The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, has been cleared by an ethics inquiry that examined complaints he failed to pay council tax while living on a houseboat in east London.
The Greater London Authority’s monitoring officer ruled on Thursday that no further action was needed, saying the grievance “relates to the member’s personal living arrangements” and “does not have a sufficient connection to his role as an assembly member”.
“Green party leader Zack Polanski has been cleared by an ethics inquiry over failure to pay council tax on his houseboat.”
The complaints, brought by Conservative assembly member Neil Garratt and Labour MP Anna Turley, alleged that Polanski had breached the GLA code of conduct by not paying council tax on a houseboat he occupied from 2022. Polanski was registered to vote at a marina address in Hackney but was not paying council tax, according to earlier reports.
In his submission, Garratt wrote that Polanski, as a London assembly member, “is responsible for voting to approve or reject the mayor’s budget” and therefore any conduct falling short “would also fall within his capacity as an assembly member, given he would have voted to set a tax level which he himself may not have paid”.
Polanski’s lawyers said the complaint was “based on assumptions rather than established facts and must be viewed in the wider political context in which they have been made”. Polanski himself said the grievances were “politically motivated and not made in good faith”.
In evidence to the monitoring officer, Polanski revealed that it had still not been established whether any tax was due and that the mooring fell on the border of two local authorities. He said he believed any charges linked to the mooring, including council tax, were covered by the fees he paid, and insisted there was no intention to evade payment.
“Any failure to appreciate the position arose solely from a misunderstanding of what was required in relation to an unusual and unconventional living arrangement,” Polanski wrote in his witness statement. He added that he had “personal experience of financial hardship and housing insecurity” and had lived for five years as a property guardian – “one of the few affordable housing options available to me in London”.
Garratt told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Throughout this entire sad saga, Mr Polanski has avoided consequences the same way he avoided council tax: through happy accidents and gaps in legislation. It is beyond parody that a left-wing politician who will take to the stage to demand other people pay their share of taxes, has then gone home and not paid his own or endeavoured to find out what tax he owes.”
A Green party spokesperson previously said Polanski had “taken steps to pay any council tax he may be found to owe” and added: “Zack apologises sincerely for the unintentional mistake.”