Newham’s Labour mayor has climbed down in a row over who should lead the borough’s new neighbourhood forums, agreeing that opposition councillors will be allowed to take charge of some of the bodies.
Forhad Hussain announced the concession at a council leaders’ meeting on Wednesday, telling opposition figures: “I want to show collaboration.”
The climbdown marks the end of a weeks-long dispute that had threatened to stall one of the mayor’s flagship policies: eight new “community neighbourhoods” designed to feed local opinion directly into his decision-making.
Under the original plan, all eight of the neighbourhoods were to be led by Labour councillors appointed by the mayor — even in areas where voters have returned mostly Newham Independent or Green councillors.
Opposition groups had refused to take part. Newham Independents and Green councillors argued the plan would sideline the very areas they represent, and scrutiny committee chair Sophia Naqvi had put it bluntly to the mayor’s team: “We’re concerned that this model does not properly represent the composition of the council.”
Hussain said opposition councillors chosen to lead the neighbourhoods would be expected to “put politics aside and put residents first”.
Why the row matters
The dispute goes to the heart of how Newham is governed. May’s local elections left no single party with overall control of the council for the first time since 1968 — a result that shattered decades of uninterrupted Labour dominance at the town hall.
The mayor’s office is now operating in a council where every major decision has to reckon with opposition votes. Critics said appointing Labour loyalists to run all eight neighbourhoods — Stratford and West Ham, Forest Gate, Manor Park, Green Street, Plaistow, East Ham, Beckton and Royal Docks, and Custom House and Canning Town — ignored the electoral reality.
An independent expert appointed by the council to oversee improvement at the town hall, Rob Whiteman, also called on Hussain to change course.
What the forums are meant to do
Labour-led Newham Council wants the neighbourhood forums to bring together ward councillors and community representatives to draw up plans for their areas, with the aim of speeding up how local issues are resolved.
Council managers say the model is intended to catch problems at a neighbourhood level “a lot more swiftly and quicker without loads of bureaucratic processes” — a pitch aimed at residents who feel large councils can be slow to respond.
The forums would then feed recommendations back to the mayor through councillors appointed to lead them, known as “lead members”. It was that appointment power — and the insistence that every lead member be a Labour councillor — that triggered the boycott.
What happens next
Hussain had already urged opposition councillors to “have a go” at the scheme for a six-month trial, but the offer of opposition-led neighbourhoods goes further. The detail that remains unclear is how the eight neighbourhoods will be divided between Labour and opposition lead members, and whether the opposition groups will now take up their seats at the table.
Elsewhere in the capital, councils are facing their own democratic reckonings. Lambeth recently backed down over plans to demolish estates in Central Hill and Cressingham Gardens after a resident backlash, while Havering is still working through complaints against 21 of its councillors.
The episode has also shown the limits of mayoral authority in a council without an overall majority. With the opposition now holding real leverage over the administration’s flagship reforms, future policy fights at Newham Town Hall are likely to be fought on much more even terms. It comes as councils across the capital lobby for a fairer settlement in the Fair Funding Review — a reminder that town halls are under pressure from every direction at once.
