Emma Dent Coad

Emma Dent Coad MP  link Website
File:Emma Dent Coad.jpg
Born	1954-11-15 Chelsea, London, England
Alma mater	Royal College of Art
Interests	Grenfell Tower
Party	Independent
Former British Labour MP.

Emma Dent Coad is a former Labour Party politician who was elected MP for Kensington at the UK/2017 General Election by a margin of just 20 votes, the last constituency to declare, after multiple recounts.

In the UK/2019 General Election, Dent Coad was defeated by the Conservative Party candidate Felicity Buchan with 16,768 votes, compared to Dent Coad's 16,618, a majority of just 150.

In October 2022, Emma Dent Coad was excluded from the longlist in the process to determine who would be the Labour candidate to contest her former seat at the next General Election. On 27 April 2023, Dent Coad resigned from the Labour Party “after much soul-searching”, saying party had become “unrecognisable”. She now plans to stand in the Kensington constituency as an Independent Socialist at the next election.

Londoner

Emma Dent Coad was born in Chelsea as the youngest of six in an Anglo-Spanish family, and has lived in North Kensington since 1986. She was elected to Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council in 2006, representing Golborne ward. She is a member of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and was a council-appointed board member of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation from 2008 to 31 October 2012.

Coad is studying for a PhD at the University of Liverpool's School of Architecture on "Constructing Modern Spain: Architecture, Politics and Ideology under Franco, 1939-1975", which she has put on hold for a period on being elected.

Member of Parliament

Emma Dent Coad was elected MP for Kensington in the 2017 General Election after she defeated the former Conservative Party MP Victoria Borwick with a majority of 20, overturning a 7,020 majority. The announcement was finally made at around 9pm on 9 June 2017 after three recounts.

Grenfell Tower fire

The residents of the Grenfell Tower block destroyed by fire on 14 June 2017 have been failed and betrayed by the local council, Kensington's new MP Emma Dent Coad said, expressing fury at the way Kensington and Chelsea had treated its social housing tenants.

She said residents made homeless by the fire were increasingly concerned that they would be rehoused outside of the borough, in cheaper places far from London such as Hastings or Peterborough where the council has tried to rehouse tenants previously.

Having campaigned against poor social housing in the borough for decades and documented the poor quality of estate redevelopment schemes, she said:

“I can’t help thinking that poor quality materials and construction standards may have played a part in this hideous and unforgivable event.

“People in Grenfell Tower have been complaining that the aesthetic refit hadn’t helped them at all. It was more about making it look better for the people who want to regenerate the estate.”