At least 75 of London’s most powerful local councillors are also working for the property and development industry, openDemocracy can reveal.
Our analysis of hundreds of council documents shows how scores of lobbyists and other workers for the sector simultaneously hold senior roles in local government, working in council cabinets or on the influential committees that are supposed to hold developers to account. All but 11 of the 75 have stood for re-election in 2022.
We looked at the councillors with the most say over housing supply, demolitions and new builds, and found 13% of Conservatives had financial ties to the property industry. The figure is 6% for the most powerful Labour councillors.
