Cllr John Moss is a councillor in Waltham Forest and Chairman of the Chingford & Woodford Green Conservatives
Chingford & Woodford Green sits across two boroughs, Waltham Forest and Redbridge. Labour has run Waltham Forest with an outright majority for the last 16 years, four before that with the Lib-Dems as very much the junior coalition partner, and then for twenty further years before that back to 1986. There was a four year spell with a Conservative/Liberal coalition from 1982 to 1986 and three glorious years with a Conservative majority from 1968 to 1971. All the rest of the time there was a Labour majority.
In contrast, Redbridge was historically a Conservative-led council, with majority Conservative administrations from 1965 right up to 1994, after which there was an eight year period of no overall control with, initially, a five-year Labour administration, then a brief Conservative administration, before Labour again ran the council from 2000 up to the 2002 elections. The Conservatives then had a majority until 2010, and ran the Council with the Lib-Dems until Labour took outright control in 2014. The Conservatives collapsed to 11 seats in 2018 and just five in 2022.
As the Green Party won its first ever seat in Waltham Forest just after lunchtime on Friday, taking one seat in a two member ward, Conservatives at the count mused about the possibility of that pattern being repeated and the Conservatives holding the balance of power in Waltham Forest should neither the Labour Party or the Greens secure a majority. ’Twas not to be. There is now a Green Party majority with 31 seats, Labour have 15 and the Conservatives 14.
The possibility of an upset in Redbridge was always much less. There were fewer Green Party candidates as the Jeremy-Corbyn-backed Redbridge Independents stood in multiple wards chasing the same voters. This helped Labour retain their majority, though they did drop 10 seats in total. Two of those were taken by the Conservatives in Bridge ward, which had been split one Conservative, two Labour in 2022. We also retained the two Conservative seats in Monkhams ward, a traditionally safe Conservative ward. Unfortunately the Conservatives lost the other two seats they had won in 2022 and failed to win any other seats in the borough.
So why were the Conservatives in Chingford & Woodford Green able to gain six seats, when Ilford North, Ilford South, Walthamstow and Leyton & Wanstead constituencies could not?
Might it be the embedded support for our MP, Sir Iain Duncan Smith? Partly. He has a great reputation locally, but he wasn’t on the ballot paper and there are plenty of areas in London that don’t have a Conservative MP where the Conservatives retained and even won seats on Thursday.
No; our success was down to long-term activity over many years as councillors and with our MP. That has given us an excellent hinterland of data as well as local reputation with which to persuade people we remain worthy of their vote.
That was certainly the case in the ward I represent, where our closest challenger was the Chingford & Woodford Green Independents, an offshoot of Faiza Shaheen’s independent campaign in the 2024 General Election. ‘In Solidarity’ the Greens did not put up candidates, but with Labour tied up in Walthamstow, they out-paced Labour with over 1,000 votes to Labour’s 800. Reform took 500 to our 1,500. Those numbers show how the gap between left and right is narrowing in a ward where the Conservatives used to regularly poll over 60%.
In our strongest wards in Waltham Forest, Chingford Green and Endlebury wards the story was similar, with the left vote splitting between Green, Labour and Lib-Dems. However in both wards our winning totals comfortably exceeded 55% of the votes.
In Valley ward we had seen Labour take one seat for the last three elections,last time by just nine votes after a recount. Not this time. Labour were defending that single seat and added another sitting councillor who lived in that ward to the ballot, alongside a new candidate. However, the independents also stood here and between them they effectively split the anti-Conservative vote, leaving us with a comfortable majority.
Our most difficult challenge in Waltham Forest was in Hatch Lane & Highams Park North ward where three councillors elected as Conservatives had defected to Reform after they failed to be re-adopted as candidates. We had to bed in new candidates and build their profiles as well as cajole and support them as they ramped up their own activity levels to what we see as normal in Chingford!
So from September to March surveys, ‘Dear Neighbour’ letters and regular InTouches were delivered, backed up by matching online campaigns. Social media ads were used effectively to build local profiles and the candidates themselves were out three or four times a week. They reported casework to existing councillors who got things done before the incumbents could respond. So many messages were received about their hard work and dedication that we were hopeful that they had made enough of an impact by the time nominations opened.
In our Redbridge wards, we have what is probably one of the few wards in London that can be regarded as ‘safe’. Our two candidates there were returned with increased majorities of almost 1,500 votes in a two member ward!
Our other target ward selected early, but suffered a set-back as one candidate chose to resign after he suffered a bereavement late last year. He then also joined and stood for Reform!
We quickly replaced him and we were very lucky to find a great replacement who had been a local councillor before, and who knew how to put literature together online. He also took on the role of Agent for this and an adjacent, non-target ward.
I’m very pleased to say that he marshalled the other candidates and delivered all three seats. This is the ward where we came closest to losing to Reform, who had run a good campaign here in 2022, sufficiently so to reduce our 2nd and 3rd candidates’ votes below that of two Labour candidates. Reform. Did not win, but they ended up only 150 votes behind our lowest polling candidate.
The great Andrew Kennedy always says, “Where we work, we win.” That is why we won across Chingford & Woodford Green. It allowed us to make the elections about local issues and overcome the very powerful Reform message of change. I know this because the door-step conversations were often with people who were still saying they would vote Reform in the next General Election, but they were backing their local Conservatives this time.
It’s a start and a contrast with 2025 when they didn’t even do that.