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London local elections 2026: What are the parties promising in Camden?
Camden Council has long-been a Labour stronghold, but this could all be about to change as voters prepare to head to the polls on May 7.
Labour has maintained control of the borough for all but four years in the last five decades, securing 47 of the 55 ward seats in the 2022 local elections.
Five major parties are standing in almost all electoral wards: the Conservatives, the Greens, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, while minor parties including the National Housing Party and the Camden People’s Alliance are also contesting some seats.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has compiled the key manifesto pledges from each of the main parties, outlining what they promise to deliver should they win or retain power.
Camden Lock in north London
AFP via Getty Images
Camden People’s Alliance
- Use public investment to set up a council-led building programme
- Oppose ‘intermediate’ rents and homes for sale on public land
- Restore planned cyclical repairs programmes to social housing
- Create tenant-run community spaces and halls
- Expand protections for marginalised groups and migrants
- Divest funds from companies linked to human rights abuses and violations of international law
- Invest in violence prevention and community safety especially violence against women and girls
- Reverse school cuts and reduce class sizes
- Deliver universal free school meals
- Provide free nutritious food for elderly residents
- Invest in mental health services for young people
- Place the council’s housing maintenance in special measures to ensure real improvement
- Reverse trend of driving families out of the borough by building 1-2 bedroom apartments
- Oppose the extension of late night licensing hours
- Demand funding for greater police presence on Camden’s streets
- Back the use of CCTV to catch phone snatchers
- Fight to keep schools, health centres and libraries open
Environment and Transport
- Introduce a weekly free car parking period in new high streets to support shopkeepers and commercial premises
- Scrap the fee for garden waste removal
- Employ more in-house building surveyors and managers to make housing repairs more efficient and cost-effective
- Prioritise building ‘genuinely’ affordable homes that go beyond mandated quality standards
- Protect historic markets and traders from cost increases
- Strengthen partnerships with LGBTQI+ organisations
- Divest from companies profiting from genocide and human rights abuses
- Target root causes of crime by taking a cross-departmental and multi-agency approach to crime prevention
- Take a public health approach to serious violence including knife and gun crime
- Cut the high numbers of suspensions and permanent exclusions in schools
- Adopt early intervention public health approach to loneliness to support Camden’s youth
- Work with NHS partners to collate, publish and act on ethnicity‐specific health data, treating disparities as acute public health issues
- Foster a wellbeing economy to prioritise health, happiness and security of people and the planet
Environment and transport
- Set up a climate change task group within the council
- Prioritise renovation and retrofitting buildings over demolition
- Support community initiatives to increase biodiversity and wildlife corridors
- Plan better, safer public transport including a joined-up cycling network across Camden.
- Expanding landlord licensing to enforce private tenants’ rights and improve housing quality
- Invest £670 million in housing repairs and major works, including for fire safety works and lift renewals
- Build 1,400 new homes including 700 affordable homes
- Support pubs and community buildings through Asset of Community Value designation
- Deliver “warm spaces” for residents in colder months
- Provide grant programmes to voluntary and community organisations
- Double the size of the council’s community safety team
- Invest in Safety Bus service for residents
- Expand CCTV monitoring
- Invest £11 million to open two new children’s homes
- Provide an extra after-school club in every Camden school
- Use data for free school meal auto-enrolment
- Invest up to £15 million extra in social care
- Pay care workers London Living Wage
- Introduce a new dementia strategy
Environment and transport
- Identify locations for new parks and plant more trees
- Introduce new bus lanes and increase the number of zebra crossings in the borough
- Install 800 new electric vehicle charging points
- Set up a taskforce to make the most of existing council homes, to review best practice and take action on void turn-arounds and under-occupation
- Change policies to limit conversion of family homes into small flats
- Sell the Crowndale Centre and use the funds on temporary accommodation to cut homelessness
- Promote the borough as a welcoming place for refugees, immigrants and other visitors and reaffirm Camden’s status as a Borough of Sanctuary
- Work with partners to deliver local festivals, performances, markets and cultural events, from farmers’ markets to craft and community events
- Boost the size of community safety teams and those supporting substance misusers
- Pressure the Met Police to stop sending neighbourhood police officers on other assignments
- Invest in preventing violence against women and girls through partnerships with schools, sports clubs, arts and community groups
- Work to ensure parents of children with special educational needs are kept informed about how government reforms will affect them
- Help young people into skilled work in local town centres through SEND internships and apprenticeships and meaningful jobs
- Increase support for blind and partially sighted people by expanding the council’s Sensory Team
- Deliver accessibility improvements, including step-free access, dropped kerbs, tactile paving, better crossings, seating and clear signage
Environment and transport
- Pressure TfL to tackle dirt, noise and neglect on Finchley Road
- Launch a Rewilding Fund to support community-led greening projects
- Require all new developments to include solar panels and battery storage
Reform UK is standing candidates in every electoral ward in Camden, but has not released a manifesto. The LDRS contacted the party’s local branch to ask about its pledges for the borough, but at the time of publication had not received a response.
The party’s key national policies include:
- Immediately leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
- Scrapping indefinite leave to remain for immigrants and rescind existing awards
- Cutting energy bills by ending net zero policies
- Limiting welfare benefits to British citizens
- Rebuilding the UK armed forces
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