How to build a borough: Waltham Forest (1/3)
The transformation of Waltham Forest from a sleepy suburb into London’s fastest-growing local economy offers a real-time lesson in twenty-first century place-making. But is it an example that other places should emulate or eschew?
“There is no actual place called Waltham Forest”
In 2014, the Chief Executive of the London Borough of Waltham Forest said something as strange as it was surprising for a man in his position: “there is no actual place called Waltham Forest”.
He was, of course, talking figuratively. He was explaining how, for many residents, the borough existed mostly in the abstract. They identified with their immediate neighbourhood and felt a sense of belonging to the historic towns in the borough like Walthamstow and Leyton. But Waltham Forest was, as he put, not an “actual place”.
His words reflected the inauspicious circumstances of the borough’s creation. It was brought into this world as a product of the 1965 re-organisation of local government in England. Through this process, three existing and proudly independent town councils were forced into an unwelcome union and re-badged as a single administrative entity.
For a very long time, its citizens continued to identify with the three areas covered by the old town councils: Chingford in the north, Walthamstow in the centre, and Leyton and Leytonstone in the south. As did most of the authority’s officers and politicians.
The absence of a civic identity led directly to the new borough’s low profile, directionless politics, and drifting economy. For the first forty years of its existence, the borough had the smallest economy in all of London. Many of the jobs in the area were low-skilled, low-paid, and in declining industrial and manufacturing sectors. Waltham Forest was known, if it was known at all, as a sleepy suburb somewhere out on the north-east fringe of London.
That all began to change in the early 2000s. A cadre of ambitious local politicians and officials initiated a process of radical and rapid transformation. They were initially inspired by Tony Blair’s New Labour project and then forced into drastic action by an official government report that judged Waltham Forest to be one of the worst-run councils in the country.
By the late 2010s, they had transformed Waltham Forest from the smallest economy in London to the fastest growing borough. From a place with no coherent identity to the city’s first ‘capital of culture’. And from a suburban backwater into London’s hottest property market.
They achieved this through four sequentially overlapping steps: modernising the borough’s governance; regenerating its physical and social infrastructure; repositioning the local economy; and rebranding the borough as an aspirational place to live, work, and invest.
This essay tells the tale of that transformation. We will explore the story in three parts:
· Why change was necessary.
· How the borough was transformed.
· What the transformation has meant; and what other places can learn.
It is worth stating up-front that anyone looking for either a righteous denunciation of the borough’s recent history, or an uncritical encomium, should stop reading here. This telling of the story would not fit easily into a copy of Socialist Worker or a glossy marketing brochure.
The transformation of the place was not a great betrayal by nefarious Blairites of the borough’s working classes. Nor has it been a consequence-free process in which everyone has always benefited though endless ‘win-wins’. There have been losers along the way.
It is possible argue that we have gone from no place called Waltham Forest to two Waltham Forests, or Walthams Forest for all of you fans of The West Wing. One that is growing and prosperous, home to aspirant, gentrifying incomers. And one that is home to low-income and excluded households who are just getting by in the gig economy or being forced out by rising housing costs.
But that is an argument we will fully explore in forthcoming parts of this long read. To start, let’s go back to the 1965 when Whitehall “decided that the individual boroughs of Walthamstow, Leyton and Chingford were too expensive and couldn’t exist any more.”
One-star Waltham Forest: why change was necessary
Part 1 explores the history of Waltham Forest, from its formation in 1965 to the critical juncture of 2003. For most of this period, the borough was an economic and political backwater. It wasn’t until the council was judged to be one of the worst in the country that the process of transformation began.
Suburban slumber
As mentioned in the introduction, Waltham Forest was the by-product of an administrative process to tidy-up local government in England. It was an amalgam of three separate places, each of which had their own separate councils and distinct histories. Those three areas are depicted in the map below.
Many other boroughs are made up of distinct localities. Tower Hamlets, as the name suggests, is a bricolage of small villages that surrounded the Tower of London. However, virtually all parts of that borough have an inner-London feel. Whereas Waltham Forest is part inner, part outer; part urban, part suburban; part Martin Amis, part Kingsley Amis.
In the north of the borough is Chingford, famous in the 1980s for being the seat of Thatcher lieutenant Norman Tebbit. His successor was Iain Duncan Smith, handpicked by the ‘Chingford Skinhead’ to continue his populist right-wing agenda. Historically, the area was part of Essex and it continues to be culturally and demographically more aligned with the county, compared to the capital.
In the centre is Walthamstow, the most industrially built-up and commercially developed part of the borough. Its economic importance is reflected in its connectedness to rest of London. It is served by five under- and overground stations, including a Victoria Line extension that connects it directly to Kings Cross and Euston. Walthamstow is also the administrative centre of the borough, boasting the remarkable art deco Town Hall, and the home of cultural assets like the William Morris Gallery.
In the south of the borough are Leyton and Leytonstone. Leyton is the closest to inner London, and is the most ethnically diverse part of the borough with the youngest population. Leyton contained the only part of Waltham Forest that was in the 2012 Olympic Park. Leytonstone, to the east, shares part of its name with Leyton but is a distinct area.
