Who won the local elections in Wandsworth?

Gains from the Conservative Party in the election on 7 May 2026 took Wandsworth council into no overall control from the Labour Party.

The results were:

Conservatives: 29 seats (+7)

Labour: 28 seats (-7)

Independents: 1 seat (no change)

More than six million Londoners were eligible to vote in the council elections on Thursday 7 May 2026.

All 32 London boroughs were up for election.

There were also elections for the mayor in five boroughs: Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets.

The London Borough of Wandsworth is in south-west London and is bordered by Lambeth, Merton, Kingston upon Thames, Richmond upon Thames and the River Thames.

What's it like? Wandsworth is the largest borough in inner London with a growing population. It contains contrasting areas including leafy residential areas, parks and commons, as well as industrial town centres with high density housing.

Neighbourhoods: Wandsworth is broken up into 22 wards, including the neighbourhoods of Balham, Battersea Park, Nine Elms, Roehampton, Tooting, Wandsworth Town and Putney.

Places of interest: Battersea Power Station, Battersea Park, Tooting Market, Tooting Bec Lido, Battersea Arts Centre, New Covent Garden Market, Wandsworth Prison, Wandle Trail.

Pub quiz fact: There's a 17-mile (27km) diameter impact crater on the planet Mars named Tooting.

Population (2024 estimate): 337,655 people live in the borough, according to ONS data.

Demographics: According to the 2021 census, 67.8% identify as white, 11.7% as Asian, 10.1% as black, 6.3% as mixed race and 2.1% as another ethnic group.

Average property price: According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the average house price in Wandsworth in December 2025 was£689,000.

Average monthly rent: The ONS reported that the average monthly rent in January 2026 in Wandsworth was £2,609.

Council tax: Band D council tax in the borough for 2026/27 is £1,020.35.

Transport: Wandsworth has nine National Rail train stations, five Tube stations, one London Overground station, and approximately 510 bus stops.

Wandsworth began as a rural borough of fields and woodlands, with the three river valleys of the Wandle, Beverley and Falcon Brooks working their way towards the River Thames.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Huguenots settled in Wandsworth and were attracted to the area's cloth mills on the Wandle. They subsequently developed a hat industry, which Wandsworth was once famous for.

By the end of the 19th Century, growth saw hamlets develop into the five town centres of Balham, Clapham Junction, Putney, Tooting and Wandsworth.

Railway companies built a network of lines through between the 1840s and 1860s, and Clapham Junction became and remains the busiest railway interchange in the country.

The borough was heavily bombed during World War Two and extensive rebuilding and the creation of new housing estates dominated the post-war era.

The borough was formally created in 1965.

Wandsworth was Labour for most of the 1970s and Conservative from 1978 to 2022.

It was described as Margaret Thatcher's favourite council, pioneering right-to-buy homes policies, charging a low rate of council tax and privatising local services like refuse collection. It was seen as a Tory touchstone of how to run local government - until the last election.

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