Liam Shrivastava, Lewisham's first directly-elected Green Mayor, has marked his first 100 days in office with a series of landmark initiatives, including becoming the first UK council to pass a motion reviewing its work with Home Office immigration enforcement, a crackdown on fly-tipping that has cleared over 11,000 incidents, and a legal challenge to the Mayor of London's emergency housing measures.
Shrivastava, who defected from the Labour Party in June 2025, led the Green Party to a landslide victory in May, with 40 Green councillors winning seats and representing 18 out of 19 electoral wards. As directly-elected mayor, he leads the council, directs its strategy, proposes the annual budget, and chairs a Cabinet made up entirely of Green councillors, affecting more than 300,000 residents.
A Surreal Start and a New Style of Working
Reflecting on his first weeks, Shrivastava described the transition as "quite the shift" and "sort of like pinching yourself, of being like, is this actually happening?" One of those moments came on election day, when he was out celebrating at the Fox & Firkin with family, friends, and Green Party members. "I got a round of applause from the beer garden and from everyone there," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS). "That was quite a surreal moment."
Shrivastava, formerly a backbench Labour councillor for New Cross Gate ward, emphasised his ambition to work at pace: "We've made it very clear that we want to work at pace, that we're very ambitious and obviously we're bringing a different sort of style of working and a different culture as well. That is quite a lot to ask of officers, but the response has been really positive."
Resisting Immigration Raids and Tackling Fly-Tipping
In July, the council passed a motion to become the first in the UK to review its work with Home Office immigration enforcement and refuse to assist on raids wherever "legally possible." The council will carry out a "comprehensive review" of its systems and processes. Shrivastava said other council leaders have expressed interest, adding there's a "broader kind of ambition to have an anti-raids corridor." He noted, "We're very keen to collaborate and work with other councils on lots of different things. I'm not sure how much of that collaboration we've seen in London previously, so I think that could be quite interesting."
On fly-tipping, the council's Love Lewisham campaign has delivered local action days, added crews to speed up £5 bulky waste collections, increased CCTV use, and supported community litter picks. Since May, the council says it has cleared over 11,000 fly-tips and issued over 65 fines. This follows a 2024/25 period when Lewisham was the third worst-hit London borough with 33,471 reported fly-tips, according to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs data, despite Labour's earlier crackdown that raised fines from £400 to £1,000.
Affordable Housing and Climate Preparedness
Shrivastava has joined forces with Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman and Hackney Mayor Zoë Garbett to challenge Sadiq Khan's emergency housing measures in the High Court. These measures fast-track developments delivering 20 per cent affordable housing, down from the previous 35 per cent target. "We were very happy to join that legal challenge, it very much reflects our sort of principles when it comes to housing, and particularly affordable housing," he said. "We think that the Mayor of London has got it wrong and that isn't the answer to the question around 'how do we deliver more affordable housing?'"
Concerned about extreme heat due to climate change, he said, "It's something that we do have to address. We do have to invest in our existing buildings. And as part of that retrofit process, we need to be thinking about heating and cooling [systems]." He added, "We definitely will need to start thinking about our preparedness for the climate crisis."
Food Justice, Poverty, and Other Actions
Shrivastava is donating 20 per cent of his mayoral allowance to local food justice organisations, with the first donation supporting the Community Meal at All Saints Community Centre in New Cross. He envisions a "food justice hub" that acts as a social supermarket, community kitchen, and commercial kitchen space. "There is definitely enough food to go around, but we need to work with food justice partners to ensure that all that food gets to the people that need it," he said.
Other actions include launching the Sydenham Night Market (Fridays until September 17), a Rogue Landlord Taskforce to enforce the Renters' Rights Act, plans to buy back 74 homes lost through Right to Buy, reversing £200,000 of proposed cuts to children's services, and a campaign for greater council powers to refuse betting shop applications. Shrivastava concluded, "People have voted for change, they've voted for hope, but they want to see action - they want to see things happen. [I think] we've really recognised that we need to deliver, and I think that's reflected in the first 100 days."
