Previewing the Cheltenham and Suffolk by-elections of 12th October 2023
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
Two by-elections on 12th October 2023:
Prestbury
Cheltenham council, Gloucestershire; caused by the resignation of People Against Bureaucracy Group councillor John Payne.
This column’s rationale is to talk about local elections, so it’s appropriate that we start with an area where localism has been the order of the day for many years. We’ve come to Prestbury, a village which has been swallowed up by the growth of the town of Cheltenham, and which is alleged to be the most haunted village in England. Quite why this is isn’t clear.
The economy of this area is dominated by horseracing. Prestbury ward includes the whole of Cheltenham Racecourse, which is one of the UK’s premier venues for jumps racing. The four-day Cheltenham Festival each March is second only to the Grand National meeting at Aintree for National Hunt prize money, and it includes several of the most prestigious jumps races on the calendar: most famously the Cheltenham Gold Cup, whose list of previous winners includes several household names (Golden Miller, Desert Orchid, Best Mate, Kauto Star to name but a few). The Gold Cup was first raced in its current form in 1924, so next year’s Festival will be its centenary year. The Cheltenham Festival attracts visitors from all over the UK and Ireland, pumping millions of pounds each year into the local economy.
Prestbury was incorporated into Cheltenham as late as 1991, having been previously placed within Tewkesbury district during the big 1970s reorganisation. It’s still part of the Tewkesbury parliamentary seat, which has been represented since 1997 by Conservative backbencher Laurence Robertson.
Since the late 1970s local elections here have been dominated by the People Against Bureaucracy Group, who effectively function as a localist slate for Prestbury. They were originally the People Against Bureaucracy Action Group; the Action seems to have disappeared from the party name but is very much still there in its results.
Mind, the most recent result for PABG was not particularly good. In 2022, the last time that Cheltenham went to the polls, councillor John Payne was re-elected for a third term of office with 46% of the vote, the first time this century that PABG’s share in Prestbury ward fell below 50%. He was still re-elected easily thanks to a divided opposition: 21% for the Conservatives and 18% for the Green Party were the highest scores for other candidates, with the Lib Dems (who run Cheltenham council with a large majority) finishing fourth and last. In 2021 People Against Bureaucracy gave up its seat on Gloucestershire county council, with the Conservatives comfortably gaining the open seat in Pittville and Prestbury division. Maybe the locals of Prestbury are finally coming terms with the fact that red tape is what holds the nation together.
John Payne was elected in 2022 for a four-year term, but his successor will have that cut short. The Local Government Boundary Commission have been in town recently, and following their work the May 2024 Cheltenham elections will be a full-council election on new boundaries. Both of Prestbury ward’s councillors will need to seek re-election next year, when this ward will have minor boundary changes.
So, let’s finish by looking at the runners and riders. Defending for the People Against Bureaucracy is Stan Smith, who has lived in the ward for 30 years; he is retired from a career in the aircraft industry. The Conservatives have reselected Laura Kennedy, who lives in Cheltenham with her husband and young son; she finished second here last year under her previous name of Laura Haley. Standing for the Greens is Jan Foster, who worked in the customer service and education sectors before her retirement. Ben Ingram completes the racecard/ballot paper for the Liberal Democrats. The local press have interviewed all the candidates, and you can find out more here (link).
Parliamentary constituency: Tewkesbury
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Tewkesbury
Gloucestershire county council division: Pittville and Prestbury
ONS Travel to Work Area: Cheltenham
Postcode districts: GL50, GL52
Jan Foster (Grn)
Ben Ingram (LD)
Laura Kennedy (C)
Stan Smith (PABG)
May 2022 result PABG 996 C 466 Grn 398 LD 318
May 2021 result PABG 1128 C 683 LD 445
May 2018 result PABG 1324 LD 411 C 279
May 2016 result PABG 1196 C 258 LD 202 Grn 78
May 2014 result PABG 1524 C 306 LD 165
May 2012 result PABG 1239 C 263 LD 218
May 2010 result PABG 1798 C 842 LD 754
May 2008 result PABG 1098 C 539 LD 253 Lab 104
May 2006 result PABG 1060 C 642 LD 225
June 2004 result PABG 1137 C 593 LD 166 Lab 104 Grn 89
May 2002 result PABAG 1187/1171 C 488/363 LD 202/99 Grn 93
Previous results in detail
Woodbridge
Suffolk county council; caused by the death of Liberal Democrat councillor Caroline Page.
