Forest Hill has two new Labour councillors standing for election this year. I was pleased to have a canvasser knock on my door today. Regardless of who I support, I generally welcome engagement of local candidates.
It would be good to have some hustings organised locally. And to hear from the councillors who are standing down, why they are leaving and what they feel they achieved during their time representing us.
It could be a good idea to suggest something like this as a replacement for the Ward Assemblies since Lewisham seems to have cancelled them - and where candidates for the parties can turn up to chat to residents. It would be hard to have a proper āhustingsā as there would be three candidates per party (in each ward), so that would get rather unwieldy, but a āwalk aroundā version and maybe a panel session with one from each party might be a plan?
I meant hustings for Mayoral candidates.
Well, that could replace the panel. The Forest Hill Society could request and organise one, but weād need to be sure that people were interested.
It would be interesting to organise one here that covered all three local wards, so a large catchment of voters could attend and ask questions, and we would hopefully also meet the different candidates.
Is there a demand for a local hustings?
The assemblies were cancelled as they represented a costly event for little participation, often 10 to 20 would attend, less if you exclude participants and a not very diverse crowd on all demographics.
They did serve a good purpose though in holding our councillors to account, having to endure proper questioning on issues giving a public record to what was happening.
I think that is perhaps one of the questions for future councillors, what would they implement to allow groups of residents to interact with them rather than the less visible 1 to 1 communication.
Residents lost interest in the assemblies when it became clear that decisions would be made elsewhere regardless of views expressed by locals.
I donāt think the assemblies helped with accountability. And the executive mayor system has brought less accountability to the Council. Previously councillors were prepared to investigate and criticize the Chief Exec and hold them accountable. In the current system the Exec Mayor and cabinet are not challenged by councillors.
We have previously organised mayoral and parliamentary hustings in conjunction with the Sydenham Society. There is definitely something to be said for this when electing a new mayor who is solely in charge of the borough - and it gives our area a higher profile in their eyes.
However, most people donāt really care about hustings. They get any information they are likely to get on-line, and we are likely to have most extremist parties than ever before and difficulty in having any cut-off for smaller parties that got less than 5% of the vote in previous mayoral/parliamentary election (Workers Party got 5.7% in 2024 mayoral election, and Reform got 4.8% in the parliamentary election) , so we would probably need to have representatives from six parties (which is unmanageable).
If we set the bar at 10% only three candidates would be allowed (Labour, Green, Lib Dems) but that excludes a lot of parties.
But we also all know that this is a foregone conclusion because Lewisham is overwhelmingly Labour and we have a poor democratic process that doesnāt even allow second preference votes any longer.
I didnāt know until this morning that one of our councillors was no longer in post.
Notice of Vacancy
A Local Government Councillor for the Forest Hill ward in the
London Borough of Lewisham
Notice is hereby given under Section 87(2) of the Local Government Act 1972 that a
casual vacancy exists for the office of Councillor for the Forest Hill ward in the London
Borough of Lewisham.
In accordance with Section 89(3) of the Local Government Act 1972, where the
vacancy occurs within six months before the day on which the councillor whose office
is vacant would regularly have retired, an election shall not be held under Section
89(1) of the Act.
Does anyone know the reason for the vacancy?
Sophie Davis is no longer listed as a councillor on the Lewisham website. I do not know the reason.
The Labour Party leaflet that was posted through our door a week ago, is already out of date. Apparently Brenda Dacres is on her way to the House of Lords, and the new Mayoral candidate for Labour in Lewisham is Amanda De Ryk.
I asked Councillor Harding about why two of our Councillors are not standing again. Sophie Davis resigned as she now has a job as a SPAD (Special Advisor), so I expect weāll see her on TV news trailing behind her Minister, with an armful of briefing papers.
Billie Harding isnāt standing again because he needs more time for study, as heās also working full-time.
My sense is that if a local resident with knowledge of the area, stood for election, they would get some votes.
Just a note (to help set the right context here from the start), this site allows conversations about the general process of local politics and elections, and maybe to comment on specific interactions with the council, but we should steer clear of campaigning, discussions about specific candidates, parties or policies.
I would hope that we all can speak about things that are good, or need changed, and work on solutions together, but we donāt want this to turn into another place for confrontation, as these are things people can often feel rather strongly about.
Hope that is clear. We will have to learn to walk this line together 
Iām not sure I would agree. When there are election periods it is helpful for people to know who they are voting for. It seems appropriate to allow candidates to introduce themselves and engage with discussion. And even without that, I think it is useful to know what our options are and perhaps get a bit of background on candidates from public sources.
So far there are three candidates for mayor of Lewisham according to Mayor of Lewisham: The 3 candidates in London Borough of Lewisham
Amanda De Ryk for Labour (previously Lib Dem until 2013)
Liam Shrivastava for Greens (previously Labour until 2025)
Sylbourne Sydial for the Conservatives (who has his own youtube TV channel)
I would welcome an opportunity to meet all the candidates for councillor, as well as the mayoral candidates. Hopefully some of them will be knocking on my door in the coming weeks. It would also be appreciated if the outgoing candidates were in touch about where things stand with some of the issues weāve raised.
It is very hard to draw a line that is fair to everyone, as you will realise.
If we allow party political (letās call that Political - with a capital P) talk, then it could be an issue that creates animosity even if the justification is well intentioned.
I am totally for discussions that are political (with a small p) since I believe that any suggestions for improvements in the local area, or criticism of decisions that have been taken, are inherently āpoliticalā and here Iāve suggested we can at least try to keep it positive and friendly.
I can totally see that it is fair for:
a) councillors (and candidates) to have their own profiles here to take part, listen to feedback, and maybe provide information - similar to our offer to businesses
b) to list of all local candidates taking part in elections, as well as election dates, hustings events, etc. (as this is a democratic service to residents)
ā¦ but I donāt think we want campaigning (by anyone) here.
I would really like to avoid having to have an opt-in political category (as existed elsewhere in the past) as I suspect that this will channel the behaviour weāre looking to avoid in a local community space. However, Iām open to discussions about that if people want to try that