Previewing the English local elections of 4th May 2023

“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”

It’s the first Thursday in May 2023, and that means it’s time for what will probably be the biggest electoral event of the year: the local elections in England. This is your four-yearly (or possibly more frequent) chance to influence the direction of your local district council at the ballot box, and to elect, defeat or re-elect your local representatives. Despite a decade and more of austerity, the UK’s local councils between them still employ millions of people and control budgets of billions of pounds for the benefit of local residents and local communities. It’s a big deal. Let’s have a look at what me might expect from these elections.

2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first elections to the present structure of English local government, which came into operation in the following year of 1974. This structure has been hacked around quite a lot over the last few decades, but the vast majority of the councils up for election today trace their lineage in an unbroken line back to 1973. A four-year electoral cycle was set up in the 1970s, with most English districts given the choice of whether to hold their elections either by thirds or all at once.

As originally envisaged, this is the year of the cycle where all of the UK’s second-tier districts which have whole-council elections go to the polls. Developments over the last fifty years have muddied the waters a bit on that, and there are now some parts of England which don’t have second-tier districts or have a non-standard electoral cycle; those areas will not be sharing in the fun this year, and I’ll make clear what’s going on as we come to the detailed profiles below. Neither are there any polls today in London, Wales or Scotland.

We haven’t had any further local government reorganisation affecting this year’s polls, but there are some innovations for the 2023 English local elections following the passage of the Elections Act this year. Counter to all of the UK’s electoral reform measures going back to 1832, and indeed contrary to what the devolved governments in Scotland and Wales have done over the last few years, these measures are designed to reduce voter choice and introduce barriers to voting. The reduction in voter choice results from the electoral system for elected mayors being changed to first-past-the-post, a change which wasn’t in the original bill for the Elections Act and was introduced by a government amendment at committee stage in the Commons. This column is old enough to remember when changes to electoral systems were seen as important enough to require a nationwide referendum, a precedent which clearly no longer applies.

The barriers to voting now come from a more restrictive and more complicated franchise for non-UK citizens, and from the introduction of a requirement to show photo ID to vote in order to combat an electoral fraud problem which, to a first approximation, doesn’t exist. The number of prosecutions for the relevant electoral offence — personation — is vanishingly small, and in nearly thirteen years of Andrew’s Previews the only place I can recall writing about personation is the 21st Century Rotten Borough of Tower Hamlets. Clearly our councils have nothing better to spend their limited budgets on than providing free photo ID for those few voters who applied for it — and on having to run publicity campaigns to tell people that you now need photo ID to vote. Of which this is possibly the most bizarre.

Not all the changes made by the Elections Act 2022 were retrograde steps. One welcome innovation is that it is easier to stand in local elections now: your nomination papers only need to be signed by two electors from the ward, down from ten as previously. This was previously introduced in English local elections as a temporary measure during the COVID pandemic; it’s now permanent, and is a welcome change for those people who have to fill in and process the ever-multiplying forms which make up candidate nomination packs.

The first Thursday in May 2023 comes just two days before the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla, which takes place on Saturday 6th May. The various returning officers have carefully planned their counts such that nothing will be allowed to spill over into Saturday: many mayors and senior local councillors will have official things to do related to the Coronation, and civic buildings will also be needed for those. Those mayors and senior councillors will be from the outgoing régime, because the new councillors elected on Thursday 4th May will not take up their roles until Tuesday 9th May — it’s normally a day earlier than this, but Monday 8th May is a bank holiday in honour of the Coronation.

One effect of the Coronation is that the local elections which were due to take place in Northern Ireland on 4th May have been postponed. Northern Ireland uses proportional representation for its elections, and counts its votes by hand. The use of the Single Transferable Vote in the Six Counties makes counting a rather slow process, and there is a significant danger that counts could spill over into the bank holiday weekend. To avoid this, the Northern Irish local elections have been put back by two weeks, and they will now take place on Thursday 18th May.

That leaves 8,057 ordinary council seats and 38 casual vacancies up for election in England on 4th May. Most of these were last contested four years and a lifetime ago. May 2019 was a time when political discourse was consumed by the single issue of Brexit: the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union had been postponed twice by that point. Both of the UK’s major political parties were at possibly their lowest ebb, with fractures on both sides of the political spectrum. Opinion polls were showing big scores for new parties: on the left, Change UK or The Independent Group or whatever it was they were called that week, on the right the Brexit Party. There was a big anti-incumbent mood around.

These new insurgent groups left the May 2019 local elections alone. To properly contest local elections on a nationwide basis, you need to select thousands of candidates to match the thousands of seats up for election, and that was a level of organisation and infrastructure which Change UK and the Brexit Party simply couldn’t put together in a matter of weeks. Four years on the Brexit Party’s successors, Reform UK, are a minor player in these local elections with just 470 candidates — a figure which includes joint tickets with localist parties in Derby and Bolton. Change UK, who never stood a single candidate in a local election, have now folded.

Instead, this anti-incumbent mood was picked up by other groups contesting those local elections: principally localist parties, independent candidates and the Liberal Democrats. They picked up well over a thousand seats between them, mostly at the expense of the Conservatives. That seat gain was magnified by the fact that many of the seats up for election were in the Conservatives’ strongest districts and had last been contested on the day of the 2015 general election, which the Conservatives had won. You’ll see the effect of this, particularly in the south of England, as I go through the details below. The BBC’s projected national share of the vote placed the Conservatives and Labour on just 28% each, with the Liberal Democrats on 19% and a combined 25% share for the Greens, UKIP, independent candidates and localists.

There have been two sets of local elections since 2019. The 2021 polls were a clear win for the Conservatives, with the BBC’s projected share at 36% for the Conservatives, 29% for Labour and 17% for the Lib Dems. By contrast Labour led in the 2022 polls with a projected 35% against 30% for the Conservatives and 19% for the Lib Dems. The less that’s said about 2020 the better.

As with last year. national opinion polling going into these elections shows a clear lead for the Labour party, so we should expect results in these local elections which are more similar to 2022 than to 2021. We can reasonably expect to see seat gains for Labour, who have clearly improved their position following their poor local election performance in 2019. The Conservatives are also defending a poor local election performance from that year: most of the low-hanging fruit for their opponents has already gone, and that fact alone should temper expectations for further large losses of Conservative councillors.

In councils which elect by thirds, the usual trick employed by this column is to compare the 2019 and 2022 results to judge the potential for seat and council control changes. You might see this referred to below as a “par score”. With the May 2023 political scene looking rather similar to 2022, this par score might well prove to be a fairly accurate guide: if it turns out to be wrong either way it will probably be consistently wrong. This trick also reveals that there are a few councils where the Conservatives have a realistic chance of gaining seats against the national trend, mainly in areas where they put in a particularly poor performance in 2019 and improved on that in 2022. See if you can spot them below.

The national political scene affects the local one in the sense that a rising tide lifts all boats, but that doesn’t mean that the tide rises to the same level in all harbours. Local elections are local, and this column is here to describe the local scene. In the rest of this piece I’ll go through England in detail, painting a more local and more varied picture for you. Links given are to results from the Local Elections Archive Project; while the maps are from 2019 or (if different) the year when these seats were last contested, and as such might not reflect the lines on which the election will actually be drawn if there are new ward boundaries this year. Council compositions were correct when this piece was drafted over the Easter weekend. Without further ado, let’s get out into the country:

North East

In the North East region all councils are holding ordinary elections except Northumberland and Durham. All seats are up for election in Darlington, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton-on-Tees; and one-third of the council is up in Hartlepool and the five Tyne and Wear boroughs.

As usual, we’ll commence with the city of Sunderland which takes pride in normally being the first district to declare its results. Last year I had speculated that we had reached the point where the Labour majority in the city could be in danger; but that moment now appears to have passed after the party stopped the rot at the 2022 elections. Sunderland now has 43 Labour councillors, 15 Conservatives, 14 Lib Dems, one Reform UK and two independents. This year Labour are only defending twelve seats plus by-election gains from the Greens (in Washington South) and from UKIP (in Redhill), and a repeat of last year’s results would see Labour gain the two other wards which voted UKIP in 2019, Ryhope (where the former UKIP councillor is now independent and is standing down) and St Anne’s (where the former UKIP councillor is now in the Conservatives and is seeking re-election as such). The election in Hendon ward has been postponed after the Conservative candidate died during the campaign, and will take place at a later date. The other four Tyne and Wear councils have impregnable Labour majorities.

The hung Hartlepool council is currently very evenly-balanced, with 13 Conservative, 13 Labour and 10 independent or localist councillors. An independent/Conservative coalition is in control. The whole council was up for election in 2021 on new ward boundaries, and that election produced a curiously skewed set of retiring councillors: this year five of the independents/localists are up for re-election, against four Conservatives and just three Labour. Last year Labour successfully defended seven seats and they have since picked up an independent seat in a by-election; a repeat of last year’s results would see Labour gain four seats and become the largest party on the council, although that would not be enough for a majority. A Labour majority in Hartlepool would probably have to wait for 2024, when most of the Conservative group will need to seek re-election.

