Steve Bullock (British politician)

Sir Steve Bullock (born 1953) is the first directly elected mayor of the London Borough of Lewisham (since 2002).
Born in Redcar, North Yorkshire, Bullock began his career as a van driver for Saltburn and Marske-by-the-Sea Urban District Council in 1972. He later worked as a policy adviser under Ken Livingstone at the Greater London Council, as Chief Executive of Greenwich Community Health Council and as Head of the Labour Group Office at the Local Government Association. Having served on the independent Commission for Local Democracy, he was a founder member of the New Local Government Network.Elected to the London Borough of Lewisham council in 1982, Bullock then went on to serve as Chair of Finance, Chair of Leisure, Deputy Leader, and Leader of the Council prior to standing down from the council in 1998. Following this, he served as Chair of University Hospital Lewisham NHS Trust. Bullock's partner is Kris Hibbert, a former fellow councillor.
In 2001 he was elected back to Lewisham council in a by-election before seeking the Labour nomination for the new post of elected mayor, having publicly supported the proposal (as chair of the hospital trust) in the October referendum campaign. He was subsequently elected in the first mayoral election.
He was re-elected in the May 2006 Lewisham mayoral poll and became the Labour vice-chair of the Association of London Government later that year. He is currently Deputy Leader of the Local Government Association Labour Group. and was knighted in 2007. He was re-elected as Mayor of Lewisham in the May 2010 election and again in the election of May 2014. He is the London Council's Executive lead for Housing and Vice-chair of Homes for London.

He became involved in a major controversy in January of 2017 regarding his links to former colleagues (Dave Sullivan and others) who set up a company called Renewal, registered in tax havens. This company bought land near Millwall FC's football stadium, The New Den. In 2016 the company asked Lewisham for a CPO (Compulsory Purchase Order) for Lewisham to buy up land owned by the football club. This would close down the club's Academy for younger players and destroy its highly praised Community Scheme. There was a suggestion that the club would have to leave the area.<The Guardian><The Sunday Mirror> Media criticism of Bullock and his colleagues was rife in the media, including The Guardian, Sky TV, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, The Sunday Mirror, Private Eye, The Daily Mirror and others.