Waltham Forest Green Party

The Waltham Forest Green Party is the local branch of the Green Party of England and Wales operating within the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

In May 2026, the party won overall control of Waltham Forest London Borough Council for the first time, becoming the first Green-controlled council in London.

Paul Perkins and Eva Tabbasam were appointed joint leaders of the Green group of councillors on 14 May 2026, assuming the respective positions of leader and deputy leader of Waltham Forest Council.

Organisation The Waltham Forest branch of the Ecology Party was founded in May 1978. A separate Redbridge branch of the Ecology Party was meeting independently from at least 1984.

The Ecology Party had renamed itself the Green Party of England and Wales in 1985. The Waltham Forest and Redbridge branches subsequently operated as a combined entity from around 2003, before separating into independent borough-level organisations ahead of the 2022 local elections.

The Waltham Forest Green Party operates through ward-based groups and specialist teams, with elected roles chosen annually by members. Ahead of the 2026 local elections, Rob Gardner served as party co-chair alongside Paul Perkins.

Electoral history

Ecology Party years (1978–1985)

The Waltham Forest branch of the Ecology Party was founded in May 1978. This is recorded in a branch secretary's report of May 1980, held at the LSE Library as part of the archived papers of former national party chair Jonathon Porritt. By 1980, the London Ecology Party was operating from Walthamstow, with Jean Lambert acting as regional co-ordinator.

Role of Steve Lambert Steve Lambert joined the Ecology Party in 1976 and convened the first meeting of the London Ecology Party in October of that year. In November 1986, he wrote a contemporaneous chronology of the London Ecology Party's formation on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. Alongside Jonathon Porritt and Jonathan Tyler, he was elected to the national party's executive committee at its 1977 conference.The Waltham Forest branch's earliest electoral activity came at the local elections in 1978, when Steve Lambert stood in Hoe Street under the banner of the "Save London Alliance" — a coalition of independent and Ecology Party candidates standing across the city — receiving 215 votes (5.6%). His election leaflet, archived at the LSE, set out a platform of conserving natural resources, pollution control, energy self-sufficiency and local democracy. Also confirmed by: The "Alliance" fielded candidates across the capital, including Jonathon Porritt's candidacy in Hamilton Terrace ward, Westminster.

Steve Lambert went on to stand at the 1979 general election in the Chingford constituency, receiving 649 votes (1.5%). At the 1983 general election in the Walthamstow constituency, he received 424 votes (1.3%).

By the 1982 council elections, the branch had expanded considerably, fielding candidates across the borough, including Chingford Green, Hale End, Hatch Lane, Hoe Street and Larkswood. The London Ecology Party also contested the 1981 Greater London Council election, polling 17,515 votes across 38 seats contested, on a manifesto entitled Green Light for London.

Early Green Party years (1986–1989)

1986 local elections The Ecology Party changed its name to the Green Party of England and Wales in 1985. The branch contested the 1986 local elections under the Green Party name for the first time, fielding candidates across multiple wards, including Chapel End, Chingford Green, Hale End, Hatch Lane, High Street, Hoe Street, Larkswood, Leyton and Wood Street. Steve Lambert stood again in Hoe Street, receiving 318 votes (7.0%).

Role of Jean Lambert

A notable figure during this period was Jean Lambert, a teacher in Walthamstow who joined the Ecology Party in 1977. She was secretary of the London Ecology Party in 1977. She later served as co-chair of the Ecology Party from 1982 to 1985 — alongside Jonathon Porritt and Paul Ekins — and later as co-chair of the Green Party from 1986 to 1987.

Jean Lambert also helped establish the London Green Party, contributed to drafting the constitution of the Green Party of England and Wales, and served as chair of the national party executive in 1994. She was the Greens' Principal Speaker in 1992–93 and 1998–99, and was one of the UK's first Green Members of the European Parliament for London in 1999, serving until 2019.

As a Green MEP for London, she engaged in Waltham Forest events and initiatives. Earlier, as the London Ecology Party coordinator, she submitted comments to a Newham report on public awareness of nuclear waste transport through London in 1981, a cause she continued to champion as an MEP, speaking at a demonstration against nuclear waste trains on the North London line in 2010.

Green Party activities (1990–2023) For over three decades after its foundation, the Waltham Forest Green Party fielded candidates at both parliamentary and local levels but won no seats on Waltham Forest Council.

1990 council elections At the 1990 local elections, held in the wake of a national Green Party "surge" at the 1989 European election, it fielded candidates across thirteen Waltham Forest wards, receiving 5,377 votes (2.42%) borough-wide — its strongest result to that point.

