Brownswood Councillors

Brownswood Councillors

Borough Elections – Thursday 4th May 2006

The elections were a triumph for Labour in Hackney. We went in holding the mayoralty, holding 44 council seats, and most importantly holding Brownswood. We came out holding the mayoralty, holding 44 council seats, and most importantly holding Brownswood.

We also took the Tory Mayoral candidate’s seat in Queensbridge, so if it hadn’t been for the Greens stealing one in Clissold, we would have actually have come out with a larger Labour Group. Jules Pipe’s personal vote for Mayor increased, and overall turnout was up but particularly encouraging in the most keenly fought wards. There are no opposition seats in the south of the borough. It was easily among the best results in the country.

We also increased our majority in Brownswood. Our votes ranged from 977 to 808 while the nearest challenger was a Green on 561.

The magnificent result was down quite simply to hard work, both borough-wide and locally. The borough and constituency agents, Luke Akehurst and Jamie Carswell did a superb job in setting the overall direction and priorities.

Locally, the Labour Party branch ran a campaign that hadn’t been seen for years. We started last September, and were still dragging people in to vote at 10pm on Election Day. We would sincerely like to thank absolutely everyone who helped. There are far too many to list, but we and the branch owe an enormous debt to Peter Dacre and Robin Hewings for everything they did.

Local work

Despite the hectic round of inductions and AGMs, we have already begun work on local issues. We attended our first estate meeting, for Portland Rise and Amwell Court, on the Thursday following election. This has already been followed up with one site visit with another to be arranged. Feryat is taking the lead on these estates.

Darren is leading on the regeneration of Woodberry Down estate and attended his first EDC meeting on the Thursday following Annual Council.

Brian will be chairing the regeneration board for Kings Crescent and has already been actively improving conditions on the estate.

It appears that plans to redevelop the Alexandra National Estate are already well developed and we are due to be briefed on these within the next few days.

Surgery details are being confirmed and will be publicised shortly.

Thank you again to everyone who helped in the campaign.


Brian Bell, Feryat Demirci and Darren Parker