According to the 2021 census, the total population of the brough was 278,400 people. The south of the borough has the greatest population density.
“An artificial construct”
For decades after its formation, council business was largely conducted as if the three old councils still existed. Waltham Forest did not have a strong political identity. It was treated as an “artificial construct”.
The emphasis was on delivering acceptable services within a balanced budget. Council departments were left to get on and run themselves within their own silos, with no attempt re-organise them around the needs of service users or localities.
For most of that that time, the borough looked east toward Essex and the further hinterland of the Thames eastuary. This was a reflection of politics and economics. Politically, some residents and their representatives thought of themselves as living in England’s green and pleasant land, outside and away from the dirt and noise of London.
Economically, during the decades after the end of World War Two, the capital was in serious decline. The population of Greater London fell from 8.2m in 1951 to 6.8m in 1981, as homes and jobs were deliberately transplanted into New Towns, and more prosperous households choose to relocate to the Home Counties. In this context, it’s not a surprise that the borough’s political leaders turned their attention away from London.
The divisions in the borough’s culture and identity were reflected in its changeable politics. Labour has been the dominant party, but it is far from being a one-party state. The council was under ‘no overall control’ between 1994 and 1998 and again between 2002 and 2010. In the table below, the first elections are listed as taking place in 1964, a year before the borough was formed in 1965. Elections were held a year early so that democratically-chosen representatives were already in place.
Changes in political leadership can often drive improvement in the quality of services. A regular shake-up prevents ossification and catalyses new thinking. That wasn’t the case with Waltham Forest. The council continued to drift along, regardless of its political leadership.
Wake-up call from Whitehall
The borough was finally woken from its slumber in the early 2000s. Three forces converged to instigate a period of rapid and radical change. Things came to a head when a report into the shamefully poor state of local services provoked drastic action. Here’s what happened.
The first force was the resurgence of London and the realisation that Waltham Forest was falling behind in the race to benefit from the capital’s growing prosperity. In contrast to the post-war decades, the capital was booming. It had new political leadership in the shape of the restored Mayoralty and the voluble figure of Ken Livingstone. Culturally, it was the jewel in the crown of Cool Britannia. As a brand, London was “reshaped as a ‘city state’ based on the finance-led economy of the City and the vibrant social liberalism of its diverse population.”
The second was the modernisation of Labour. The party in local government wanted to emulate the success of the national party; re-positioning itself as aspirational, pro-growth, and focused on outcomes for people, not outdated ideological shibboleths. The archetypal New Labour council leader was on the side of the taxpayers and the service user, not the bureaucracies and the unions.
In the slipstream of Blair’s crushing victory, Labour had re-taken overall control of Waltham Forest in 1998. They demanded more from the machine in the Blairite language of “delivery, delivery, delivery”. Just as the real-world consequences of decades of coasting were about to be brutally exposed.
The third factor was external scrutiny of the borough’s failings. The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) was introduced in England in 2002. It was used by the Audit Commission to measure the effectiveness of every local authority in the country.
In the first round of CPA assessments, Waltham Forest was awarded one star from a possible five and placed in the “failing” category, with weak prospects for improvement. Only five other authorities in the country were given such a damningly poor rating.
It was official. Waltham Forest was amongst the very worst councils in the country. It had sleep-walked into total corporate failure. This public humiliation was the final provocation for the Labour modernisers, already sore from losing power again in 2002.
But the CPA score raised more fundamental questions. What was the point of being in charge if the council was so dysfunctional? What was the point of pulling the levers of power at the Town Hall when nothing happened in the real world?
Things had to get better.
Modernising governance
The first task in the process of modernisation was a sacrifice to the sky-God of good governance. In the wake of the Audit Commission’s damning assessment, Whitehall sent in the Improvement and Development Agency to investigate why standards had fallen so far.
In a report released in early 2003, the agency concluded that poor relations between the council leader, Tony Buckley, and the Chief Executive, Simon White, had been a major factor. As long as that situation was allowed to fester, improvement was very unlikely.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott called on Buckley to “consider his position”. However, he didn’t have the legal power to remove an elected council leader in these circumstances, and Buckley made it clear he would not go voluntarily.
It was left to Labour to suspend Buckley from holding public office on behalf of the party, on the grounds that his behaviour was “prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the party.” This was a highly unusual move. Adding to the drama, the ousted leader appointed the high-profile publicist Max Clifford to fight his corner. Ultimately, the party got its way and Buckley resigned, to be succeeded by Cllr. Clyde Loakes, who was leader until 2009.
This was the start of the era of increased professionalism and improved performance. After the humiliation of the CPA and the follow-up embarrassment with Buckley, Labour Party HQ paid close attention to the borough, and the local leadership pledged to do everything in their power to transform the council and, with it, the borough as a whole.
In part 2, we’ll look at what they achieved and how they did it.
Thanks to Andrew Stevens for much-valued input into earlier drafts and subsequent feedback.
