My friend Joe Hegarty, who has died aged 77 of cancer, was a Westminster city councillor who masterminded Labour’s best-ever election results on the council.
In May 1986, when Joe was leader of the Labour group, it took 27 of the council’s 60 seats, and was only 106 votes short of becoming the largest party. Such was the shock to the Conservative leader, Shirley Porter, that she put in train the scandalous “homes for votes” policy, which sought to remove Labour voters from marginal wards and was later ruled illegal.
As a councillor from 1974 to 1990, Joe served Church Street ward with exemplary diligence. In his early days he even changed lightbulbs in the homes of some of his elderly constituents. In 1979 Joe was Labour’s candidate for St Marylebone in the general election. He was leader of the Labour group from 1981 to 1987.
In 2004 Joe was appointed chair of the Westminster primary care trust. He worked closely with the council to tackle health inequalities in Westminster, where there is more than a decade of difference in life expectancy between Belgravia and north Paddington. Under Joe’s leadership, the trust invested significantly in addressing the health needs of the homeless and in mental health services.
When his NHS stint was over, Joe became chair of the Church Street Futures Group, set up by Westminster council to consult residents and businesses on regeneration plans for the area. Joe commanded the respect of council officers and the trust of residents and market stallholders.
Joe was born in Paddington, west London, to Edmund Hegarty, a labourer from Cork, and Kitty (nee Moriarty), a hotel cloakroom attendant from Kerry. After Marylebone grammar school he graduated from Battersea College (now part of Surrey University) with a chemistry degree. He worked for many years at Surrey county council in senior positions in the IT department. Joe retired from Surrey in 1996 after working there for 28 years.
Joe and I were colleagues on Westminster city council and we lived in the same block of flats in Marylebone from the mid-1980s until he moved to Leamington Spa in 2017. Joe was a public servant to his toes. He was a good and kind man of unquestionable and unwavering integrity. He had a genuine understanding of people, their problems and their fears. He was an articulate advocate who knew and liked the people he represented. Joe was also a keen walker, and a lover of good food and fine wine, as well as a life long Chelsea supporter.
In 1987 Joe married Helen Synnott. She and their daughter, Kate, survive him.
