Council Leader Kieron Williams recounted his predecessor’s “crazy, mad ambition” and the chief executive’s guiding influence at a farewell event at Elmington Estate TRA Hall, Camberwell.
Council colleagues and Tenants’ and Residents’ Association members from local council estates gathered to thank Peter John and Eleanor Kelly for decades of service on Saturday, June 25.
Peter John served as Southwark Labour leader from 2004 and council leader from 2010. Eleanor Kelly was council chief executive from 2012.
Current Council Leader Kieron Williams praised Mr John’s “crazy, mad ambition” and Ms Kelly’s ability to “keep him on the straight and narrow”.
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The incumbent Southwark Labour Leader said: “I look back over the decade of Peter John as leader and Eleanor as borough chief executive and it’s not hard to see what change was brought through.
“Burgess Park is a completely different place… and you looked around our council estates when nationally very few people were saying positive things about council estates.
“They didn’t just build council homes but made sure existing council homes got to a warm and dry standard. These things have changed people’s lives.”
Peter John left his post back in 2020, and Eleanor Kelly departed earlier this year. But their farewell event was postponed until now due to Covid.
Collectively, the pair served the council for over thirty years. In the decade 2010 to 2020, they worked side-by-side, overseeing dramatic changes in Southwark.
After becoming leader of Southwark Labour in 2004, Peter John helped the party to electoral victory in 2010, overturning the Labour-Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition.
Ms Kelly sat beside him as chief executive from 2012, after being promoted from deputy chief executive.
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Dramatic policies around regeneration, school improvement, apprenticeships and skills training, free healthy schools meals and gym membership followed.
At the event, Peter John said when he entered office he was faced with a “failing adult and social care department” and “didn’t have a housing department”.
He said that 50,000 more people were in employment in the borough since 2010 and his council house building programme had “built more homes in Southwark than anywhere else in the country”.
But Peter John’s housebuilding programme has been highly controversial. Building new homes has been mirrored by the emptying and demolition of vast council estates like the Heygate and Aylesbury to accommodate new developments.
His critics have also highlighted Labour’s ‘golden goodbye’ scheme and costly legal battles with Aylesbury leaseholders, the legacy of which continues today.
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Throughout this period, as chief executive, Ms Kelly’s job was to implement policy programmes and to ensure cooperation between different council departments and partners.
Described by one colleague as “superhuman” she said: “I’ve worked in all sorts of places and Southwark is the best place possible place in the best possible worlds.”
She said Southwark Council was special because councillors and officers “have huge respect for each other which isn’t the case everywhere”.
Michael Scorer, the Strategic Director of Housing and Modernisation, praised her “remarkable leadership saying: “It’s just a shame she’s retiring. She’s got this remarkable ability to steer rather than row and she’s steered us through difficult things.
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“We always knew she had her hand on the tiller. Sometimes it was light, sometimes a little firmer.”
Eleanor Kelly is looking forward to spending more time with her daughter and her new part-time role chairing Peterborough’s Independent Improvement Panel.
Peter John said 90% of his work was now as a barrister. He has also worked for Terrapin Group, a public affairs company with developer clients that include Lendlease and Delancey, since December 2020.