In our first interview ahead of the local election, council leader Ergin Erbil speaks to Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter, on his hopes of Enfield Labour winning a fifth term

Ergin Erbil has led the council since September 2024, succeeding Nesil Caliskan (credit Idris Emen)

Council leader Ergin Erbil hopes to lead Enfield Labour to a fifth local election win in a row – but will need to buck both national and local trends to do so.

Labour have been in power at Enfield Civic Centre since 2010 but currently have a slender majority, with 35 seats out of the 63 available in total.

At the previous election in 2022, the local party lost eight seats to the Tories despite Labour rising in the polls nationally at the time. Three councillors have since left the Labour group following a range of scandals, including ex-mayor Mohammad Islam – found to have breached the code of conduct by bringing his office “into disrepute”.

Responding to a question from political researchers YouGov last month, only 17% of people nationally said they’d vote Labour if there was a general election tomorrow. Ahead of the 2022 local elections that number was 38%.

Like Enfield Labour did in 2022, Cllr Erbil is hoping to buck the national trend again this year – in the opposite direction.

The Edmonton Green councillor has been leading the council since September 2024, following the departure of Nesil Caliskan, who was elected as a Labour MP for Barking earlier that year.

Cllr Erbil explains he’s been engaged in local politics since he was a teenager and is keen to stay positive ahead of the election. “I am very confident but I am not complacent,” he says, adding: “I know I’m going to win.”

Enfield Labour, he claims, has a message that “resonates more with local people” than the one being put forward by the Conservative opposition.

But Cllr Erbil may struggle to win many votes from the borough’s golfers and gardeners. He backs government proposals to build a 21,000-home ‘new town’ in the rural north-west of the borough which would be built across several hundred hectares of Green Belt land, including a golf course in Crews Hill and the area’s famous ‘golden mile’ of garden centres.

Campaigners have said the proposals are vague, threaten nature and will displace businesses, especially the horticultural industry Crews Hill is known for.

“We have 7,000 people waiting for a council house,” says Cllr Erbil, in defence of the plans. “We’ve got 3,000 people waiting for temporary accommodation. We have seven golf courses in the borough – we just want to build on one of them.”

The new town scheme, he argues, will create “thousands of jobs” and, with Labour, will give Enfield residents “first dibs” on new homes. The loss of Green Belt land, Cllr Erbil argues, will be offset by plans for new public green spaces.

“Listen, I’m 30 years old. I’ve got two baby girls. I’ve been to university. I followed the rules of life. I’ve got a good job and I can’t afford to buy in my own neighbourhood.

“This shouldn’t be the case, which is why we need to build genuinely affordable homes.”

Cllr Erbil also believes that the council’s other major housing project, Meridian Water, is “an effective scheme”.

This is despite the council recently deciding to relinquish its role as master developer for the project, with only 301 of 10,000 planned homes having been built since construction began five years ago.

At the same time, the local authority has taken on nearly £500million of debt to finance land purchases and enabling work at Meridian Water.

The Labour leader blames “Tory failure” for rising costs in the building sector in recent years, which have affected the project. “We’ve built 300 – and we’re going to build more,” says Cllr Erbil.

Enfield Labour candidates at the launch of their 2026 election manifesto (credit Enfield Labour)

Housing is a key issue for Enfield Labour. In their manifesto they promise to create “dedicated enforcement of renters’ rights” as well as to “cap HMOs and crack down on rogue landlords”.

Labour’s proposed hard line on houses in multiple occupation – where several people from separate households share cooking and washing facilities within the same property – may be tricky. The 2025/26 financial year saw the highest number of new HMO licence approvals in Enfield over the past five years.

Meanwhile, enforcement action on unapproved or unlicensed HMOs came under scrutiny recently, with mounting evidence that a former Brimsdown pub is now being used as an unauthorised HMO – despite the council launching an investigation last year.

“The record number of HMO applications should tell you that there is a massive demand for housing,” says Cllr Erbil. “People need homes. People need a roof over their heads.”

Asked how he plans to enforce his promised HMO cap, Cllr Erbil says his Labour administration would push the government “to bring in a policy to cap HMOs”. Failing this, he claims Enfield Labour will “bake it into the Local Plan” – however, this major planning document is already in its final stages of approval, and does not currently include a cap.

Another recent HMO issue centres around one of Labour’s own councillors, Mahym Bedekova. Cllr Bedekova remains the chair of the planning committee despite operating a HMO without planning permission for more than two years. She eventually gained retrospective planning approval in March.

“Perception is very important, especially in politics,” says Cllr Erbil. The LDRS asked the Labour leader why, given this belief, Cllr Bedekova remains in her post.

He responded by claiming Cllr Bedekova’s name had been cleared in all investigations and that “under lodger laws she didn’t actually do anything wrong”. He also accused the Dispatch of running “a very sensationalist, clickbait article” in reporting the issue.

Cllr Erbil himself is no stranger to creating a storm online. In February he published a misleading video on social media falsely claiming that Crews Hill Golf Club is not within the Green Belt, only has 20 members and is of negligible importance to wildlife.

This prompted a huge backlash, including from the golf club, which pointed out it has over 400 members and is indeed part of the Green Belt. The golf course is also designated as a ‘site of importance for nature conservation’ (Sinc) – a designation supported by the council in its most recent Sinc review.

Cllr Erbil eventually deleted the controversial post.

The council leader is still committed to his original position, however. Instead of following the legal definition of Green Belt land he, instead, appears set on defining it as what he thinks “ordinary working people” instinctively think of when considering the term. For Cllr Erbil, this is “lush woodland” and easily-accessible “genuine green space”.

Cllr Erbil added: “The inaccessible fields, the golf courses, the garden centres, and the car parks that are currently labelled Green Belt, I would argue that they’re not genuine Green Belt because they don’t really benefit the way we would imagine them benefiting woodlands, forests and wildlife.”

The council leader may not be concerned about building on the Green Belt, but he does have clear concerns about Green votes.

“Anyone considering Green, if they vote Green, they’re going to get blue. Anyone considering voting Lib Dem or independent, they’re going to get blue, they’re going to get Tory,” warns Cllr Erbil.

“This is a two-horse race between us and the Conservatives,” he adds.

Voting Labour, Cllr Erbil argues, is the only way of ensuring Enfield will have a council that will invest in services and programmes that benefit working people and their families.

Asked about his music tastes, Cllr Erbil says Bad Bunny is his current favourite artist, especially after his half-time show at the US Superbowl. “He had such a message of positivity and hope,” he says, adding: “I’m in love with his NUEVAYoL piece which is a nice mix of Latin, jazz, some hip-hop, some pop. Spanish Latin music is where I live.”

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