Labour lost their majority on Darlington council in 2019 and a Conservative/independent coalition is running the town. Last time the Conservatives won 22 seats here against 20 Labour, 3 independents, 3 Lib Dems and 2 Greens; the Conservatives gained a seat from Labour at a May 2021 by-election. The Conservatives had a large lead in votes here four years ago, but this is one district where England’s first-past-the-post system works against them: Darlington’s Labour vote is concentrated in the town wards, which tend to have lower turnouts, while the Conservatives pile up large majorities in the rural fringe wards.

New ward boundaries are coming in for Stockton-on-Tees, which Labour run as a minority. The 2019 elections here returned 24 Labour councillors, 14 Conservatives, 7 Thornaby localists, 6 independent councillors, 3 Ingleby Barwick localists and two Lib Dems; the Conservatives have since gained two seats in by-elections, one from an independent and the other from the Lib Dems. It might take a while for this result to be sorted out: the poll in the safely-Conservative Hartburn ward has been called off after the Reform UK candidate died, and will be rescheduled for a later date.

Local government in the two Teesside districts wholly on the Yorkshire side of the river is rather difficult to follow. Middlesbrough has an elected mayoralty, which is held by independent mayor Andy Preston: he gained the position from Labour in 2019 by the thumping margin of 59–23. The associated council is closely divided between independent and Labour councillors on paper, but in practice the independent councillors are themselves divided into two factions who will bicker with just about anybody, including Mayor Preston.

Andy Preston is seeking re-election for a second term. He faces a field of three opposition candidates, led by Labour’s Chris Cooke who is a serving councillor for the town’s Newport ward and runs the local branch of a mental health charity. Another Middlesbrough councillor on the ballot is independent Jon Rathmell, who represents Nunthorpe ward and was leader of one of the council’s independent factions, the “Middlesbrough Independent Councillors Association”, until he got into the Councillors Behaving Badly file: in 2021 Rathmell pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office over forged documents relating to a 2018 firework display which he had organised, and he was given a two-year conditional discharge. Completing the mayoral ballot is John Cooper for the Conservatives, who appeared in this column last year when he contested the Berwick Hills and Pallister by-election to Middlesbrough council.

Redcar and Cleveland is run by a coalition of independent and Lib Dem councillors after the 2019 elections returned an extremely balanced council: 15 Labour, 14 independents, 13 Lib Dems, 11 Conservatives, 3 Eston localists, 2 UKIP and 1 East Cleveland localist. On paper by-election results here have been very positive for the Conservatives; in practice their group has split and there are only six Tory councillors left.

There is also one local by-election to Durham council, where the Conservatives are defending Chester-le-Street East. This division name does pretty much what it says on the tin, taking in the eastern quarter of the town: it is overlooked by Lumley Castle on the far side of the River Wear. Here can be found the Riverside cricket ground, home of Durham county cricket club and a regular venue for England one-day international and T20 matches: Test matches have previously been played here, but the Riverside was removed from the Test rota in 2016 as a result of financial sanctions on Durham.

This is Chester-le-Street’s most middle-class ward and is one of the strongest Conservative wards in the Durham council area: in 2017, when just five of Durham’s wards voted Conservative, Chester-le-Street East was one of them. The late Conservative councillor Beatrice “Beaty” Bainbridge, who was the Durham council chair when she passed away earlier this year, was a political veteran although her continuous service only dated from 2017; in 2021 she polled 42% of the vote against 31% for Labour and 23% for the Greens. Her widower, former police officer and former Durham councillor Allan Bainbridge, is the defending Conservative candidate; Labour have selected Julie Scurfield, who was appointed BEM in 2020 for her work as a girls’ football coach, while the Greens have withdrawn to leave the Lib Dems’ Russell Haswell to complete the ballot paper.

North West

For our tour of the north-west let’s start in Greater Manchester, where the Local Government Boundary Commission have been hard at work. One-third of the council is up for election in Bury, Manchester, Rochdale and Salford as usual, but new boundaries are being introduced this year in Trafford, Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Wigan and the Greatest Town in the Known Universe.

Bolton is the only metropolitan borough in the north of England which is run by the Conservatives. They do not have a majority on the council: the latest composition, following a by-election gain for the Conservatives in Rumworth last year, is 25 Conservative councillors, 19 Labour, 5 Lib Dems and 11 independents and localists. One of the localist groups, Farnworth and Kearsley First, managed to persuade the LGBCE to allocate nine seats to Farnworth and Kearsley when those towns only have enough electors to justify eight seats; this might, however, have come too late to save FKF who drew a blank last year after Labour performed well in Farnworth. In fact, the localists overall had a poor election here in 2022, winning only Kearsley ward. The Rumworth by-election gain for the Conservatives last year probably does not herald a Conservative majority in Bolton; strongly-Muslim wards like Rumworth can do weird things depending what is happening in the local mosques. Labour target areas will include both Horwich wards, and Hulton ward where there is a huge local planning controversy and where the Conservatives have had to disown one of their candidates for racist stuff on social media; but the path to a Labour majority here is a long one.

New boundaries came in last year for neighbouring Bury, where Labour increased their majority: there are currently 28 Labour councillors, 11 Conservatives, 8 Radcliffe localists, 3 independents and a Lib Dem. Although there are a number of marginal wards here, the small Labour majority in Bury doesn’t look in serious danger.

In Oldham, Labour have been going backwards in recent years and have a lot of work to do to secure their majority. Both of the last two years’ local elections in the Home of the Tubular Bandage have seen the Labour council leader lose his or her seat; this year the council leader is seeking re-election in her Royton South ward, which the Conservatives came close to winning in 2022 but where they are standing down this time, apparently in favour of an independent slate. There are currently 35 Labour councillors against 9 Conservatives, 9 Lib Dems, 5 Failsworth localists and two independents; new boundaries mean that all 60 councillors are up for election.

There are also ward boundary changes in the only Greater Manchester borough which has never had a Labour majority. That’s Stockport, which includes some strongly middle-class suburbs on the edge of Greater Manchester such as Cheadle, Bramhall and Marple — the Conservative-held parliamentary seats of Cheadle and Hazel Grove cover this area. However, this doesn’t mean that Stockport council has a lot of Conservatives: in fact, the Stockport Tories will be wiped out at this election if they can’t improve on their 2022 showing. Instead, the beneficiaries of this demographic locally are the Liberal Democrats, who run Stockport council as a minority with 28 councillors; in opposition are 22 Labour, 4 Conservatives, 3 Heald Green localists, 3 independents and 2 Greens. The Labour councillors are well dug-in and the Lib Dems may find it hard to get the gains they need for a council majority.

Just outside the Stockport council boundary is Handforth of blessed memory, which is part of the large Cheshire East district which sprawls from Knutsford, Wilmslow and Macclesfield to Congleton, Crewe, Nantwich and the Shropshire border. Following an appalling Conservative performance here in 2019, Cheshire East is run by a coalition of Labour, independent and localist councillors which, until his death last year, included Barry Burkhill from that video. Burkhill’s seat is vacant going into these elections.

Cheshire West and Chester council has had a precarious Labour minority administration for eight years now: the 2019 elections here returned 35 Labour councillors, 28 Conservatives, four independents, two Lib Dems and a Green councillor, giving Labour half of the 70 seats. The recent parliamentary by-election in the City of Chester suggests that a Conservative comeback here is probably not on the cards. Britain Elects needs to declare an interest here, as our genial host Ben Walker is on the defending Labour slate for Chester City and the Garden Quarter ward.

Moving into Merseyside, Wirral council is moving to whole-council elections this year of its own volition. The Land of the Plastic Scouser currently has a minority Labour administration with 26 Labour councillors, 23 Conservatives, 9 Greens, 6 Lib Dems, an independent and one vacant seat. Labour have been going backwards on the Wirral in recent years, losing seats to the Greens in Birkenhead and Bebington and to the Conservatives in marginal wards like Pensby and Thingwall. Expect a continued hung council here.

Travelling through the Mersey Tunnels we come to the city of Liverpool, which is moving to whole-council elections this year by government diktat; this is accompanied by a boundary review which has left the city’s ward map completely unrecognisable from the above, and by the abolition of the city’s Labour-held elected mayoralty. That will transfer power back to Liverpool council, which currently has a large Labour majority with 57 councillors against 12 independent councillors, 11 Lib Dems, 4 Greens and 4 continuing Liberals. Most of the independent councillors are Labour defectors: the Liverpool Labour group is clearly not a happy place to be right now, and the party has put in a number of indifferent by-election performances in wards in the north of the city over the last two years. That hasn’t actually cost them any seats, but those are safe wards and one of them was nearly lost to the Lib Dems.

