Royal Artillery Quays cladding campaigner to stand in by-election

A campaigner who has been fighting the developer behind a riverside housing development has been selected to fight a Greenwich Council by-election next month.

Steve Day will contest West Thamesmead for the Liberal Democrats in the by-election, to be held on December 19. He hopes to succeed Chris Lloyd, who was the Lib Dems’ only councillor in the borough. 

Day has been at the forefront of a campaign by 1,000 residents of the Royal Artillery Quays development who are in dispute with Barratt Homes, which built the blocks two decades ago. 

The residents say that Barratt’s plans to deal with dangerous cladding on their blocks are inadequate – something the developer has strongly denied. Sir Keir Starmer visited the estate three years ago, along with the residents’ Labour MP at the time, Matt Pennycook – now a housing minister. 

Leaseholders 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.

Day chairs the residents’ association at Royal Artillery Quays and founded the Building Safety Scheme campaign to help residents elsewhere. He has also worked with the Earl of Lytton, a crossbench peer, in the House of Lords on legislation to deal with the issue. 

While residents have praised Pennycook and Abena Oppong-Asare, who is now the area’s MP after boundary changes, the Labour council has been accused of not sticking up for residents.

In the summer, Lloyd had hoped to secure Labour backing for a motion at a full council meeting, calling on Barratt to install “gold standard” cladding to cut insurance bills. 

Labour’s ‘Lade Hephzibah Olugbemi, Lloyd’s fellow councillor in West Thamesmead, agreed to second the motion. But after the deadline for submissions she pulled out, saying she needed to get approval from her fellow Labour councillors, and council officers ruled Lloyd’s motion invalid.

However, after The Greenwich Wire started making enquiries about the affair in July, council leader Anthony Okereke did get in touch with residents about the problems they face and it is understood that a Labour motion will be put before the council in December.

Day said: “Having campaigned for four years for 1,000 residents at Royal Artillery Quays to have unlawfully installed, dangerous cladding removed, I’m appalled that the work is still without a start date. A further blow came when a Labour councillor removed their signature from a Lib Dem motion to make our homes safe, sellable and insurable at the last minute, causing the motion to fail. 

“Since then I’ve felt the council has ignored my calls for action which pushed me to stand as a Lib Dem councillor to challenge this in public. I chose the Lib Dems as I agree with their national manifesto and was impressed by the significant public support locally from Chris Lloyd.  I would also love to get  involved in helping resolve other local issues and challenge the council where I can.”

Day pledged to meet as many residents as possible during the campaign, and has also said he will press the council on fly-tipping, potholes in roads and cycle paths, and to campaign to demolish a wall blocking Royal Artillery Quays from the next-door Royal Arsenal estate in Woolwich..

While Day will hope to count on votes from his neighbours in Royal Artillery Quays, he will face a formidable Labour machine which can count on help from elsewhere in London. But his entry into a by-election in an ultra-safe seat adds an element of unpredictability, especially considering the low turnouts for such polls.  Only 22 per cent turned out for last week’s Shooters Hill by-election.

If he is elected, Day would be the first Liberal Democrat to win an election in the borough for more than 18 years. Members of the Lib Dems and its predecessor parties were regularly elected in the 1980s and 1990s, but the last to be elected were Paul Webbewood and Brian Woodhead in the old Middle Park & Sutcliffe ward in 2006, when the party’s contingent was cut from four to two. 

One of the Lib Dems who lost their seat that year, Mark Pattenden, was beaten in Eltham South by an up-and-coming Conservative politician, Liz Truss, by just 57 votes. Webbewood and Woodhead lost their seats in 2010, when the council election coincided with a general election, and the Lib Dems have struggled to gain a foothold since then.

Lloyd spent more than nine years as a Labour councillor – firstly in the old Peninsula ward before switching to West Thamesmead in 2022 – but quit the party in December last year after accusing a fellow councillor of making a homophobic remark. He joined the Lib Dems in May, but resigned from the town hall three weeks ago after deciding to move to Wales. 

Lloyd said: “It was a honour to serve as a councillor in West Thamesmead. Stepping down to move closer to my family was an incredibly tough decision, but I must say that it made easier knowing that Steve Day was prepared to step forward and seek election in my place.

“Steve has all the qualities that make an excellent councillor. He is tenacious, articulate and I know he already has a track record of delivering real results for his neighbours.”

The full list of candidates is expected to be published on Friday. Residents will need to be registered to vote by December 3, while the deadline for postal vote applications is the following day.

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