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Ward 7

Northwest London: Hyde Park · Fox Hollow · Sunningdale Road corridor · part of Medway

ALL-CANDIDATE MEETING
Thursday, October 1, 2026 · 7:00-8:00pm
Northwest Public School (2770 Buroak Dr.)
Urban League of London ↗Organized by a third party, not London Decides. Dates and locations can change.
ON THE BALLOTAHSANGUTIERREZHAJARKAZZAHMATHEWMEINENSHARIFUSHER
1234567891011121314NOT YOURS? ↗
THE SHORT VERSION

Your ward at a glance

Ward 7 is an open seat: the boundary redraw moved councillor Corrine Rahman's home into the new Ward 5, where she's running instead. Eight candidates remain after one withdrawal. Nominations closed August 21, 2026; the City certified the list on August 24. With nearly 50,000 residents it is London's largest ward by population, and the race is about growth in the fast-building northwest (the old ward's size drove the boundary review) and whether roads, sewers, buses, and sidewalks can keep up.

None of the eight candidates here carries a verified prior election record. In alphabetical order: Kamrul Ahsan, German Gutierrez, Sam Hajar, Waseem Kazzah, Bensy Mathew, Dan Meinen, Djuma Moïse Sharifu, and Jonathan Sher.

THE FIELD

Who's running

Listed alphabetically. Identical treatment for every candidate. That's the deal.

AHSANGUTIERREZHAJARKAZZAHMATHEWMEINENSHARIFUSHER

Kamrul Ahsan

Our questionnaire ◌ GOES OUT AFTER AUG 24

Identical questions go to every declared candidate. Answers are published verbatim; “no response” is reported plainly.

German Gutierrez

Our questionnaire ◌ GOES OUT AFTER AUG 24

Identical questions go to every declared candidate. Answers are published verbatim; “no response” is reported plainly.

Sam Hajar

Our questionnaire ◌ GOES OUT AFTER AUG 24

Identical questions go to every declared candidate. Answers are published verbatim; “no response” is reported plainly.

Waseem Kazzah

Our questionnaire ◌ GOES OUT AFTER AUG 24

Identical questions go to every declared candidate. Answers are published verbatim; “no response” is reported plainly.

Bensy Mathew

Our questionnaire ◌ GOES OUT AFTER AUG 24

Identical questions go to every declared candidate. Answers are published verbatim; “no response” is reported plainly.

Dan Meinen

Our questionnaire ◌ GOES OUT AFTER AUG 24

Identical questions go to every declared candidate. Answers are published verbatim; “no response” is reported plainly.

Djuma Moïse Sharifu

Our questionnaire ◌ GOES OUT AFTER AUG 24

Identical questions go to every declared candidate. Answers are published verbatim; “no response” is reported plainly.

Jonathan Sher

Our questionnaire ◌ GOES OUT AFTER AUG 24

Identical questions go to every declared candidate. Answers are published verbatim; “no response” is reported plainly.

No endorsements · Same rules for every candidate · Sources linked · Answers published word for word · How we research →

WHAT'S AT STAKE

What Ward 7 is wrestling with

Honestly told: the situation, the numbers, and what to ask the people who want your vote.

■ CITY DECIDES

Growth is beating the roads and sewers

Roads, water and sewer capacity, and community facilities are recurring worries in fast-growth suburban wards, and Ward 7's northwest neighbourhoods have been among London's fastest-growing for years, the reason the old ward grew big enough to trigger a citywide boundary review. City figures cited in CBC's coverage of that review had the old Ward 7 carrying roughly 22,000 more residents than Ward 2. CBC News returned to the ward on July 29, 2026 and reported that infrastructure lagging behind the growth is what the leading candidates keep coming back to. No city report itemizing this ward's own project backlog has been located.

The honest numbers ▾

Ward 7 has nearly 50,000 residents, the highest of London's 14 wards. CBC News, July 29, 2026 ↗

Put them on the record

Which northwest infrastructure gap would you fund first: roads, sewers, or community facilities?

■ CITY DECIDES

Traffic is getting worse

Congestion is a consistent theme in northwest London's growth areas, and Wonderland Road is where it concentrates, at its worst near Sarnia Road. Council rejected a study on widening Wonderland in 2021 and restarted it in the spring of 2025, so the question is back on the table without an answer yet. Widening Sunningdale Road from two lanes to four has been discussed since the 1950s and is finally under construction in 2026.

The honest numbers ▾

Wonderland Road carries about 48,000 vehicles a day, per CBC News, July 29, 2026, which also reports the 2021 rejection and the spring 2025 restart of the widening study. CBC News, July 29, 2026 ↗

Put them on the record

Name one funded step you'd take on congestion in the Hyde Park and Sunningdale corridors.

■ CITY DECIDES

Three bus routes for the whole ward

For the most populous ward in the city, transit coverage is thin. London Transit runs three routes in Ward 7, and only one of them goes north of Fanshawe Park Road, which leaves much of the newer northwest a drive-or-nothing area.

The honest numbers ▾

Three London Transit routes serve Ward 7; one extends north of Fanshawe Park Road, per CBC News, July 29, 2026. CBC News, July 29, 2026 ↗

Put them on the record

What is your specific plan for bus service north of Fanshawe Park Road, and in which term does it happen?

■ CITY DECIDES

The sidewalk that just stops

On Hyde Park Road just north of Fanshawe Park Road the sidewalk runs out, so people on foot cut through a Rona parking lot to get past the gap. CBC News used it on July 29, 2026 as the small, concrete version of the ward's larger complaint: the basics have not caught up to the building.