There are no elections this year in St Helens or Warrington. The Labour majorities in the metropolitan boroughs I haven’t mentioned so far — Rochdale, Tameside, Manchester, Trafford, Salford, Wigan, Knowsley and Sefton — are impregnable. Halton is not a metropolitan borough but also falls into the safe-Labour category.

In the Lancashire county council area, there is an all-out election this year in West Lancashire to introduce new ward boundaries. This is a hung council at present, with a minority Labour administration of 25 councillors facing an opposition of 20 Conservatives, 7 “Our West Lancashire” localists and 2 independents. The boundary changes here are radical, but the result of the recent West Lancashire parliamentary by-election suggests that the local Labour party is in good shape right now. However, we may need to wait a little while for this council to be settled: the poll for the three seats in the new Rural South ward has had to be postponed after Ian Davis, outgoing OWL councillor for Derby ward in Ormskirk, died before nominations closed. Andrew’s Previews will be in eastern Ormskirk to cover the postponed poll at a later date.

South Ribble council is also run by a Labour minority, with 23 Labour councillors, 21 Conservatives, 5 Lib Dems and one vacant seat. This district is based on Leyland and Preston suburbs to the south of the Ribble, including Penwortham (which is the Lib Dem area) and Bamber Bridge. Labour should reasonably expect to gain an overall majority here.

Moving into East Lancashire, we need to have a word about Hyndburn. Based on its election results over the last three years, this should have a Labour majority already: in 2019 Labour won nine wards to the Conservatives’ three, 2021 was a 6–6 draw, and in 2022 Labour won 6 wards while the Conservatives won 5 and gained a by-election off Labour. That would total up to 20 Labour and 15 Conservative councillors, but the Labour group has comprehensively split: going into these elections there are now 15 Conservative councillors, 13 Labour, 2 Greens and 5 independents. Those five include the former Labour leader of the council Miles Parkinson, who is still the council leader but now as part of a coalition with the Conservative group. He is seeking re-election this year as an independent candidate in Altham ward, which was a Conservative gain when it last came up for election in 2021. Overall the Conservatives, Labour and independent councillors are defending four seats each this year: a repeat of the most recent results in the wards up for election would give an 18–18 tie between the Conservatives and Labour, with the two Greens and an ex-Labour independent holding the balance of power.

Further up the M65 we come to Burrnley, which is a hung council: there is currently a coalition of 19 Labour and 8 Lib Dem councillors against 6 Conservatives, 6 Greens, 4 Burrnley and Padiham localists, an independent and a vacant seat. The 2019 map shows a UKIP seat here in Hapton with Park ward: that councillor subsequently joined the Conservative group which has essentially been taken over by the former Burrnley UKIP branch, then went independent and eventually resigned from the council altogether a month before his term was due to end. If the 2022 results are repeated then the ruling coalition would increase its majority, with Labour gaining Rosegrove with Lowerhouse ward from the Burrnley and Padiham localists.

In Pendle, as happened last year, the Conservatives have mislaid their majority just before the council elections as a result of a Conservative seat going vacant: for the second year in a row, there will be two seats up for election in Colne’s Vivary Bridge ward this year. Effectively the Conservatives are defending a majority of one, as there are 16 Conservative councillors plus the vacant seat against 10 Labour, 5 Lib Dems and an ex-Labour independent. This year the Conservatives are defending the two ex-Yorkshire West Craven wards, which both voted Lib Dem last year, plus Marsden and Southfield ward in Nelson which voted Labour last year. The Tories have a chance of gaining Waterside and Horsfield ward in Colne from the Lib Dems, but unless they can do significantly better than 12 months ago then Pendle is going to No Overall Control.

Over the hills to the south, Labour have a small majority in the volatile Rossendale district: there are currently 19 Labour councillors, 11 Conservatives, 3 independents, 2 councillors from “Community First” which is a localist group for Whitworth, and a Green. Labour are only defending five seats this year and look well-placed to keep control, but the Conservatives performed well in two by-elections here during the Truss era and Rossendale is a council where small vote swings can translate into big seat changes.

Elsewhere in Lancashire, there are secure Labour majorities in Blackburn with Darwen, Chorley and Preston. The Conservatives have large majorities in the tiny Ribble Valley district (tiny in population terms; it’s a far-flung area based on Clitheroe), the Fylde district (based on Lytham St Annes) and the Wyre district (based on Fleetwood, Poulton-le-Fylde and Garstang).

Blackpool is another council where Labour has mislaid its majority over the last council term. In 2019 Labour won 23 seats in Blackpool against 15 Conservatives and 4 independents; the latest composition gives 20 Labour, 13 Conservatives and 9 independents. That includes a recent by-election gain in Greenlands ward for Labour, who should probably recover their majority here.

Last but not least in the North West is the city of Lancaster, whose council takes in Morecambe, Carnforth and a large rural hinterland. Lancaster council is permanently hung and has been even more volatile than usual in the last term. The 2019 elections returned 21 Labour councillors, 14 Morecambe Bay Independents, 12 Conservatives, 10 Greens and 3 Lib Dems. Following splits in both the Labour and Morecambe Bay Independent groups, there is now a Green council leader; her cabinet includes members of most of the council’s political groups, but not the Conservatives and Lib Dems. By-elections in this term (and there have been a lot of them) have been all over the place; add in the effect of new ward boundaries, and it would be a brave person who would try and predict this one.

Local government reorganisation in Cumbria means that only town and parish councils are up for election there this year; this includes the inaugural election for the new Barrow town council, which covers nearly all of the former Barrow-in-Furness district and will become one of the largest parishes in England by population. Also in Barrow is our first by-election to the new Cumbrian local government structure, for the ward of Old Barrow and Hindpool which is part of the new Westmorland and Furness council. This is Barrow’s town-centre ward, taking in everything south-west of the railway line including the shipyards of Barrow Island, where BAE Systems are manufacturing the next generation of the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines. Reflecting all this industry, Old Barrow and Hindpool is in the top 15 wards in England and Wales for adults with apprenticeship qualifications and in the top 80 for those working in semi-routine occupations. Two-thirds of the ward’s households are terraced houses, which is in the top 40 wards in England and Wales.

Westmorland and Furness council has a Liberal Democrat majority, but the Lib Dems have traditionally had little or no organisation in Barrow-in-Furness. Until its abolition last month Barrow council had had a Labour majority since 2011, and the late Ann Thomson — who had been first elected in 1990 — was that council’s leader from 2019 until her death a couple of months before the council’s abolition. Thomson was elected to Westmorland and Furness in 2022 on the Labour slate in Old Barrow and Hindpool ward, which Labour won with a 66–28 margin over the Conservatives; the task of defending that Labour majority falls to training and education worker Dave Cassidy, who is opposed by the Conservatives’ Derek Gawne and the Lib Dems’ Stephen Pickthall.

Yorkshire

In Yorkshire we have elections for seven of the nine metropolitan boroughs: the five in West Yorkshire plus Barnsley and Sheffield. All of these have Labour majorities except for the city of Sheffield, which is hung: the latest composition in the home of snooker has 38 reds, 29 yellows, 14 Greens, 1 blue and a cue-ball — or independent councillor, who was elected as Labour. The city’s governance arrangements are complicated, but it’s fair to say that all parties are involved in some way. A repeat of the 2022 results would see Labour gain Crookes/Crosspool and East Ecclesfield wards from the Lib Dems, but that would still leave them well short of the 43 seats needed for a council majority.

The most marginal council in West Yorkshire is Kirklees, which covers Huddersfield and Dewsbury along with a large number of smaller towns and villages. Kirklees currently has a Labour majority of one: 35 Labour councillors against 18 Conservatives, 8 Lib Dems, 4 independents and 3 Greens.. The 2022 elections here were good for Labour, who stand to gain three seats if they are repeated: those wards would be Denby Dale (from the Conservatives), Dewsbury East (from an independent) and Golcar (in western Huddersfield, from the Lib Dems).

Also in the foothills of the Pennines is Calderdale council, whose largest town is Halifax but which also extends to Brighouse, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden. This has a larger Labour majority at present, with 28 Labour councillors, 15 Conservatives, 6 Lib Dems, a Green and an independent. A repeat of 2022 would see just one ward change hands, with the Greens gaining a second seat in Northowram and Shelf from the Conservatives who would confirm a by-election gain from an independent in Ryburn ward.

The big cities of Bradford and Leeds both have comfortable Labour majorities with reasonably large oppositions, as a result of both cities including an extensive small-town and rural hinterland: Bradford city council includes Keighley and Ilkley, while the Leeds city limits run all the way up to Wetherby. The par score for Labour in Bradford based on last year’s results is also an increased majority, with gains from the Conservatives in Bingley and from the Lib Dems in Eccleshill offsetting a loss to the Greens in Tong ward. Currently Bradford Labour stand at 52 seats out of 90.

