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 — the elected body that runs London — found no grounds for action against Polanski, who also serves as a London Assembly member (a councillor-style role at City Hall). The allegations had focused on his time living aboard a houseboat. These vessels sit in a grey area of local tax law: council tax normally applies to buildings on land, but moored boats can fall under different tax rules depending on their status and where they're anchored.

The clearance arrives while Polanski faces other political pressure. In May, he admitted to Sky News that he had not voted in that year's local elections — a disclosure that drew immediate criticism. The BBC reported the story a day earlier, on 14 May. For a party leader whose authority depends partly on projecting civic engagement, the admission generated the sort of coverage that opposition researchers file away and wait to use.

Polanski — born David Paulden on 2 November 1982 — became leader in September. He took over a party that won its strongest-ever Westminster result at the 2024 general election and now faces the new pressures that come with stronger parliamentary representation. Much of his profile within the party had been built through his work as an Assembly member, so the council tax investigation — regardless of how it ended — was an unwelcome distraction on home turf.

The GLA investigation removes one active vulnerability. But the sequence of these episodes — the non-voting admission in May, the council tax inquiry resolved in June — creates a pattern of personal scrutiny that the party will want to move past. Green leaderships have historically faced this kind of close examination whenever the party rises far enough to attract serious opposition attention. Whether the scrutiny reflects that rise in prominence, or something about how Polanski himself has handled the move from activist-politician to party leader, is a question his colleagues will be working through privately.

For now, the formal verdict stands clear: cleared.