The honest numbers ▾

A Ward 7 candidate framed the gap to CBC as a city with a $1.4-billion budget unable to find $50,000 for a sidewalk. Both figures are that candidate's, as reported by CBC News on July 29, 2026, and were not checked against city budget or cost documents here. CBC News, July 29, 2026 ↗

Put them on the record

Name the sidewalk or crossing gap in Ward 7 you would fix first, and what you think it costs.

□ SHARED: CITY + PROVINCE

Keeping new homes affordable

Housing and cost of living rank among Londoners' top concerns for 2026 in a London-wide CBC reader survey, alongside homelessness and drug use, context, though not Ward 7-specific polling. Ward 7 campaign messaging talks directly about balancing continued suburban building against "responsible development."

The honest numbers ▾

The CBC reader survey drew 330+ respondents and was non-scientific; results were citywide, not broken out for Ward 7. CBC News ↗

Put them on the record

Should new northwest subdivisions pay more of their own servicing costs, even if that raises new-home prices?

□ SHARED: CITY + PROVINCE

The big three: homelessness, safety, roads

Homelessness, open drug use, and public safety register as top-tier concerns citywide in the CBC reader survey. The most visible impact is concentrated downtown, but candidates in outer wards like Ward 7 may still hear these at the door.

Put them on the record

What would you actually vote for on homelessness and downtown safety as a suburban ward's councillor?

YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL OCTOBER

Change can start now, at any point

The ballot is one tool, not the only one. Between elections, the people who show up are the ones who get heard, and you can start today, not next fall.

  • Email or call your councillor. Every office lists a phone number and address, and a single resident's message still lands. City of London ↗
  • Speak at a committee. Any resident can register as a delegation and take five minutes to address a Standing Committee on an item that's on its agenda. City of London ↗
  • Read the record. Agendas, staff reports, and every recorded vote are posted publicly on the city's meeting portal. City meetings ↗

None of it waits four years. The people already in the room are the ones who asked to be.

DON'T STOP AT ONE RACE

Also on your ballot

Before you go

The rest is showing up

You’ve read the ward. Ward races here can come down to a few hundred ballots, sometimes fewer. In a race that close, your vote is one of the ones that decides it. You don’t need to know everything. You just need to show up, informed.

BEFORE OCT 26

How to vote in Ward 7

ADVANCE
Oct 1
ADVANCE
Oct 3
ADVANCE
Oct 5–10
ELECTION DAY
Oct 26 · 10 am – 8 pm

You’ll need ID with your name and address. Full voting guide: where, what to bring, who can vote →

WHAT WE COULDN’T CONFIRM YET ▾
  • August 8, 2026 region audit: “Medway” qualified — the district is 55% Ward 6, 38% Ward 7 (checked with the City’s Planning Districts layer sampled against the official 2026 ward polygons (scripts/check-ward-regions.mjs)).
  • August 8, 2026: the official Sunningdale planning district lies ~100% in Ward 5 (checked with the City’s Planning Districts layer (Open Data, Community MapServer layer 18) sampled against the official 2026 ward polygons (the same Open Data file the site’s ward maps are built from)). This page’s references are to the Sunningdale Road corridor and the subdivisions along it in the ward’s north, so the region line now says “Sunningdale Road corridor” to avoid claiming the district itself.
  • New Ward 7 boundary detail could not be extracted from an authoritative primary source in this pass; the assumption that it remains anchored on Hyde Park/Fox Hollow/Sunningdale/Medway should be verified against the City's interactive ArcGIS ward map or the Ward Boundary Review final report before relying on it.
  • RESOLVED August 2, 2026: a population figure for the new Ward 7 is confirmed. CBC News (July 29, 2026) reports nearly 50,000 residents, the highest of London's 14 wards, which now leads the growth issue card and the glance. The earlier old-ward comparison (~22,000 more residents than old Ward 2, from CBC's boundary-review coverage) is kept as context in that card but is superseded for the new ward.
  • Whether Ward 7's lines include any of the later amendment-round tweaks (which touched Wards 1, 4, 11, and 13) is inferred, not confirmed against the City's official record.
  • CBC.ca articles returned HTTP 403 on direct fetch in the July 2 pass; on July 3, 2026 both CBC articles cited on this page were fetched in full and the quoted figures (old Ward 7 ~22,000 residents more than Ward 2; 330+-response non-scientific survey) were verified against the article text.
  • RESOLVED August 2, 2026 (transit half): CBC News (July 29, 2026) confirms thin transit as an active Ward 7 flashpoint, with three London Transit routes in the ward and only one going north of Fanshawe Park Road; it now has its own issue card. Recreation and community-facility capacity is still unconfirmed and stays flagged rather than asserted.
  • RESOLVED August 2, 2026: Ward 7-specific reporting now exists. CBC News, "In London's fast-growing Ward 7, infrastructure lags top candidates' concerns" (July 29, 2026), itemizes the ward's infrastructure pressure points and is the source for the population, Wonderland traffic, bus-route, and Hyde Park sidewalk numbers on this page. It is news reporting, not a city document: no city report itemizing Ward 7's project backlog has been located.
  • Nominations closed August 21, 2026, and the City certified the list on August 24.
  • The $1.4-billion city budget and $50,000 sidewalk figures on the sidewalk card are a candidate's framing as reported by CBC, not city documents. Neither was checked against the 2026 budget or an engineering cost estimate, and the candidate is left unnamed there because issue cards on this site are shared ground rather than campaign space.
  • The Wonderland Road widening study (rejected by council in 2021, restarted spring 2025) is sourced to CBC's July 29, 2026 reporting; the underlying council decisions were not pulled from the minutes, and no reporting date or completion target for the restarted study was located.
  • The claim that widening Sunningdale Road has been discussed since the 1950s comes from CBC's July 29, 2026 reporting and was not traced to a primary planning document.