In Leeds the Labour majority is currently 56 out of 99. A repeat of 2022 would see seats fly in all directions (including a gain for the continuing SDP in Middleton Park ward) but the net change would be an increase to 57 Labour councillors.

The other two Yorkshire metropolitan boroughs — Barnsley and Wakefield — have large Labour majorities, and the Labour gain in last year’s Wakefield parliamentary by-election suggests that this isn’t going to change. In Wakefield the Tories are down one seat before they even start, after Angela Taylor — the outgoing Conservative councillor for the marginal Ossett ward — withdrew her candidacy at the last moment and the Tories did not nominate anyone to replace her.

It’s a rather different story in East Yorkshire. Last year the Liberal Democrats gained overall control of the city of Kingston upon Hull from Labour, and their lead over Labour on the council is 29–27. A Labour fightback does not look on the cards in Hull unless they perform significantly better than in 2022, because if those results are repeated the Lib Dems would gain one further seat in Longhill and Bilton Grange ward.

Hull council is completely surrounded on the landward side by the sprawling East Riding district, which returned a large Conservative majority in 2019: 49 seats against 8 independents, 8 Lib Dems and two seats for the Yorkshire Party. Since then the Conservatives have lost four by-elections in the East Riding to the Lib Dems: two in Bridlington North, and one each in South Hunsley and Beverley Rural. This might well be one to watch.

Finally in Yorkshire we come to the city of York itself, which is a rather fascinating hung council. The 2019 elections here returned 21 Liberal Democrats (who performed well in the rural hinterland and suburban wards which make up the York Outer parliamentary seat), 17 Labour (whose vote is concentrated in the York Central parliamentary seat), 4 Greens, 3 independents and just two Conservatives. There have been no by-elections in this term, and the Lib Dems and Greens run the council in coalition. Labour need seven gains for a majority while the Lib Dems need three; Labour will be looking to see off the Greens in the city-centre wards of Guildhall and Micklegate, but with most of York’s wards being quite safe both parties will need a large swing to them for a chance of overall control.

There are no elections this year in North Yorkshire, following the recent reorganisation, or in the metropolitan boroughs of Doncaster and Rotherham which will next go to the polls in 2025 and 2024 respectively.

East Midlands

With the north dealt with it’s time to head into the Midlands, although we’ll start with a council which probably should be part of the North West region. High Peak council is based on towns like Glossop, New Mills and Buxton which are within the economic and cultural orbit of Manchester but are part of Derbyshire rather than Cheshire or Lancashire. The 2019 elections here returned a hung council with 22 Labour councillors, 16 Conservatives, 3 Lib Dems and 2 Greens; last year the Conservatives gained a by-election from Labour in the Cote Heath ward of Buxton. A minority Labour administration is in control; Labour did well here in the 2021 Derbyshire county council elections and have plenty of target wards for a council majority.

High Peak is next to Derbyshire Dales district, which returned a Conservative majority of one in 2019 that has since disappeared due to a split in the group. The Conservatives still run this council, but now have to rely on a coalition with independent councillors. There are new ward boundaries here to confuse the issue even further.

There has also been a Conservative split in South Derbyshire, which had quite a comfortable Conservative majority in 2019: 22 seats against 14 for Labour. However, in this case the Conservative splinter group has installed a Labour minority administration. The latest composition, after Labour took a by-election off the Conservatives last year in Swadlincote’s Midway ward, has Labour and the Consevatives tied on 16 seats each with four independents holding the balance of power.

The city of Derby is all-up this year on new ward boundaries, and will not be going back to its previous thirds electoral cycle. The latest composition for this hung council has 17 Conservatives, 16 Labour councillors, 7 Lib Dems, 5 Reform Derby councillors, 4 independents and two vacant seats. Reform Derby are the former UKIP group here, and they are in an electoral alliance with Reform UK. Last year Labour topped the poll across Derby and won seven wards to five for the Conservatives, two for the Lib Dems, two for Reform Derby and an independent; both Labour and the Conservatives would need to improve on that performance to have any hope of winning an overall majority.

To the east of Derby can be found the Erewash district, which is based on the towns of Ilkeston and Long Eaton on the Derbyshire side of the Erewash valley. In 2019 this returned 27 Conservative councillors against 19 Labour and 1 Lib Dem. This is a council which Labour will be looking to gain control of, and they will be pleased by gaining Long Eaton’s county council seat from the Conservatives in a by-election last year.

Like Derby, the Amber Valley district is moving off the thirds electoral cycle this year. 2019 was a fairly poor year for the Amber Valley Conservatives, but they did very well here in 2021 and were still gaining council seats last year. However, the current Conservative majority on the council is rather smaller than you would expect from those results, because a number of Conservative councillors have recently walked out to join Reform UK. The latest composition gives 24 Tories against 10 Labour, 5 Reform UK (ex-Conservative), 3 Greens, 2 Belper localists (ex-Labour) and a “Socialist” (also ex-Labour).

North East Derbyshire will be a fascinating council to watch. This former coalmining centre is increasingly turning into a favoured location for Sheffield commuters, and it returned a Conservative majority in 2019: 30 Conservatives, 18 Labour, 3 Lib Dems and 2 independents. Four Conservative councillors have since gone independent, wiping out that majority. By-election results here have been mixed. This district surrounds the borough of Chesterfield, which has a secure Labour majority.

We’re now definitely into the ex-coalfield areas of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, which returned Conservative MPs with massive majorities in December 2019. The defeat of Dennis Skinner in Bolsover was presaged by Labour losing control of Bolsover council in May 2019: however, they didn’t do quite as badly as the map above indicates, as the seat count ended up with 18 Labour, 16 independents, 2 Conservatives and a Lib Dem. Labour have since recovered their council majority by gaining an independent seat in Pinxton ward at a by-election, and holding that gain at a second by-election.

The strength of the Conservative win in Bassetlaw in December 2019 makes the council of that name quite unpredictable this year. In fact the May 2019 Basetlaw elections were awful for the Conservatives, who went backwards on the council: Labour won 37 seats against 5 Conservatives, 5 independents and a Lib Dem. The 2021 Derbyshire county elections here were fairly closely fought, and a recent by-election gain in the rural Sutton ward suggests that the Labour machine might not have seized up here yet.

Another bright spot for Labour on the coalfield in 2019 was Mansfield. This has an elected mayoralty which was held from 2002 to 2019 by the Mansfield Independents on small majorities; but in 2019 Labour’s Andy Abrahams gained the mayoralty by just two votes, polling 7,930 votes to 7,928 for the incumbent Mansfield Independents mayor Kate Allsop. That was after transfers, and Abrahams’ lead on first preferences was a rather more comfortable 1,021 votes: this comes to just 29%, but under the new mayoral election rules that would have won his seat on a freak vote split against 25% for Allsop, 20% for another independent and 15% for the Conservatives.

The move to the first-past-the-post system for mayoral elections will clearly benefit Labour in Mansfield, as they have twice led mayoral elections here on first preferences before being overtaken on transfers. Abrahams is looking for a second term as the Labour candidate. The Mansfield Independents have selected Mick Barton, who represents Maun Valley ward on the council. Another independent on the ballot is Julie Tasker-Love-Birks, a complimentary therapist. Standing for the Conservatives is Andre Camilleri, who is a county councillor for Mansfield South — he beat Andy Abrahams there in 2021, and will be hoping to do so again on a boroughwide stage. Karen Seymour, of the Trade Unionist and Socailist Coalition, completes the mayoral ballot. The winner of the mayoral election may not necessarily have control of the council: in 2019 the Mansfield Independents gained the council majority from Labour while the mayoralty went the other way.

Most other Nottinghamshire councils have large majorities: for the Conservatives in Newark and Sherwood district and in Rushcliffe, for Labour in Nottingham and Gedling and for the Ashfield Independents in Ashfield. The personality cult of the Ashfield Independents leader Jason Zadrozny remains strong and this column hasn’t seen any need to reassess that following his arrest last December on suspicion of fraud and money laundering.

As well as Ashfield council, the Zadroznyites have to defend a Nottinghamshire county council by-election in Kirkby South division, where they had a 58–23 lead over Labour two years ago — positively marginal by Ashfield standards. The defending Ashfield Independents candidate is Rachel Madden who previously represented this county division (and its predecessor Kirkby in Ashfield South) from 2009 to 2021, originally being elected on the Lib Dem ticket before defecting to the Zadroznyites in time for the 2017 election. She is opposed by Lorraine Fagan for Labour and Sam Howlett for the Conservatives.

Last but not least in Nottinghamshire is Broxtowe district, which is based on western Nottingham suburbs and satellite towns such as Beeston and Eastwood, on the eastern side of the River Erewash. This went hung in 2019 and an anti-Conservative coalition is running the show: the 2019 elections returned 20 Conservative councillors, 14 Labour, 7 Lib Dems, 2 Independents and an Ashfield Independent (a small corner of the district is part of the Ashfield parliamentary seat). Despite the seat count Labour actually polled more votes than the Conservatives here in 2019, suggesting that there are a lot of Conservative councillors sitting on small majorities.

