Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, has been cleared by a City Hall investigation into claims he failed to pay council tax while living on a London houseboat, according to the Evening Standard.

The Greater London Authority inquiry found no grounds for action against Polanski, who also serves as a London Assembly member. The allegations had centred on his period of residence aboard a houseboat — a form of dwelling that sits in a longstanding grey area of local tax liability, given that council tax applies to land-based properties and moored vessels can fall under different rating regimes depending on their status and location.

The clearance comes at a politically sensitive moment for Polanski. In May, he admitted to Sky News that he had not voted in this year's local elections — a disclosure that drew immediate criticism given both his elected role and his party's dependency on mobilising progressive voters. The BBC reported the story a day earlier, on 14 May 2026. For a leader whose authority rests substantially on projecting civic engagement, the admission generated the kind of coverage that opposition researchers file and wait to use.

Polanski — born David Paulden on 2 November 1982 — became leader of the Green Party of England and Wales in September, taking on a party that won its strongest-ever Westminster result at the 2024 general election and is now navigating the pressures that follow any step-change in parliamentary representation. His profile within the party had been built partly through his work as an Assembly member at City Hall, making the council tax investigation, however it resolved, an uncomfortable distraction on home turf.

The GLA investigation finding in his favour removes one live vulnerability. But the clustering of these episodes — the non-voting admission in May, the council tax inquiry resolved in June — sketches a pattern of personal scrutiny that the party will be keen to move past. Green leaderships have historically attracted this kind of granular examination whenever the party rises far enough to be taken seriously by opponents with the resources to look closely. Whether the scrutiny reflects that elevation, or something about how Polanski specifically has handled the transition from activist-politician to party leader, is the more consequential question his colleagues will be privately working through.

For now, the formal verdict is unambiguous: cleared.