A councillor elected only three weeks ago has been given one of Greenwich’s biggest cabinet roles, taking charge of planning and new developments in the borough.
Tom Creswell, who was voted in as an Abbey Wood councillor on May 7, will become the cabinet member for planning and development in Anthony Okereke’s new-look team.
Okereke confirmed his cabinet line-up at the council’s annual meeting on Wednesday, after Labour won the election with a majority of seven after losing 12 seats to rival parties.
Greenwich now has the only Labour council in SE London after the Greens and Liberal Democrats formed a coalition in Southwark this week. The Greens now control Lewisham while the Conservatives retained Bexley and Bromley.
Creswell, an account manager at a public relations firm, will face a huge in-tray as the councillor in charge of shepherding through the forthcoming Local Plan – with possible curbs on HMOs – and plans for a new town at Thamesmead Waterfront.
Woolwich Arsenal councillor Jackie Smith becomes deputy leader and takes charge of housing and also estate regeneration, with the draft Local Plan raising the possibility of new developments at the the Abbey Wood Estate, the East and West Glyndon estates in Plumstead, the Woolwich Dockyard Estate and the Coldbath and Orchard Estates in Lewisham. No further details have yet been released.
Adel Khaireh (Plumstead & Glyndon) switches roles to take charge of culture, equalities and leisure, while Rachel Taggart-Ryan (Middle Park & Horn Park) takes charge of finance and resources. Sandra Bauer (Kidbrooke Village) moves to children and young people.
Other new faces are Asli Mohammed, in her second term as Woolwich Dockyard councillor, in charge of economy and town centres while Joshua Ayodele (Woolwich Arsenal) takes over community safety.
Calum O’Byrne Mulligan (Creekside) stays as cabinet member for transport, climate change, waste and streets, while Mariam Lolavar (Blackheath Westcombe) remains in charge of health and adult social care.
The key role of chair of planning will be filled by Jeremy Fraser, who was elected to Eltham Park & Progress on May 7. Fraser – a former leader of Southwark Council who later helped set up a planning PR consultancy, Four Communications – will chair the committees that decide on planning applications.
Charlton Village councillor David Gardner will be the ceremonial mayor, replacing former Eltham Park councillor Linda Bird, who chaired the meeting on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the borough’s longest-serving councillor, John Fahy, 83, becomes chair of overview and scrutiny. The former deputy leader and Kidbrooke Park councillor was first elected in 1990.
All the scrutiny panels will be led by Labour councillors – despite an attempt by the Greens and Conservatives to share out chair and vice-chair roles across the different parties, as has happened with the new Green administration in Lewisham. The amendment was voted down.
Green leader Tamasin Rhymes said: “We do feel that it is necessary to look at balance in the scrutiny panel chairs and the move across London, across councils of all varieties, is to appoint opposition chairs to the scrutiny panels in proportion.”
Okereke said every councillor could still participate in scrutiny and added: “Residents in he Royal Borough of Greenwich voted for us to make Greenwich the place to be, and over the next four years, that is exactly what we will be committed to doing, either be it serving in scrutiny roles, serving in the executive, or serving in any function of this council, and I welcome everyone to participate in that process.”
After an attempt by Green deputy leader Stewart Christie to add an extra member to the overview and scrutiny panel, Smith – who had a majority of just 49 votes in her ward – said the council was following legal advice.
She said: “You may talk about the way that London has voted, and indeed the country has voted, but that’s neither here nor there.
“The people in this borough have voted for 35 Labour group members to represent them in this chamber, which has gone against the grain of a lot of the places, and clearly says that they’ve put their confidence in us.
“I can’t remember either Bromley Council or Bexley Council allowing opposition members to take up positions in scrutiny panel chairs ever since I have been active in politics, which has been a very long time.”
Conservative leader Matt Hartley said that Labour needed to learn from its losses in the election, and said Greenwich was now an outlier in not allowing opposition councillors to chair committees.
“What a signal it would send from the leader of the council, who’s just lost a third of his group, to say that actually he recognises that you know what, there isn’t just Labour voices in this borough, there are Green voices, there are Conservative voices, and there are other voices as well,” he said.
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