Going forward there will only be two East Midlands councils which use the thirds electoral system. One of those is Lincoln, which has a secure Labour majority (the city council covers a smaller area than the parliamentary seat); the other is North East Lincolnshire, which is based on the twin towns of Grimsby and Cleethorpes. This has a large Conservative majority which is not under threat — 30 Conservative councillors against 8 Labour, 3 Lib Dems and an independent. Labour recovered from their 2021 wipeout to hold four wards last year, and this year they are defending the same four wards: a repeat of the 2022 results would result in only one change, an independent gain in Freshney ward from the Conservatives.

For similar reasons Labour will be looking for some sort of recovery in North Lincolnshire, which is based on Scunthorpe and takes in a large rural hinterland. Control of North Lincolnshire council in 2003 was decided by a single vote giving the Conservatives a 21–20 lead over Labour; the 2019 elections here returned a more comfortable Conservative majority of 27–16 after the 2019 elections, and the Tories gained a safe Labour seat in Scunthorpe’s Ashby ward at a 2021 by-election.

The Conservatives run all other Lincolnshire districts, although not all with majorities. They have mislaid majorities on Boston and West Lindsey councils as a result of defections; the Lib Dems could challenge in West Lindsey, while Boston has a large number of independent councillors. North Kesteven actually returned a majority of independent councillors in 2019, although the independents were not a united bloc and the Conservatives were able to peel enough of them off to stay in control. Of the four Lincolnshire councils with Conservative majorities at present, the most marginal is East Lindsey council (above) which is one of those rural councils which traditionally has lots of independents: in 2019 there were 29 Conservatives, 12 independents, 7 Labour, 6 Skegness localists and a Lib Dem. Not that there appears to be much interest in the election judging from the candidate list: eight wards in East Lindsey are uncontested this year, so even before a vote is cast we have ten Conservatives, two independents and a Lib Dem on the scoreboard.

Before we leave Lincolnshire, there is a by-election for the county council to bring you. This is in the Eagle and Hykeham West division, which covers part of the town of North Hykeham together with a number of villages to the west of Lincoln, the largest of which is Skellingthorpe. This area voted strongly for independent councillors in the 2019 North Kesteven elections and just as strongly for the Conservatives in the 2021 Lincolnshire county elections; the Tories are defending a 64–16 majority over independent candidate Nikki Dillon. Alan Briggs defends for the Conservatives, Dillon is back for another go, and for some reason this by-election has attracted a lot of candidates: also standing are Calum Watt for Labour, Tony Richardson for the Lib Dems, Sally Horscroft for the Greens, Charles Overton for the Lincolnshire Independents, Charles Shaw for the continuing Liberal Party, and Nicola Smith for Reform UK.

Over the last council term England’s “smallest” “county” has been a disaster area for the Conservatives. In 2019 the Tories won 15 seats in Rutland against 8 independents, 3 Lib Dems and a Green; four years later the Conservative group has fallen apart like a pack of cards and has lost by-elections left, right and centre. (Well, maybe just left and centre.) There are only six Rutland Conservative councillors left now; such is the disarray in the local party that they could not even find a candidate to defend a by-election last year in Oakham which the Lib Dems gained without a contest. Goodness knows what will happen here.

Which brings us to Leicestershire, where all of the district councillors are up for election. Of the county’s eight districts, Harborough (the south of the county around Market Harborough), Melton and Charnwood (covering Loughborough and the north of the county) have large Conservative majorities, while Hinckley and Bosworth and the Leicester suburbs of Oadby and Wigston have large Liberal Democrat majorities. North West Leicestershire could be in play if Labour can recover in the former coalfield: the 2019 elections here returned 20 Conservative councillors, 10 Labour, 4 Lib Dems, 3 independents and a Green, and the Conservatives have since gained Ibstock East in a by-election.

The most marginal Leicestershire district at present is Blaby which covers a number of Leicester’s south-western suburbs, although this looks safe enough based on the 2019 results which gave 25 Conservative councillors against 6 each for Labour and the Lib Dems, a Green and an independent. The Conservative majority is now down to 21 out of 39, but that is partly down to two Conservative seats presently being vacant.

I’ve saved possibly the most interesting council in the East Midlands till last. Leicester is definitely one to watch, although you might want to watch it through your fingers if you’re of a Labour persuasion. In 2019 Labour won 53 out of 54 seats on the city council, with a Lib Dem being the one that got away; in December 2018 the party had polled 87% of the vote in a high-turnout by-election in Belgrave ward, which is the most strongly-Hindu ward in the country according to the 2021 census (69.4%).

Whatever message Labour had that was resonating with Hindu voters then, it’s not resonating now. In the last two years Labour has had four by-elections to defend in the strongly-Hindu Leicester East constituency: they lost two to the Conservatives and only narrowly held off the Tories in the other two. The most recent by-election, in North Evington ward last October, saw Labour not only lose the seat but fall to third place behind the Greens with just 23% of the vote; this in a ward where the Labour slate polled 72% in May 2019. The sense of a local party in crisis is only deepened by the fact that a large number of senior Labour councillors were deselected shortly before this election.

What seems to link many of the deselected councillors together is losing out in a power struggle with Leicester’s elected mayor. If he is re-elected, Labour’s Sir Peter Soulsby will enter his sixth decade in elected Leicester politics: he was first elected to the city council all the way back in 1973 as a 24-year-old, and there are very few councillors left now from those first elections to the “big-bang” reform of local government introduced by the Heath administration. Soulsby was leader of Leicester city council from 1981 to 1994 and again from 1996 to 1999, served as MP for Leicester South from 2005 to 2011, and then left Parliament to become the city’s elected mayor. He was knighted in 1999 for services to local government. Sir Peter’s only period out of elected office was in 2003–05, after he lost his seat in the 2003 Leicester city council elections; during this period he also lost the Leicester South parliamentary by-election to the Lib Dems’ Parmjit Singh Gill.

Sir Peter Soulsby has won all three Leicester mayoral elections to date with over 54% of the vote, and 2019 was his strongest result yet with a 61–17 lead over the Conservative candidate Baroness Verma. He is going for a fourth term. The Conservative candidate this time is Sanjay Modhwadia, who won the North Evington by-election last year; I wrote at the time that Modhwadia was “a businessman who is campaigning for support for Leicester’s textile industry”, which made him a perfect fit for a ward which contains a large number of Leicester’s textile factories and was one of the areas of the UK hardest-hit by the first COVID wave. Don’t forget, Leicester never properly came out of the first lockdown. Also standing are Mags Lewis for the Green Party, former Leicester South MP Parmjit Singh Gill for the Lib Dems, Steve Score for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and independent candidate Rita Patel, who is an outgoing councillor for Rushey Mead ward and was one of the Leicester Labour councillors who was deslected ahead of this year’s elections.

There are no local elections this year in Northamptonshire.

West Midlands

We’ll start our tour of the West Midlands region with a city that has perenially interesting politics, although it’s not featured too much in this column in recent years. The 2019 elections to Stoke-on-Trent council returned a very balanced council with 16 Labour councillors, 15 Conservatives, 12 City Independents and one other independent. At the time the City Independents and the Conservatives were running the council in coalition; the Tories have since dumped their coalition partners, gained two seats in by-elections from virtually nowhere, and picked up some defectors from the City Independents to now hold half of the council, 22 seats out of 44. Stoke also now has a full slate of three Conservative MPs. It’s a long way back from here for the city’s Labour group, which lost control of the Six Towns in 2015.

There are no elections this year for the other Potteries local authority, Newcastle-under-Lyme. Elsewhere in Staffordshire, over the last council term the Conservatives have gained a majority on Staffordshire Moorlands council through by-election and defection gains, but that majority is down to one seat — 29 out of 56 — after a double by-election in Biddulph North ward in January resulted in two Labour gains.

Stafford, however, has gone the other way after two Conservative councillors went independent. Because the Tories had won 22 out of 40 seats in 2019, that wiped out their majority. In opposition are 10 Labour, now 9 independents and a Green councillor.

Burton-on-Trent and Uttoxeter are covered by the East Staffordshire district, which has a rather small Conservative majority. In 2019 the Tories won 25 seats here against 10 Labour, 3 independents and a Lib Dem; Labour has since gained one of the independent seats in a by-election. There are a number of marginal wards in Burton which the Conservatives will want to keep an eye on.

The Conservatives have secure majorities in the South Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth districts. Cannock Chase, however, has been brought into play by some developments over the last term. Following the 2022 elections the Conservatives were still gaining seats in this district and they were up to a majority of 25 out of 41. This is mostly based on an extraordinary performance in 2021 when the Conservatives won 12 wards out of a possible 13 and gained 9 seats from Labour. 2022 was more of a status quo ante performance, with the Conservatives winning 6 wards, Labour 5 and the Greens and Lib Dems one each. This year the Conservatives are defending all of the six wards they won last May plus Hagley ward in Rugeley, which didn’t poll last year.

