Two Lewisham council cabinet members are vying to become Labour’s candidate for mayor.
Will Cooper, curently cabinet member for better homes, neighbourhoods and homelessness, and Amanda de Ryk, cabinet member for finance, have been shortlisted to be Labour’s candidate in the May mayoral contest.
Brenda Dacres, the Lewisham Mayor since 2024, announced she would not be seeking re‑election after being offered a seat in the House of Lords,
She is the second mayor in a row to leave Lewisham for a seat in parliament. Her predecessor, Damian Egan, became Labour MP for Kingswood in 2024.
In their statements as candidates, Cooper says he has “shouldered one of the toughest briefs as cabinet member for better homes: rescuing a failing housing service, driving down the repairs backlog and ensuring there are 500 fewer families in temporary accommodation.”
De Ryk says she led Lewisham’s “emergency pandemic response and our cost-of-living strategy, finding money to create warm hubs and free food for children in schools.
First elected as a councillor in 2010 for the Blackheath ward, she adds: “As cabinet member for finance for the last eight years I’ve kept our finances safe during austerity.”
Cooper, who was first elected as a councillor for the Evelyn ward in May 2022 says “Tory austerity has fundamentally changed local government.
“I am ready to meet this challenge by thinking outside the box and bringing fresh ideas to the table.” He says his leadership would be about innovation.
De Ryk says she has the experience to win in May and start delivering as Mayor from day one. She insists she does “not want to be an MP but a mayor that stands up for Lewisham .”
Lewisham Labour members will choose one of them to be the party’s candidate for mayor by the end of January 2026.
The Green Party has already chosen its mayoral candidate for May – Liam Shrivastava, who defected from Labour last year and joined the Greens.
Shrivastarava, formerly the Labour councillor for the New Cross ward, argues that because the council lacks proper scrutiny from an opposition it has become “dangerously complacent “.