Meet the candidates for Hackney Mayor: Philip Glanville, Labour

Philip Glanville.

Labour’s candidate Philip Glanville has been a councillor for 10 years, a cabinet member for housing for six and is currently deputy mayor of Hackney.

He said he is proud of the Labour administration’s record and told the Hackney Citizen that, if elected, he would be a visible, campaigning force “challenging the Conservative government and being there with residents”.

Residents should vote for him, he said, because of his experience working in the Town Hall but also for his agenda to respond to the lack of affordable housing – which he described as the foremost challenge facing the borough.

Mr Glanville said he wants to “retain a true social mix”, adding: “The housing crisis is at its worst in the private rented sector – that’s what’s fueling homelessness and that’s what’s fueling the churn of people out of the borough.”

He said the solution was “about continuing to make that case for private renters, for stable rents and getting rid of fees.” He has pledged to work with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to build 500 “London Living Rent” homes, where no one will pay more than a third of their income in rent.

In added: “We’ve made a lot of steps around unemployment, but I’m worried about underemployment and people not being able to access careers.”

He has also called for “more innovation” around cycling.

Responding to the Conservatives’ claims around education, he said it would be wrong to “rely on an untested free school model that doesn’t deliver the facilities that we want”. And he attacked forced academisation, saying it was “linked to the ideological free school agenda” and removed council and community accountability.

He added that running to be Mayor of Hackney was “the biggest job any of us will ever go for, I think. It’s the most important job in Hackney. It has real power to change local outcomes for people. Whether it’s around housing, whether it’s around employment, I think I’ve got a real vision for using and maximising the role of the council in trying to shape those areas that people are worried about.”