On paper, that should have been enough for me to project a continued Conservative majority here at least until 2024; but events have intervened. Labour have gained two by-elections from the Conservatives over the last term, one of which was in Etching Hill and the Heath ward which the Tories are defending this year; and another Conservative councillor has recently resigned forcing a by-election in Cannock East ward, which voted Labour last May. The Tories are now down to 21 seats out of 41 plus that vacancy. If Labour can repeat the by-election gain in Etching Hill and gain the by-election seat in Cannock East, then Cannock Chase will be back in No Overall Control — and Labour will be well-placed to make large gains in 2024.

In Shropshire this year there are elections only for Telford and Wrekin council, which has new ward boundaries — the map above is for the old wards. Rather like Bassetlaw in the East Midlands, this area’s polls had an interesting contrast in 2019 between a large Labour win in the local elections and a large Conservative win at the Telford parliamentary seat in the general election. Unlike Bassetlaw, this is not in a coalfield context: Telford is a New Town built to relieve pressure on the urban West Midlands.

Which is where we go to next. There are no elections in Birmingham this year; of the six other West Midlands metropolitan boroughs, three (Dudley, Solihull and Walsall) have Conservative majorities and three (Coventry, Sandwell and Wolverhampton) have Labour majorities. The most marginal of these is Solihull where the Conservatives are on 28 out of 51, against 14 councillors for the Green Party (most of whom represent the highly-deprived Castle Bromwich area), 5 Lib Dems and 4 independents. The par score is for the Conservatives to gain a seat here: in 2022 they won the Birmingham stockbroker belt of Knowle and the high-rise tower blocks of Castle Bromwich (defended this year by an independent and the Greens respectively) while losing Olton ward to the Lib Dems.

In Warwickshire, there are no elections this year to Nuneaton and Bedworth council. While Labour might want to make inroads on the large Conservative majority in the former coalfields of North Warwickshire for old times’ sake, I’ll focus here on Rugby where a small Conservative majority is at risk. Rugby council currently stands at 23 Conservatives, 10 Labour and 9 Lib Dems; a repeat of the 2022 results would see Labour gain two wards from the Conservatives, Admirals/Cawston and Coton/Boughton on the western and northern edges of Rugby town repsectively. That would be enough to wipe out the Conservative majority, although it would still leave the Tories with half of the 42 seats.

The Conservatives are defending an even smaller majority in Stratford-on-Avon, a large rural district covering most of southern Warwickshire. The Lib Dems staged a recovery here in the 2019 election which finished with 20 Conservatives, 11 Lib Dems, 4 independents and 1 Green; a Conservative councillor has since gone independent cutting the Tory majority to 19 out of 36. Most of this district is represented at Westminster by the former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. There are new ward boundaries here.

Warwick is a hung council and a rather precariously balanced one. The 2019 elections here returned 19 Conservative councillors, 9 Lib Dems, 8 Greens, 5 Labour and 3 Whitnash Residents; the Conservatives and Whitnash Residents formed a coalition which controls half of the 44 seats. It will only take one seat loss for that coalition to become untenable, and none of the nine Conservative seats in Warwick town look particularly safe.

Moving into Worcestershire, we can see a Labour recovery forming in the New Town of Redditch. Redditch Labour were facing a par score of wipeout at the 2022 elections, but they held all the seats they were defending and gained three seats off the Conservatives for good measure. A further by-election gain last September in Headless Cross and Oakenshaw ward means that the council composition is now 19 Conservatives (including one vacant seat), 8 Labour, 1 Green and 1 independent. This is the year of Redditch’s electoral cycle in which Labour’s best wards do not poll, so the Conservatives are defending nine of the ten seats up for election. A repeat of Labour’s May 2022 performance would result in them gainng Abbey, Batchley/Brockhill and Church Hill wards on the northern edge of the town; a repeat of the by-election gain in Headless Cross/Oakenshaw on top of that would leave a precarious Conservative majority of 15 out of 29.

There is a rather small Conservative majority in Bromsgrove, which returned 17 Conservative seats out of 31 in 2019; again, some Conservative councillors are sitting on small majorities. It wouldn’t take much for this council to go hung, but the opposition is rather scattered between independent councillors, Labour and the Lib Dems. The other district in the eastern half of Worcestershire, the sprawling Wychavon district which runs from Droitwich to the edge of the Cotswolds, is safely Conservative.

Compare and contrast with the east of the county, where we find three districts which are under No Overall Control. The Wyre Forest district, based on Kidderminster, still has politics which are affected by the Health Concern insurgency of almost 25 years ago — but that may be about to change, as Health Concern have finally decided to call it a day and have not nominated any candidates in this year’s election. That puts a lot of seats up for grabs, as the 2019 elections here returned 14 Conservative councillors, 8 Health Concern, 5 independents, 3 Lib Dems, 2 Labour and 1 Green. Some good by-election gains by the Conservatives in this term have been cancelled out by defection losses, and a coalition of everybody except the Conservatives is running the council under an independent leader.

The city of Worcester was a surprise Conservative loss last year; the Conservatives still run the council, but their group of 15 is in a minority against 12 Labour councillors, 6 Greens and 2 Lib Dems. Worcester has few marginal wards, but a repeat of 2022 would see the Conservatives lose two seats: the city-centre Cathedral ward to Labour, and the peripheral St Peter’s Parish to the Green Party. That would leave the Conservatives and Labour tied on 13 seats each. This will be the last thirds election in Worcester, which will transfer to whole-council elections next year.

To the west of Worcester we finish our tour of the West Midlands with two councils which are led by independent councillors. One of these is Malvern Hills, a long and thin district which stretches the length of the Herefordshire/Worcestershire boundary; Malvern Hills once included parts of Herefordshire, but those areas were transferred out of the district back in the 1990s. The 2019 elections here returned 13 Conservatives, 10 independents, 9 Lib Dems, 5 Greens and a Labour councillor. The Lib Dem group has since split and most of the former Lib Dem councillors have joined the independent group; this, plus an independent gain from the Conservatives at a by-election in Tenbury Wells, means that independents are now the largest group on the council. An independent-Lib Dem coalition is running the show.

Also here we find the only by-election taking place in the West Midlands region on 4th May.

If you ever hear somebody whistling the first melody of this piece on the Malvern Hills, that would be Sir Edward Elgar. He’s still there today, lying in eternal rest in the village of Little Malvern at the southern end of the Malvern Chase division of Worcestershire county council. This also takes in the south-eastern corner of the town of Great Malvern together with the parish of Malvern Wells to the south, the Three Counties Showground, and the summits of the Malvern Hills on its western boundary. This is a marginal county division which is often closely fought between the Lib Dems and Conservatives; the Lib Dems gained it at the 2021 county elections with 37% of the vote, against 31% for the Conservatives and 23% for an independent candidate. Pete Benkwitz, a flying instructor, is the defending Lib Dem candidate; David Watkins, an outgoing Malvern town councillor, stands for the Conservatives; the independent group running Malvern Hills council have nominated the former district council leader Sarah Rouse; and also standing are Martin Willis for Labour and Malcolm Victory for the Greens, who has stood here a few times before but is yet to live up to his name.

Crossing the Malvern Hills we descend into Herefordshire, where a deeply-unpopular Conservative administration crashed and burned in 2019. The Conservatives still topped the poll in votes cast, but won just 13 seats against 18 independents, 8 councillors from the localist group “It’s Our County”, 7 Greens and 7 Lib Dems. It’s Our County are now part of the council’s main independent group, which runs Herefordshire in coalition with the Green Party.

South West

Most of the action in the South West this year will take place in Devon, where there are elections for one-third of Exeter and Plymouth councils and all of the councillors in Torbay and the county’s district councils.

Plymouth will be a particularly fun council to watch. This has been under Conservative minority control since 2021. It really should be Conservative majority control but the local party is bitterly split: at the last count there were 25 Labour councillors, 23 Conservatives, 6 independents (most of whom were elected on the Conservative ticket) and three Greens. The last year of Plymouth politics has been particularly unstable, culminating in the recent resignation of the Conservative leader of the council following a huge row over the felling of 110 trees on Armada Way in the city centre. As Sheffield Labour found out a few years ago, tree felling by the council has the capacity to bring a serious electoral backlash; even before that, the Conservatives lost two seats in by-elections in January. To obtain a majority Labour need to gain four seats here and hold a by-election in Efford and Lipson ward at a later date; a repeat of the 2022 elections would see Labour gain Compton ward from a Conservative defector and Drake ward from a Labour defector, while January’s by-elections suggest that Moor View ward (which the Conservatives are defending) is in play for Labour too. That wouldn’t be enough for a Labour majority in Plymouth, but it would probably spell the end of the city’s Conservative administration.

