Emma Dent Coad

Dent Coad has written or contributed to a number of books on architecture and design, including on Javier Mariscal, and is studying at the University of Liverpool School of Architecture for a PhD on "Constructing Modern Spain: Architecture, Politics and Ideology under Franco, 1939–1975", which she put on hold on being elected MP.

Emma Dent Coad (born Margaret Mary Dent, 2 November 1954) is a British architectural historian and politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Kensington from 2017 to 2019.

She graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in History of Design in 1992.

She has been an organiser of the modern architecture campaign group Docomomo UK since about 2000.

A former member of the Labour Party, she has been a member of Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council since 2006.

She resigned her Labour membership on 27 April 2023, but remains on the local council as an independent.

In August 2023 she announced her independent candidacy for Kensington at the next general election.

Dent Coad was born in Stepney, the youngest of six children.

Her father, Charles Enrique Dent CBE, was a professor of medicine of half Spanish descent, and her mother, Margaret Ruth Coad, was an Anglican vicar's daughter who converted to Catholicism to marry him.

She grew up in Chelsea.

She went to Sacred Heart High School, a selective grammar school in Hammersmith, London.

Dent Coad was first elected to represent Golborne ward on Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council in 2006, and served as the leader of the opposition and leader of the council's Labour Group from 2014 to 2015.

In the 2022 election she was elected in St Helen's ward.

She left Labour in April 2023 and now sits on the council as an independent.

As a councillor, she has held the following committee and group memberships:

Just days after Dent Coad's election, the Grenfell Tower fire took place in her then constituency.

On 16 June, she blamed the Kensington and Chelsea council for failings which led to the fire.

Dent Coad considers the fire an "entirely preventable" tragedy.

Dent Coad said, “I can't help thinking that poor quality materials and construction standards may have played a part in this hideous and unforgivable event.” Dent Coad links the council's intention to redevelop the area to the tragedy, she said, “The council want to develop this area full of social housing, and in order to enable that they have prettified a building that they felt was ugly ...

The idea that that has led to this horrendous tragedy is just unthinkable.”

She has campaigned for permanent new homes in the area for victims of the tragedy rather than, "some mucky bedsit".

She has added “People are very afraid of what is going to happen next.

They need to be kept within Kensington.

The fear I was hearing yesterday was "they're going to send us to Peterborough or to Hastings", all the other places that the council has tried to send them before.

Her predecessor, Victoria Borwick, has claimed that she shared "collective responsibility" for the Grenfell Tower refurbishment, since Dent Coad had (until October 2012) sat on the board of the Kensington and Chelsea TMO which managed the tower.

In a council meeting on 8 November 2012, Dent Coad praised the refurbishment announcement of the Grenfell Tower which she said showed that the council had listened to residents.

In a 2014/15 report, in which Dent Coad's name appears, it is reported that the housing scrutiny committee looked at the refurbishment.

This is usually taken to mean the refurbishment that includes installing the cladding, however as the cladding was installed in the summer of 2016, 4 years after the alleged comment.

However, Dent Coad has asked Borwick to retract this claim, arguing that she supported refurbishment in principle to respond to complaints about conditions, but left the TMO around the time that the broad principles of the refurbishment were agreed.

She was not present when Rydon was provided with the contract, or when the decision was reportedly taken to save money on external cladding.

It is often used to ascribe responsibility to Dent Coad for the cladding, even though the cladding was installed May–June 2016 so the report is actually about a completely different refurbishment.

Facing the claim that she was partly responsible, she angrily rejected the accusation, saying: "I didn't make any of the decisions. I didn't sign the document,".

Dent Coad issued a detailed rebuttal via a local blog, From the Hornet's Nest, refuting the most common accusations.

People want to stay near their networks where their children go to school, where their families are.” Poverty in Kensington and the fire were the subjects of her maiden speech in the House of Commons on 22 June 2017.

On 4 July 2017, Dent Coad said that residents had no confidence in Sir Martin Moore-Bick to lead the Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry, describing him as "a technocrat" who lacked "credibility".

She supported calls for "reparations" to the community in the form of restoring local assets and services such as a college and a library which were under threat, and claims that many on the council see those in social housing as "lesser beings."

Dent Coad supported a call for the leaders of Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council to resign so that there could be fresh elections.

Dent Coad has been critical of Universal Credit generally and also critical of a decision to roll out Universal Credit in Kensington shortly before Christmas 2018.

Claimants must wait five weeks for the first payment which Dent Coad maintains is unacceptable.

Dent Coad did not want yet more pain inflicted on families that have, "already lost so much" in the Grenfell fire.