Lewisham Council has held its Annual General Meeting on 20th May 2026 following the local elections.
The purpose of the meeting is to elect a Speaker to chair the meeting and elect Councillors to serve on the Executive, elect members to the council wide committees, appoint people to serve on outside bodies and establish the formal Scrutiny function of the whole council.
It was unfortunate that due to an “administrative drop-off“, it was difficult for the local community to follow the decisions in real time because the papers where not made available at the meeting. They were not uploaded onto the council’s website in advance or available as papers to the packed public gallery who had made time to be present in person. Interestingly, there are statutory and common law rights for access to information refined over a considerable period of time.
The Lewisham Green Party Cabinet has been announced. These posts are responsible for the policy framework – they advise the new directly elected Mayor Liam Shrivastava.
The Council has appointed members to the committees governing the work of the authority.
The decision making committees include the three Planning Committees. The membership is significantly changed. A table of the members appointed, their party affiliation is produced below. There are some typographical errors in the council’s paper.
The Chair of the powerful Strategic Planning Committee has not been indicated in the schedule produced.
The Labour Party have a new Leader of the Opposition Councillor Ese Erheriene and Deputy Leader, Councillor Oana Olaru-Holmes.