An insurgent Green Party is pledging to protect green spaces, build genuinely affordable housing, and involve residents as much as possible in decision-making

By Marco Marcelline

Green Party candidates, Anna Rose Kerr in St James, Eva Tabbasam in Cann Hall, and Paul Perkins in Forest, are hoping to turn rising interest in their party into seats at the town hall.

All three say they are standing because they believe the council is “failing residents on the basics”. For Anna Rose Kerr, the motivation to run for election comes from her work with young people.

“I know young people who are in council care who have just been completely neglected,” she says. “This is an amazing place for toddlers, but the minute a child becomes a teenager it feels like they’re policed, and they’re not considered part of our community.”

She wants to act as a “corporate parent” who ensures teenagers “have a voice in the future” and grow up “loving living in Waltham Forest”.

Paul Perkins, standing in Forest and serving as the party’s co‑chair, says his decision to run came after struggling to get responses from sitting councillors about broken playground equipment and a mothballed pavilion in Abbots Park. “After my ninth email, I didn’t get a response,” he said. “It was a case of saying, well, if not them, then why not me?”

Meanwhile, Eva Tabbasam, a Green candidate in Cann Hall, says her experience of homelessness and temporary accommodation shaped her decision to stand.

“I’ve grown up in social housing, been homeless, been in B&Bs,” she explains. “Family members and friends are in temporary housing and the way they’ve been treated by the council is disgusting and really inhumane.” She adds that she wants to challenge what she sees as a lack of empathy in decision‑making.

Our interview takes place in the context of a recent YouGov poll that placed the Greens as the most popular party with voters in London. National party membership has quadrupled since Zack Polanski became leader, with Perkins saying that Polanski has helped articulate “positivity” at a time when “opposition parties have been quite negative”.

He adds: “People want to be part of that.” On the doorstep, Tabbasam said she hears from “really disillusioned Labour voters” who feel “taken for granted”.

Others are so fed up they are considering not voting at all. “They don’t feel listened to,” she says. “So we break it down, we
find out what the issues are – usually housing, neglected repairs, overcrowding, bins ‑ and then they feel there’s a bit of hope.”

Perkins says Palestine is a major issue raised in Forest ward, alongside concerns about the state of roads and services. “A very large number of people commenting on pavements from an accessibility perspective; anybody should be able to go to their local shop.”

Residents also feel decisions on traffic and cycling schemes are made “without asking how it’s going to work in this particular neighbourhood”.

The Greens’ manifesto centres on five pledges: affordable housing, “getting the basics right”, making Waltham Forest
“a great place to grow up”, protecting green spaces, and creating a council that “listens and leads with integrity”.

On housing, Tabbasam says the party wants “accountability and transparency about contracts and relationships with developers”. She criticised the borough’s definition of affordability, saying shared ownership “is not accessible for quite a lot of people”, and opines that council temporary accommodation failures are “the norm”, citing a family of five left waiting in their car for hours after eviction.

Perkins adds that viability assessments used by developers to reduce affordable housing requirements are “super problematic because it’s marking their own homework”.

On day‑to‑day services, Kerr says the priority is “getting the basics right”, from bins to repairs. “Bins are such a big issue,” Tabbasam adds. “We went from weekly to every two weeks – that hasn’t made our places cleaner. We have more rubbish everywhere, more vermin.”

Meanwhile, Perkins wants a “public scorecard” so residents can see how quickly issues like fly‑tipping or broken
equipment are resolved.

Amid the doom and gloom, they also acknowledge areas where the council has succeeded. Kerr praised tree‑planting and flower schemes, while Tabbasam pointed to recent playground improvements such as Drapers Field.

Perkins says “big shiny investments” in Walthamstow, including cultural venues, have helped “give a sense of stuff hap‑
pening” in the borough.

On active travel, all three support bringing dockless hire bikes to Waltham Forest, but only with proper consultation. “We’d like to see it done right and with residents,” says Perkins.

Deeper resident involvement is evidently a key theme for the Greens. Tabbasam says consultation should be “institutionalised and embedded”, not “ad hoc”. Kerr said her day job as a creative practitioner focuses on “imagining collective better futures” and she wants to bring that approach into local government, and Perkins says the party wants a standing citizens’ assembly.

All three say they are optimistic of the Greens’ chances. Kerr is “personally very confident”, noting her party came within 463 votes of winning St James last time, while a “hopeful” Perkins says that the biggest challenge is convincing residents that the Greens are not a wasted vote.

You can read the Greens’ manifesto here

Read our interviews with each party standing in the election and find out their manifesto by reading our May issue – find out where to pick up a copy here

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