For other by-election of the week we travel from the west of England to the east, finishing up in the Suffolk town of Woodbridge. This has a rather curious name: Woodbridge is located on banks of the Deben estuary, and there has never been a bridge across the river here — wooden or otherwise. Perhaps not surprisingly there is some dispute over the original meaning of the town’s name, with suggestions including that it was originally a “brigg” or town associated with the Norse god Odin or Woden. So perhaps Woodbridge and Wednesbury are in fact cognates.
If there had ever been a bridge across the Deben here, it would have connected the town with Sutton Hoo and its burial mounds which have so excited archaeologists over the last century. The spectacular ship burial there is generally identified as the final resting-place of King Rædwald of East Anglia, who died in or around 624, so there must have been some significance to Woodbridge’s location: however, the town is not attested until the mid-tenth century. Thanks to its estuary shoreline, boatbuilding and other maritime industries were Woodbridge’s traditional specialism: to this we can now add administration, as Woodbridge (or more accurately the adjoining village of Melton, which is part of the same urban area) is the headquarters of East Suffolk council, the largest non-metropolitan district in England.
East Suffolk council was created in 2019 from a merger of two previous districts. Until 2019 the local authority here was Suffolk Coastal council, which still gives its name to the parliamentary constituency covering Woodbridge. The Suffolk Coastal seat has been Conservative since its creation in 1983, and both of its MPs in that time have been high-profile Cabinet members: John Gummer (now Lord Deben) served here until 2010 when he handed over to Thérèse Coffey. Coffey has been a Cabinet minister continuously since 2019: she briefly rose to the heights of Deputy Prime Minister during the five minutes of the Liz Truss administration, and has held the role of environment secretary since Rishi Sunak came to power.
Woodbridge is not one of the Conservative-voting parts of this area. In the 2023 East Suffolk council elections the Woodbridge ward, which has almost exactly the same boundaries as this division, returned a Liberal Democrat and a Green councillor on what was effectively a joint slate: the Greens gained a seat previously held by the Conservatives. The Tories lost control of East Suffolk council in those elections; the Greens are now the largest party on that council, and they run the show in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and an independent councillor.
However, the Greens are not a factor in today’s by-election for the Woodbridge division of Suffolk county council. This had been represented by the Lib Dems’ Caroline Page since she won a by-election in 2008, gaining her seat from the Conservatives. Page was subsequently re-elected for four further terms of office, most recently in 2021 when she defeated the Conservatives by 63–37 in a straight fight. She was the leader of the Lib Dem group on Suffolk county council when she passed away in July at the age of 65, from lung cancer which had initially been wrongly diagnosed as long Covid. Like King Rædwald fourteen centuries ago, Page had a Viking funeral: her ashes were placed in a boat, which was committed to the River Deben.
Unlike King Rædwald, Page’s successor will be determined by democracy. The defending Liberal Democrat candidate in the by-election to replace her is (Lorraine) Ruth Leach, a photographer and Woodbridge town councillor who is continuing Page’s campaign to improve the condition of the Deben’s water. The Conservatives have selected Alan Porter, a former chair of the neighbouring Melton parish council who contested Melton ward in May’s East Suffolk council elections. There will not be a straight fight this time, as Paul Richards has been nominated for Labour.
Parliamentary constituency: Suffolk Coastal
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Suffolk Coastal
East Suffolk ward: Woodbridge (same boundaries)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Ipswich
Postcode districts: IP12, IP13
Lorraine Leach (LD)
Alan Porter (C)
Paul Richards (Lab)
May 2021 result LD 1887 C 1086
May 2017 result LD 1547 C 1041 Lab 254 Grn 113 UKIP 55
May 2013 result LD 1127 C 870 UKIP 327 Lab 255 Grn 122
June 2009 result LD 1460 C 1231 Grn 248 Lab 156
September 2008 by-election LD 970 C 826 Ind 378 Lab 147
May 2005 result C 1720 LD 1698
Previous results in detail
If you enjoyed these previews, there are many more like them — going back to 2016 — in the Andrew’s Previews books, which are available to buy now (link). The 2022 edition is out now! You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).
Andrew Teale
