Nicky Gavron, who has died aged 82, was a leading London politician whose career spanned 50 years from the 1970s. She was the first deputy mayor of London, following a successful career at Haringey council and as chair of the London planning advisory committee (LPAC), and a Labour member of the London assembly for 21 years. She was well known for her powers of persuasion and capacity to get things done.
Gavron stood to be a member of the London assembly in the first Greater London Authority elections in 2000, winning the Enfield and Haringey constituency. On the same day, Ken Livingstone was elected as mayor of London as an independent; Tony Blair, having decided democracy should be restored to London, had drawn the line at the former Greater London council leader being Labour’s candidate. Soon after the election, Livingstone appointed Gavron as his deputy.
In that role, Gavron was hugely influential in preparing the first London Plan, a legally required document that shaped policy in relation to infrastructure, planning, transport, housing and other aspects of the capital’s development.
Once it had been consulted upon and subject to an inquiry, the London Plan, published in 2004, had the force of law, requiring local boroughs to conform to it. Gavron also encouraged Livingstone to involve the architect Richard Rogers, who created an architecture and urbanism unit at the GLA.
The original London Plan and its successors under subsequent mayors were heavily influenced by Gavron’s work at LPAC (created to provide strategic planning advice for the capital after the abolition of the GLC) and as deputy mayor.
Policy documents published by Livingstone’s GLC from 1981 to 1986 had been much less concerned with environmental sustainability, air quality, high streets, urban density and climate change than those produced after he became mayor in 2000. Of course the policy world had moved on, but there is no doubt Gavron’s impact had been crucial. She was also a powerful advocate for the congestion charge introduced in central London in 2003.
While at City Hall, Gavron worked with Livingstone and his adviser Mark Watts to create a network of cities to share best practice on climate policy, with support from the Clinton Foundation. This formed the basis of today’s C40 group of mayors and city leaders tackling climate change at the urban level.
She remained Livingstone’s deputy mayor until June 2003, in the run-up to the 2004 election. Gavron had been selected as the Labour mayoral nomination but stood aside when the party readmitted Livingstone in January 2004 and allowed him to be their official candidate. She was reappointed as deputy mayor after the election and stayed in office until Boris Johnson defeated Livingstone in 2008. Remaining on the assembly as a London-wide member, she chaired committees overseeing housing and planning. She finally stepped down from the GLA in 2021.
Born in Worcester, she was the daughter of Clayton Coates and Elisabet Horstmeyer. Nicky’s mother had arrived from Germany in 1936, fleeing Nazi persecution of the Jewish population.
Later in life, Gavron revealed her mother had been chosen to dance in front of Hitler at the opening ceremony for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, though was barred when her religion was discovered.
After Worcester girls’ grammar school, Nicky moved to London to study history of art at the Courtauld Institute before lecturing at the Camberwell School of Art. She married the businessman Robert Gavron in 1967, and together they brought up his two sons from a previous marriage and their two daughters, before divorcing in 1987.
Gavron became involved in local political activity as part of a 70s and 80s campaign to stop the widening of the Archway Road, a section of the A1 in north London. The government, GLC and the local council wanted to drive a motorway-scale road through picturesque Highgate. A series of public inquiries in the 70s articulated growing opposition, including from Gavron, as well as from Livingstone. By the 80s the GLC and Haringey council changed sides from pro- to anti-road building, and eventually, in 1990, the Conservative transport secretary Cecil Parkinson axed the project.
This experience, coupled with a personal interest in environmentalism and the arts, led Gavron to stand for Labour in Haringey, her local council. She was elected in 1986, at the height of a raging political battle between Margaret Thatcher’s government and the left. The leader of the council, Bernie Grant, had been a key figure in fighting rate capping; along with Lambeth’s Ted Knight and leaders from Liverpool and Sheffield, he was also part of a radical anti-Thatcher bloc in local government. Five weeks before Gavron was elected as a councillor, Livingstone had been ousted as leader of the GLC as the result of its abolition.
The toxicity of London politics at the time was at odds with Gavron’s personal style. She was committed to improving families’ access to outdoor space, widening participation in the arts and improving the environment. Green politics was in its infancy: there was some political concern for “ecology” and growing antipathy for big road schemes, but issues such as road pollution and the design of cities were well down the priorities of most politicians.
GLC abolition led to the creation of several city-wide, borough-based committees. One of these was LPAC, designed to be a light-touch, research-focused body to consider London’s planning needs. Gavron became deputy chair in 1989 and was chair from 1994 to 2000.
LPAC formulated new policy that was to be influential when the Blair government eventually recreated London-wide government in 2000. Her leadership (and that of her predecessor as chair, the Liberal Democrat politician Sally Hamwee) saw a focus on the environment, better transport infrastructure, a strong partnership with the private sector and the evolution of a growth-driven “global city” agenda.
During John Major’s administration, relations between London local authorities and the government improved. Labour councils became more moderate. Tory ministers such as Steve Norris and John Gummer warmed to the zeal for partnership embodied by LPAC, embracing, among other things, the London Pride Partnership, which brought together local authorities and the business community and in 1995 published a public-private prospectus for London’s future.
Arts policy in the capital after the abolition of the GLC was shaped by the Greater London arts association and its successor organisation the London arts board. Gavron was a board member of both, giving voice to her concern for culture and the arts. Back in Haringey, she had been a co-founder of Jacksons Lane arts centre, which opened in 1975 and would have been abolished had the Archway Road been widened. In 2023 she was awarded a pink plaque in recognition of her work.
She was chair of the Local Government Association’s planning committee (1997-99) and represented London at the London and south east regional planning conference. She was a member of the government’s commission for integrated transport (1999-2002) and the sustainable development commission (2001-03).
In 2022 she was named New Londoner of the Year by New London Architecture for her contribution to the capital. Many of the results of Gavron’s policies for London are to be found in the streets, playgrounds and arts venues of the city. One is particularly tangible: the circular Overground line, which she called “Orbirail”. It now links Highbury to Willesden to Clapham Junction and on to Peckham, Whitechapel, Shoreditch and back to Highbury. Without Gavron’s persistence, this low-cost, high-benefit line might never have been built.
She enjoyed parties, inviting people to her home, and the social side of political life. Despite failing eyesight, she continued to work assiduously and was in the process of co-writing a book about LPAC.
She is survived by her daughters, Jessica and Sarah, her stepson Jeremy and 10 grandchildren. Her other stepson, Simon, predeceased her.
• Nicky (Felicia Nicolette) Gavron, politician, born 24 November 1941; died 30 August 2024
