Leader's update - Friday 30 January 2026

Published: 30 January 2026

One part of my role that I enjoy the most is meeting residents at events or in the street. Recently, people have been telling me how concerned they are about the Freedom pass and how important it is to them for their independence to get out and about.  This has been in the press recently and has caused concerns, but I wanted to reassure you that I will continue to protect the right of pensioners to travel for free and I made that commitment on an interview with BBC radio London recently, along with my Labour colleagues at London Councils.

This week, we marked Holocaust Memorial Day at Valentines Park.  The Mayor of Redbridge and I were joined by local Members of Parliament Jas Athwal and Calvin Bailey.  We heard from local school children about the importance of sharing survivors' stories,  local Rabbis, and an earnest and important speech from Dr Fahim, Chairman and Imam at South Woodford Mosque. Afterwards, I visited an exhbition of the amazing local art of Holocaust survivor, Stanislaw Brunstein, at Valentines Mansion. The exhibition will be open for the rest of the month, and I would highly recommend visiting.

This weekend, we are holding another of our Community Activity Day’s. This time the action will be in Seven Kings in Cameron Road (next to Seven Kings Station).  From 10am to 12.30pm, various teams from the council will be available throughout the morning to provide support and information on a range of services.  Local police officers will also be in attendance and available to speak with residents.  Previous Activity Days have been very popular with residents and I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible on Saturday.

I was pleased to see that the Healthy Redbridge Bus was in Ilford this week.  This is such an amazing resource that we have set up with health partners and is delivering free lifesaving health checks, and information on local health and wellbeing services across community sites.  If you would like to arrange for the Healthy Redbridge Bus to visit your organisation to offer an outreach health service, please email Community Health Champions.

I am pleased to confirm that plans are moving at pace for the refurbishment of South Woodford library and gym, Fullwell Cross leisure centre and the Kenneth More Theatre - all of which are going to reopen over the summer and autumn. Meanwhile the Wanstead swimming pool is on track to be open by the end of spring this year and we will have open days beforehand for local people to visit. Keep an eye out for further details and progress reports.

Lastly, continuing our work to clean up our borough, we continue to issue fines for fly-tipping and we want to continue to catch the culprits that are making our borough an eyesore. If you spot any issues, please log them on the Council’s Report it page or via the Love Clean Streets app. 

Have a good weekend.

Cllr Kam Rai,
Leader of the Council