with 37.1%; the HRA won 17 seats with the one elected Harold Hill Independent Party winning one councillor who joined the HRA's group; and the Labour Party and independent residents won five seats each. The only councillor elected as an independent, Michael Deon-Burton for South Hornchurch, joined the Conservative group later in May 2021 and was named as deputy mayor of the council.[3] The result was the only hung council in Greater London.[4] The Harold Wood Residents Association, independent of the Havering Residents Association, formed a governing agreement with the Conservative Party on the night of the 2018 election.[5] The Conservative councillor Damian White, who had served as deputy leader of the council from 2014 to 2018, was made leader of the council following the election.[6]
Council term
A residents' association councillor for Cranham ward, Clarence Barrett, died in March 2019.[7] A by-election was held to fill his seat in May 2019, which was won by the residents' association candidate Linda van den Hende.[8] In May 2019, a residents' association councillor for Elm Park, Sally Miller, defected to the Conservative Party.[9]
Along with most other London boroughs, Havering was subject to a boundary review ahead of the 2022 election. The Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) concluded that the council should have fifty-five councillors, an increase of one, and produced new election boundaries following a period of consultation.[10] The Conservative councillor Bob Perry left his party after revealing he had secretly recorded a Conservative group meeting discussing ways to design election boundaries to be advantageous to them.[11] In response, the LGBCE extended the period of consultation and made changes to planned ward boundaries.[10] A three-member panel including two Conservative councillors and the independent councillor Linda Van der Hende was convened to decide whether to investigate the Conservative group leader, Damian White, over claims he had tried to gerrymander election boundaries for political gain. Reporters and the public were blocked from attending the meeting. The Conservative panel members voted to discard the complaints, against the advice of the council's director of law and governance, on the grounds that they were submitted more than ninety days after the recording had been made, even though they had been submitted shortly after the recording was published.[12]
Campaign
Keith Prince, the member of the London Assembly for the area, announced he was standing as a Conservative candidate in the council election.[13] Carol Perry announced she would stand for the Havering Residents Association in the same ward as the Conservative group leader who her husband Bob Perry had recorded saying that the council chief executive had let him affect the council's submission for new election boundaires so they would be "really politically advantageous".[14]
In March 2022, the council asked all staff to consider voluntary redundancy, aiming to remove 400 staff roles. The trade union Unison and some councillors and local residents criticised the decision, saying that current staffing levels already meant long delays before getting a response from council staff, including one resident who waited three weeks for exposed asbestos to be removed.[15]
Electoral process
Havering, as is the case for all London borough councils, elects all of its councillors at once every four years, with the previous election having taken place in 2018. The election took place by multi-member first-past-the-post voting, with each ward being represented by two or three councillors. Electors have as many votes as there are councillors to be elected in their ward, with the top two or three being elected.
All registered electors (British, Irish, Commonwealth and European Union citizens) living in London aged 18 or over were entitled to vote in the election. People who live at two addresses in different councils, such as university students with different term-time and holiday addresses, were entitled to be registered for and vote in elections in both local authorities.[16] Voting in-person at polling stations took place from 7:00 to 22:00 on election day, and voters were able to apply for postal votes or proxy votes in advance of the election.[16]
