Local elections profile: Wandsworth

Ahead of the local elections on Thursday 7 May, we have produced short guides to London's 32 boroughs.

Where is it? 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.

Local history: 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.

What is the electoral history of the borough? 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.

What happened in 2022? The turnout was 41.2% and there was a 3.3% swing from the Conservatives to Labour, with Labour taking control of the council for the first time since 1978.

Labour: 35 seats (+9)

Conservative: 22 seats (-11)

Independent: 1 seat (nc)

Boundary changes had reduced the number of seats from 60 to 58.

Since the election, one Tory councillor has defected to Reform UK and the Conservatives won a by-election from Labour, although that councillor later became an independent.

Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics said Wandsworth was won by the Labour Party in 2022, the last borough elections. It had been run by Labour before, so it wasn't the first time this had happened.

It is now absolutely marginal. Demographically and socially it is probably tilting slightly towards Labour, but with Labour doing badly in the polls this is one of the hardest of all boroughs to call.

Let's put it this way: if the Conservatives don't win it back they will be extremely disappointed and if Labour hold on they'll be very relieved.

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