The local elections on Thursday 7th May is set to be one of the most exciting in generations as Labour attempts to face off the Greens in the south of the borough, and Reform eyes seats in Chingford
By Marco Marcelline
This year’s local election is set to be one of the most exciting in generations as Labour faces a multi-pronged challenge to its incumbency amid surging support for the Greens in the south of the borough while Reform UK and the Conservatives battle it out for seats in the north. Here’s the voting picture across the borough:
Chingford and Highams Park
Reform has confirmed it will field candidates in all the borough’s wards, but their biggest chance of success will be in right-leaning Chingford, where the Conservatives are mounting a strong campaign in defence of their ten seats.
That campaign may have been somewhat rocked by the announcement of three defections to Reform in recent months, even if they were councillors that had already been deselected by the Tories.
Leaving the Conservative Party in January, Highams Park North and Hatch Lane councillors Tim James and Marion Fitzgerald both said their former party had “lost its way”.
However, despite dire national polling, the Tories may hold onto many of their seats in Chingford due to their active local presence and campaigning on issues ranging from the abolition of free parking, flytipping, and overdevelopment.
Meanwhile, left-leaning voters in Larkswood and Valley wards will have the option of voting in candidates belonging to an independent community group backed by the former Labour politician Faiza Shaheen.
Chingford & Woodford Green Community Independents (CWGCI) grew out of the 2024 General Election, when the Labour Party deselected Shaheen and picked Brent councillor Shama Tatler to run in her place. Shaheen then stood as an independent and achieved
an almost identical vote share to Tatler, who came second behind incumbent Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
The group say they will challenge “politics as usual” and give local residents a “stronger voice in decisions affecting their area”.
They’re also pushing for “the improvement of youth safety and local services, holding developers to account, the reopening of the Broadmead Road bridge, the development of a community plan for South Chingford, and the creation of people’s assemblies”.
Walthamstow
Labour’s energies are going to be focused on retaining their majority in the more densely populated south of the borough. But these are exactly the seats where Labour faces a significant challenge from left-leaning voters who are picking the Greens for the first time.
Labour have a right to be worried; the Greens say membership in Waltham Forest has surged from 630 in September 2025 to over 1,400 in November, a 122% increase.
In the 2022 local elections, Green Party candidates came second behind Labour in twelve of 22 Waltham Forest wards, seven of which were in Walthamstow.
Given Labour presently has a 16-seat majority, in the perhaps overly optimistic scenario that the Greens come first in every single ward which they came second in 2022, the self-described “eco-populists” would only need to snatch four more seats to wipe out Labour’s long-held majority control of the town hall.
Such an event could result in a Labour-Green coalition, which would be the first instance of shared governance at the town hall since 2006, when Labour governed with the Liberal Democrats.
St James is one of the more likely Walthamstow wards to turn Green in May; in 2022, the Green candidate came 463 votes short of winning a seat.
The area is one of many in Walthamstow where there has been upset over planned high-rise student housing, and the Greens have sought to capitalise on broader debates around development density and infrastructure capacity by positioning themselves as both pro-environment and pro-community consultation.
Leyton and Leytonstone
However, while Labour definitely faces the first test to its large majority since 2010, the party could be helped out by a more crowded field on the left than usual.
In Leyton and Leytonstone, demographic change over the past decade has made many wards competitive. Amid disquiet over Labour’s record on Gaza, Your Party, the turbulent outfit launched by Jeremy Corbyn and fellow ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana last year, could split the left-wing anti-Labour vote.
The Liberal Democrats could also split the left-of-centre vote in several Leyton and Leytonstone wards such as Grove Green where they gained one third of votes in 2022. The party has been targeting the area heavily, focusing on local campaigning around street safety, potholes, haphazard bin collections, and Whipps Cross Hospital.
While Labour retains a fairly strong activist base and sizable majorities, if opposition votes concentrate effectively, swings in multi-member wards could produce surprise results.
Ultimately, the picture in Leyton and Leytonstone is less about a single insurgent force and more about fragmentation. If the Greens turn second-place finishes into wins, they could quickly chip away at Labour’s southern dominance. But if votes splinter off between the Greens, Liberal Democrats, Your Party, TUSC, and Reform, Labour may find its majority dented but not decisively broken.
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