Steve Lambert stood for in Hoe Street at twelve consecutive elections between 1978 and 2022, with his vote share growing from 5.6% in 1978 to 32.2% in 2022. Despite a steady increase in vote share, England's first-past-the-post voting system consistently prevented the branch from gaining representation. The borough-wide vote share across this period was as follows: Election 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 Votes 5,377 2,051 2,408 4,487 8,094 12,133 10,482 10,963 12,396 Vote share 2.42% 1.07% 1.70% 2.89% 4.7% 4.3% 5.6% 5.5% 7.5% Seats 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 The party experienced a growth in membership during this period. In February 2015, the East London and West Essex Guardian reported that its membership had risen by 354% since January 2014, reflecting a broader rise in national Green Party membership ahead of the 2015 general election. The Waltham Forest branch increase was part of a broader phenomenon, as between October 2014 and May 2015, the Green Party's membership across England and Wales increased from under 20,000 to over 60,000 in a period described as the "Green surge".

RoseMary Warrington A long-standing figure in the Waltham Forest party was RoseMary Warrington, a local resident who joined the Green Party in 2009 and stood as a candidate in Waltham Forest Council elections from 2010 onwards. She was an officer of the branch from 2011 and of the London Green Party from 2012. Warrington was later elected to represent Leytonstone in the 2026 council elections, receiving 1,707 votes.

Melanie Strickland Another borough resident associated with the branch was Melanie Strickland, one of the Stansted 15; a group of fifteen activists who, in March 2017, peacefully blocked a deportation flight at Stansted Airport. The group was convicted under the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990, and their convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal in February 2021. Strickland's membership of the Waltham Forest Greens was noted in a letter published in The Guardian in October 2018.

2022 local elections At the 2022 local elections, the branch received 7.5% of the borough-wide vote (12,396 votes) but returned no councillors, while the Labour Party won 47 of 60 seats with 59.2% of the vote. Rachel Barrat received 1,132 votes (42.0%) in St James ward and Charlotte Lafferty received 557 votes (19.3%) in Leytonstone ward. The strongest performances were concentrated in inner wards such as St James, Leytonstone and William Morris, where Green candidates achieved double-digit vote shares despite no councillors being elected.

2024 general election The 2024 general election marked a significant shift in the branch's electoral profile across the borough. In the Walthamstow constituency, Rosie Rowlands came second with 9,176 votes (20.0%), a swing of +16.4 percentage points — the branch's strongest parliamentary result in the borough to that date. In the Leyton and Wanstead constituency, Charlotte Lafferty also came second with 6,791 votes (15.5%), a swing of +11.7 percentage points. The results reflected an increase in Green support across the borough, with the party overtaking the Conservatives in both Walthamstow and Leyton and Wanstead.

The three Waltham Forest constituencies were won by Stella Creasy (Labour/Co-op, Walthamstow), Calvin Bailey (Labour, Leyton and Wanstead) and Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative, Chingford and Woodford Green). The branch did not contest the marginal constituency of Chingford and Woodford Green in 2024 in an attempt to help defeat Duncan Smith.

Activities between 2024–26 Following the 2024 general election, the branch underwent a period of organisational change. Membership increased from 630 in September 2025 to over 1,400 by late October — a 122% increase in under two months — driven in part by dissatisfaction with the Labour government and the popularity of new national party leader Zack Polanski. The branch established a campaigning team in the borough for the first time, with members conducting door-knocking and leafleting across wards where it had previously run minimal campaigns.

Candidates including Solène Fabios, who had stood independently in Lea Bridge in 2022, joined the branch ahead of the 2026 elections. In the 2022 local elections, Green candidates had finished second behind Labour in twelve of the borough's twenty-two wards — seven of them in Walthamstow — providing the organisational foundation for a borough-wide challenge in 2026.

2026 local elections

The Waltham Forest Greens' 2026 campaign took place against a backdrop of sharply rising Green Party support nationally under Zack Polanski, who had been elected party leader in September 2025 — and under whose leadership national membership tripled to over 200,000 by March 2026 — with the Greens overtaking both Labour and the Conservatives in national polls for the first time in March 2026. Locally, the campaign was shaped by significant Labour vulnerability following the council's emergency £19 million government loan and a substantial increase in membership.

Campaign Ahead of the 7 May 2026 local elections, the Waltham Forest Greens published a manifesto entitled Hope and a Plan for Waltham Forest. According to contemporaneous reporting, the manifesto centred on three broad commitments: open and accountable governance, community-led decision-making, and investment in local services. Proposed policies included measures on affordable housing, a dedicated renters' support service, reform of adult social care, street cleaning and road maintenance, youth sports and arts provision, guaranteed resident access to green space, and publication of a divestment roadmap for the council's pension fund.

Candidates were fielded in all wards except Larkswood and Valley, where the Greens stood aside in support of the Chingford and Woodford Green Community Independents — a group backed by Faiza Shaheen, the former Labour politician who had been controversially deselected as the Labour candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green ahead of the 2024 general election. The group fielded six candidates across Larkswood and Valley but did not win any seats.

Ahead of the election, a YouGov poll commissioned by Sky News projected the Green Party would win the largest share of votes in Waltham Forest, ending sixteen years of Labour control of the council — a finding Labour dismissed as "speculative". The same poll projected further Green gains in Hackney, Lewisham and Lambeth.

Election results