In rural Devon, the Conservatives currently have majority control only of South Hams (based on Totnes and the south coast) and West Devon, and both of those have small majorities. Indeed, the Conservative majority in South Hams is just one seat: the 2019 elections returned 16 Conservatives, 10 Lib Dems, 3 Greens and 2 independents. West Devon also had a Conservative majority of 1 after the 2019 elections, but the Tories have since picked up a by-election gain in Tavistock North ward.

The two councils based on the Riviera Coast are hung. In 2019 Torbay council returned 15 Conservatives, 13 Lib Dems and 8 independents; the Lib Dems subsequently lost a by-election to the Conservatives in November 2019. A coalition of the Lib Dems and independent councillors is currently running Sydney Opera House, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain.

Neighbouring Teignbridge district, based on Newton Abbot and Teignmouth, actually returned a Lib Dem majority in 2019 with 26 Lib Dem councillors against 12 Conservatives and 9 independents. This has since disappeared following a split in the local party: the remaining Lib Dem group has 21 out of 47 seats, putting them in a minority.

Turning to Devon’s north coast, the other Lib Dem-run district in the county is North Devon, where the party finished with half the seats in 2019–21 councillors against 12 Conservatives, 7 independents and 2 Greens — and have since picked up a Conservative seat in a by-election to gain a majority.

Another Devon council where one group finished up with half the seats last time was the tiny and remote Torridge district, which returned 18 independents, 11 Conservatives, 3 Labour, 2 Greens and 2 Lib Dems. A by-election in Northam in December 2021 saw the Conservatives gain an independent seat.

Independents also run the two remaining rural districts in Devon. Mid Devon district turned in a messy result in 2019 with 18 Conservative councillors, 12 Lib Dems, 10 independents and two Greens. The administration over the last four years has been equally messy: it started as Independent and Lib Dem, then became Independent and Conservative, and now the independent councillors appear to be trying to rule alone.

Mid Devon covers part of the Tiverton and Honiton parliamentary seat, which the Lib Dems gained from the Conservatives at a by-election last year. The Honiton half of that seat is covered by the East Devon district, where independents won half of the seats in 2019: 30, against 20 Conservatives, 8 Lib Dems and 2 Greens. The independents are not a united bloc, and they have gone backwards in by-elections over the last term: 11 of them were elected on the Independent East Devon Alliance ticket, which runs the council in coalition with the Lib Dems and another independent group.

Last but not least in Devon is the city of Exeter, which has a secure Labour majority that doesn’t look in any danger. There are currently 25 Labour councillors, 5 Conservatives, 5 Greens, 2 Lib Dems and 2 independents; a repeat of last year’s results would see Labour gain Topsham ward from the Conservatives. Following a by-election gain, the Greens are defending Heavitree ward.

There are no local elections this year for the Cornwall, Somerset or Wiltshire councils or in the city of Bristol. The Dorset council elected in 2019 had a five-year term and will next face the electorate in 2024, so there are no local elections there either. However, we do have the second poll for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council. This unexpectedly ended up hung at its first elections in 2019, largely thanks to a protest vote for independent candidates in Christchurch: the 2019 elections returned 36 Conservative councillors (mostly from Bournemouth), 15 Lib Dems (mostly from Poole), 11 independents (mostly from Christchurch), 7 “Poole People”, 3 Labour, 2 Greens, 1 UKIP and 1 “Alliance for Local Living” councillor. With 39 seats needed for a majority, a coalition of everybody except the Conservatives and UKIP was put together under a Lib Dem leader. This coalition fell in 2020 after two councillors who supported it died and the COVID pandemic prevented by-elections being held to replace them; that gave the Conservatives the votes to no-confidence the Lib Dem leader and form a minority administration. This administration then generated controversy over an attempt by the council to raise money by selling and leasing back thousands of beach huts; after surviving a no-confidence vote of his own last year, the Conservative council leader then resigned in February 2023 in a disagreement over the budget and council tax rate. A recent by-election in Christchurch resulted in a big win for the Christchurch Independents, who have now organised as a political party. Goodness knows what will happen here.

I said above that there are no elections this year in the Wiltshire council area, but that doesn’t cover Swindon. This council currently has a Conservative majority with 33 seats (one of which is vacant) against 23 Labour and an independent. That might look like a large lead, but Swindon is very much in play this year: Labour performed well here in the 2022 elections, winning 12 out of 19 wards, and they are only defending seven seats this year. A repeat of 2022 would give Labour gains in Priory Vale, Haydon Wick, Penhill and Upper Stratton, St Margaret and South Marston, Lydiard and Freshbrook, and Old Town wards offset by a Conservative gain in Central ward; that would leave the Conservatives and Labour tied on 28 seats each, with an ex-Conservative independent holding the balance of power.

Similarly, the Somerset council area doesn’t cover the parts of the county that were included in the former county of Avon. Bath and North East Somerset council has a Lib Dem majority which doesn’t look in much danger; North Somerset council is a rather different matter. A Conservative administration crashed and burned here in 2019, with the Tories holding just 13 seats against 13 independents, 11 Lib Dems, 6 Labour, 4 Portishead Independents and 3 Greens. A coalition of everybody except the Conservatives is running the council under an independent leader.

Crossing the Avon and bypassing Bristol, we come to South Gloucestershire which has a small Conservative majority: the 2019 elections returned 33 Conservative councillors against 17 Lib Dems and 11 Labour. Most of the Conservative wards are safe, but the party must be looking with some concern at the split ward of Filton and the three marginal seats in Charlton and Cribbs ward: Labour are the challengers in both those wards.

In the Gloucestershire county council area we miss out Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud where there are no polls this year. Of the three districts up for election, Cotswold has a Lib Dem majority after a controversial Tory administration crashed and burned in 2019, Tewkesbury has a large Conservative majority, and the Forest of Dean is a confusing mess. The 2019 elections here returned 15 independent councillors, 10 Conservatives, 6 Greens, 5 Labour and 2 Lib Dems. Splits in the Conservative and Labour groups mean that there is now a majority of independent councillors although they are not a united bloc, and one of the independent groups is running the show in coalition with the Greens.

The only council by-election today in the South West region is for Gloucestershire county council, and takes place in the Highnam division. This is the only Gloucestershire county division to span the River Severn, taking in 20 rural parishes between Gloucester to the south, Cheltenham to the east and Tewkesbury to the north. It’s a safe Conservative seat which had been represented since 2009 by the late Phil Awford, who had also previously sat on Tewkesbury council. Awford was re-elected for his final term in 2021 with 66% of the vote, and a close three-way race for the runner-up spot was won by the Greens on 12%. The defending Conservative candidate is Paul McLain, who previously sat on the county council from 2009 to 2017 for the more marginal territory of Charlton Kings in Cheltenham and has represented part of the division on Tewkesbury council since 2019. The Green candidate this time is Jonathan Bristow, and the Lib Dems will be putting out leaflets in the name of their candidate James Joyce; hopefully they will be more readable than most Joyce literature.

Eastern

We now move to the Eastern region, and we’ll start with one of the few remaining councils which has never had the full Andrew’s Previews writeup — that’s because there have been no by-elections there in recent years. Two councillors in this borough have recently died, but their passings were close enough to the end of the term that the seats have been left vacant to be filled today.

Bedford is one of the councils which uses the elected mayoral system. At parliamentary level Bedford town forms a marginal Labour constituency while the countryside around it is in the safe Conservative seat of North East Bedfordshire; however, the mayoralty doesn’t reflect this. Bedford’s first elected mayor was localist independent Frank Branston, who died in office in 2009; the resulting by-election was won by Dave Hodgson of the Lib Dems who has held the post ever since. Hodgson has polled the most first preferences in all four of his mayoral wins to date: most recently, in 2019, he scored 36% of the vote against 32% for the Conservatives and 20% for Labour.

Mayor Dave Hodgson is seeking a fourth full term for the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives have selected Tom Wootton, who is the outgoing Conservative councillor for the rural Wyboston ward to the north-east of the town. The Labour candidate is Saqhib Ali, an entrepreneur in the financial services industry who also sits on a number of NHS trusts; he was Labour’s parliamentary candidate for North East Bedfordshire in 2015. A five-strong ballot paper is completed by Adrian Spurrell for the Greens and Alberto Thomas for the Heritage Party.

The whole of Bedford council is also up for election; this is a balanced council, with the 2019 election returning 15 Lib Dems, 11 seats each for the Conservatives and Labour, 2 Greens and an independent. Curiously, this is a better fit for the mayoral result than for the actual council election, in which despite the seat count the Conservatives polled the most votes. Also up for election today are the two other Bedfordshire councils: the Conservatives have a large majority in Central Bedfordshire, and Labour likewise in Luton.

Moving over the border to Cambridgeshire, there are no polls this year for Huntingdonshire or South Cambridgeshire councils. The city of Cambridge has a Labour majority which is in no danger, and the extremely rural and agricultural Fenland district is safely Conservative. Fenland is one of those councils which can have a lot of unopposed returns, but not this time: for the 2023 local elections, every ward here will be contested.

