Ladywell goes to the polls on May 7 to elect three ward councillors and vote for the Lewisham Mayor. Here candidates from the Greens, Labour and the Conservatives put forward their views.
Nick Kelly, Labour Party
Your Labour candidates in Ladywell understand the power of local government and what it can deliver for residents. Together, my running mates bring deep roots and proven commitment to our community.
Collet Hunter founded a local charity following the tragic loss of her son to knife crime, transforming personal grief into lasting support for others.
Ayesha Lahai‑Taylor has served as a councillor in neighbouring Brockley Ward since 2022, is a school governor at St Mary’s Primary School in Ladywell, and works within another London council—giving her invaluable frontline experience.
My own background is in trade unions and the charity sector, where I successfully campaigned to keep vital helplines open for older people escaping abuse, ensuring they had someone to listen and a real route to safety and support.
Local government is easy to overlook — but it has more impact on our daily lives than almost any other level of politics. It’s responsible for the rubbish and recycling we put out each week, the pavements we walk on, the parks our families rely on, and the planning consent that decides what gets built in our neighbourhoods.
Lewisham Council takes decisions every day that shape our streets, our homes and our quality of life. That’s why who represents us matters — and why we need local councillors who are prepared to stand up for residents, understand the powers they hold, and use them to make Lewisham a better place to live.
Labour is delivering real results for Ladywell. Your Labour council is building 100 genuinely affordable homes at Ladywell Park Gardens, taking action to tackle London’s housing crisis and help local people stay in the borough.
Labour councillors fought to secure an extension to the Lewisham Donation Hub lease, protecting vital support for refugees, asylum seekers and residents facing extreme poverty.
We stepped in to save the much loved Ladywell PreSchool nursery from closure, keeping an essential community service open for local families. And Labour has brought in funding for new tennis courts and gym equipment in Hilly Fields, alongside major upgrades to the Lewisham Park playground — visible, practical improvements that are making a difference to everyday life in Ladywell.
Recently, Collet, Ayesha and I joined local volunteers at a River clean-up in Ladywell Fields — a reminder that protecting our environment takes both community action and political leadership. Under Labour, Lewisham Council is backing residents with real action, including cutting the cost of bulky waste collection to just £5 per item.
This Labour led change is already helping residents dispose of waste responsibly, tackling flytipping at its source and protecting Ladywell’s streets, green spaces and waterways.
But there is more to come. Labour has launched a campaign to save the Ravensbourne Arms as a vital community space at the heart of Ladywell.
Developers want to convert the building into yet another House in Multiple Occupation. While we recognise the urgent need for more housing in London, it cannot come at the cost of losing the community spaces that bring neighbourhoods together.
Whatever the outcome of this election, Labour will continue to stand with residents and fight to keep the Ravensbourne Arms as a community asset for Ladywell. You can sign our online petition here: https://survey.labour.org.uk/protectravensbournearms
Our opponents in this election are only just putting forward a local manifesto for Lewisham, despite it being just daysbefore the election. Instead, their focus is on issues well beyond the powers of the council, offering simplistic slogans on complex international conflicts while ignoring the everyday decisions that matter here in Ladywell.
Far from “sending a message to government”, all this does is show a fundamental misunderstanding of what local government does — and of what it takes to do the hard work of delivering for residents locally for the next four years.
By contrast, your Labour candidates understand both the responsibilities and the possibilities of local government. Labour has set out a clear and ambitious manifesto rooted in fairness, community and practical action — focused on protecting what makes Lewisham special while investing in its future.
From defending valued community spaces to improving services and opportunities for local people, Labour’s plan is about building a borough that works for everyone. Our Manifesto – Lewisham Labour Party – Lewisham Labour
Ben Mascall, Conservative Party
Ladywell is one of the loveliest places in Lewisham, but too many residents feel the basics are being taken for granted. Residents want clean streets, safer roads, better policing, and a council that focuses on making everyday things that make a neighbourhood work.
As Ladywell-live itself has reported, Lewisham is ranked 172 out of 296 local authorities in England under the government’s latest deprivation index – and Ladywell’s position has changed little since 2019, the last time the index was published.
We don’t want our ward to stand still, we want to see improvements.
Safer streets is a priority. Residents should feel confident walking home at night, reporting crime, and knowing action will follow. And this also means tackling fly-tipping, graffiti, missed repairs, and the slow decline that people notice long before the council does.
This will help family, community and local business flourish. Ladywell deserves public spaces that are looked after properly, not managed on the cheap. In Ladywell Fields for example, persistent littering and overflowing bins are becoming a normality for those who enjoy these spaces.
It also means standing up for local families and local traders. Too often, Lewisham Council makes life harder with higher costs, weak accountability, and decisions that feel imposed rather than discussed.
Residents on the doorsteps are voicing their concerns about the developing cost of living crisis, which coincides with the recent 4.9% increase in council tax.
The Conservatives would push for a council that listens earlier, spends money more carefully, and gets back to doing the basics well.
We also believe growth has to work for existing residents. New development should bring housing that works for everyone, not just developers, as well as better transport. This means accountability for budgets.
Ladywell needs change that is fair, practical, and rooted in the community with a council that remembers its first job is to serve residents well.
Robin McGhee, Green Party
On May 7, people in Ladywell have the chance to elect a team of hard-working Green councillors rooted in the community. The Greens are so close to winning in Ladywell- no other party can win here against Labour, and at the last council election the Greens came within just 120 votes of taking a seat.
The Green party candidates in Ladywell are Shireen Asaw, Robin McGhee and Ed Sutton.
We have already been working hard, attending community events, helping local people with their problems, and above all, listening to people here about their concerns and the change they want to see in Ladywell and across Lewisham.
The issues we’ve heard about most in Ladywell are housing, fly-tipping, road safety, and the loss of community spaces like the Ladywell Playtower.
In Lewisham, 17% of social housing stock does not meet the Decent Homes Standard. As candidates, we’ve spoken to thousands of people in Ladywell and poor-quality housing is one of the issues we hear about most often.
We’ll work hard to ensure everyone in Lewisham lives in good quality housing, while pushing to build more homes for social rent, deliver more family homes, and expand retrofitting of existing council homes to improve energy efficiency.
As Lewisham Green Party, we would also launch a community-led housing strategy, partnering with co-operatives, Community Land Trusts and residents to deliver new affordable homes including 1,000 new social rented homes..
In Ladywell, flytipping is a particularly big problem which we hear about a lot. We will deliver an anti- fly-tipping strategy and improve estate waste systems, organising community skip days, beautifying problem areas, and increasing enforcement at hotspots.
Listening to residents, traffic and road safety is another big issue here, particularly on Ladywell Road and Vicars Hill. If we are elected, we will work closely with the community groups and campaigners like Healthier Streets for Ladywell and Save the School Run to develop traffic-calming measures and ways to make Ladywell a better place for cyclists and pedestrians.
The Greens also want to protect community spaces. The Ladywell Playtower, a historic local building with so much potential, lies empty and unused.
We’re passionate about bringing it back into community use after years of inaction and have already taken part in the big Ladywell Playtower clean-up in March.
We’ll work hard to put people in Ladywell at the heart of any development plans.
We also want to see that the Ravensbourne Arms, a pub which has been closed since 2016, is used by the community again, and have met with a potential future developer who wants to turn it back into a pub..
As your Green Party candidates in Ladywell, we will listen and work closely with the community to deliver a politics of hope.