Instead I’ll focus on the other two Cambridgeshire councils. East Cambridgeshire district is a varied area running from the fens of Ely to the higher ground surrounding Newmarket. Normally this is a strongly-Conservative area, but in 2019 the Lib Dems had a go here and came up just short: the Conservatives won the seat count 15–13. The Lib Dems have since lost a by-election to the Conservatives, two of their other councillors have gone independent and the remaining Tory seats look fairly safe, so this could be a tougher ask for the Liberal Democrats than the seat count might suggest.

Also in this district we have a by-election to the county council, in the division of Soham South and Haddenham which sprawls across the fenland to the south of Ely; Soham town is at the eastern end of the division, Haddenham at the western end. Conservative councillor Dan Schumann, who founded an arts centre in Soham, has resigned due to family and work commitments; he is also stepping down from East Cambridgeshire council where he represented Soham South ward. He was elected to the county council in 2021 with 51% of the vote against 23% for the Lib Dems and 18% for Labour. The Conservatives have selected his predecessor Bill Hunt to hold the seat; he faces off against Connor Docwra for the Lib Dems, Simon Patenall for Labour and Pip Gardner for the Greens.

Another councillor who has stepped down from Cambridgeshire county council halfway through their first term is Hilary Cox Condron, an artist and Labour councillor. This forces a by-election in the Arbury division of Cambridge city, which is located in the north of the city along the road towards Histon. In 2021 Cox Condron was elected with 48% of the vote against 22% for the Lib Dems and 17% for the Conservatives, and the Arbury ward of Cambridge city council (which has similar boundaries) is also safely Labour. The defending Labour candidate is Mike Black, who is a punt chauffeur (now there’s a job title you don’t see anywhere else); he is up against Lib Dem Sam Oliver, the Conservatives’ Robert Boorman and the Greens’ Stephen Lawrence.

Peterborough has been run by the Conservatives for some years but has been in and out of No Overall Control during that time. We are currently in a No Overall Control phase: the latest composition has 28 Conservatives, 12 Labour, 8 Lib Dems, 6 independents, 4 Greens and two vacant seats. Last year the Conservatives squandered a good chance for a council majority, but a favourable ward map means they have another opportunity to gain overall control this year. A repeat of the 2022 results would see the Conservatives gain Hampton Vale ward from the Lib Dems and Orton Longueville and Ravensthorpe wards from Labour, which would put the Tories on 31 out of 60.

Moving into Norfolk, we come to the cumbersomely-named district of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk which is definitely in play this time. In 2019 the Conservatives won a majority of one here: 28 seats against 15 independents, 10 Labour, 1 Green and 1 Lib Dem. One of the independent councillors in Upwell and Delph ward was forced to resign after he was found to have forged signatures on his nomination papers, and the Conservatives won the by-election. The Tories failed to contest a recent by-election in the Gaywood Clock ward of King’s Lynn, which doesn’t say much for their organisation here; Labour held that seat unopposed.

Just outside the boundaries of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk there is a by-election for Norfolk county council in the Swaffham division. The small town of Swaffham lies at a major crossroads in western Norfolk, with main roads going east to Norwich, south to Thetford, west to King’s Lynn and north to Cromer. Ed Coleman has represented the town on the county council since 2017, when he gained his seat from UKIP; he was re-elected for a second term in 2021 with a 69–17 lead over Labour. The defending Conservative candidate is William Nunn, who is a former leader of the local Breckland council; he is up against Terry Land for Labour and Josie Ratcliffe for the Lib Dems.

Most of Norfolk’s districts look safe for one party or another: the Conservatives control Breckland, Broadland and South Norfolk districts, the Lib Dems have a majority in North Norfolk, and Labour run the city of Norwich. Great Yarmouth, however, was close in 2019: 20 Conservative councillors, 15 Labour, 3 independents and 1 UKIP. In 2021 the Conservatives increased their majority by gaining two by-elections, from Labour in Claydon ward and from an independent in Ormesby ward. The path to a Labour majority here probably runs through reversing that by-election loss and gaining Bradwell North and Yarmouth North wards from the Conservatives.

Recent local government reorganisation in Suffolk has left Yarmouth’s twin port of Lowestoft as part of England’s largest second-tier district by population. East Suffolk has a large Conservative majority. This should not change, but it will be interesting to see if Labour can stage a revival in Lowestoft where they have been struggling in recent years.

Also in East Suffolk we have a county council by-election in the Felixstowe Coastal division, which takes in most of Felixstowe town and a large expanse of dockland. This division returns two Suffolk county councillors, and it is safe for the Conservatives; in 2021 the Tory slate polled 50% of the vote against 19% for the Lib Dems and 18% for Labour. Since 2005 Graham Newman had been one of the town’s two county councillors, and he had served as chair of the county council in 2020–22 and also as mayor of Felixstowe. Newman passed away in December. The Conservative candidate to replace him is Kevin Sullivan, Seamus Bennett is the Lib Dem candidate, Labour have stood down, Lesley Bennett stands for the Greens and Mark Jones for the Communist Party of Britain. Yes, they’re still going.

This column covered a by-election last December for the Priory Heath ward of Ipswich, which is the first part of town travellers along the road from Felixstowe will see. Five months later we’re back in Priory Heath again for another by-election, this time for the county council after Labour’s William Quinton stood down. Now aged 82, Quinton is retiring from both Suffolk county council and Ipswich council after 39 years in office, which included two periods as mayor of Ipswich. He was run close by the Conservatives for his final re-election in 2021, winning by just 46–40. Last year’s results for the Priory Heath ward of Ipswich council (which has the same boundaries) suggest that that was a high-water mark for the local Conservatives, as Labour’s lead increased to 54–33 at the May 2022 local elections and 60–29 at the December by-election. Quinton will be a hard act to follow for the new Labour candidate, supermarket worker Lucy Smith; she is up against Gregor McNie (who returns from last year’s by-election) for the Conservatives, Andy Patmore for the Greens and Nicholas Jacob for the Lib Dems.

Ipswich council itself has a Labour majority which does not look under serious threat, while elsewhere in the county the Conservatives are strongly in control of West Suffolk council. The two districts in between are a rather different story, being both hung. Babergh, which covers the rural area south-west of Ipswich, is more or less permanently hung but did return a Conservative majority in 2015; that disappeared in the 2019 elections when the Conservatives won 15 seats, independents 8, the Greens 4, the Lib Dems 3 and Labour 2. Interestingly the Conservative group has split here, and the Conservative splinter group is now running the council in coalition with most of the other parties. Anyway, no overall control is the norm here, not the exception.

Babergh council shares a lot of its back-office functions with Mid Suffolk council, which is looking very interesting this year. This has recently been a major target for the Green Party, which performed very well in the rural wards of this district in 2019 and had no problem defending a by-election in Thurston ward last year. The Greens also made gains in the 2021 Suffolk county elections in the district’s largest town, Stowmarket. Last time the Conservatives won 16 seats against 12 Greens, 5 Lib Dems and an independent; the Conservatives and the independent run the council in coalition.

Crossing over the Stour we come into Essex, starting with the district of Tendring which is basically everything east of Colchester, including the towns of Clacton and Harwich. Back in 2014 the Clacton parliamentary seat was the first constituency to elect a UKIP MP, and Clacton has one of the oldest demographics in the country — you might expect that to be a Conservative banker. Well, the 2019 elections here were affected by the collapse of the large UKIP caucus elected in 2015; the Tories won 16 seats, independents 11, Labour 6, UKIP 5, “Tendring First” localists 4, “Holland-on-Sea and Eastcliff Matters” localists 3, 2 Lib Dems and one seat for the Foundation Party (no, me neither). Various defections mean that the Conservatives are now up to 21 seats, but this is still short of a majority.

Neighbouring Colchester has been hung for quite a while now and is a very balanced council, with currently 19 Conservative councillors, 15 each for Labour and the Lib Dems and 2 Greens. Last year a Conservative-Independent administration was defeated and replaced with a traffic-light coalition, under a Lib Dem leader. Following a by-election last December which cleared out the council’s former independent group, the Lib Dems are defending Highwoods ward which Labour won in 2022; the par score is for no other seat changes.

Since the 2022 elections Colchester has gained city status as part of the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, becoming the third city in Essex. The first town in Essex to gain city status was Chelmsford, which was a stunning if narrow Lib Dem gain in 2019: the party won 31 seats against 21 Conservatives, 3 independents and 2 South Woodham Ferrers localists. The Conservatives gained a by-election last year in Moulsham Lodge ward, so the Lib Dems should not rest on their laurels here.

Rural Essex has not been a happy hunting ground for Conservatives of late. The party still has a large majority on Braintree council, but Uttlesford (the north-west corner of the county, including Saffron Walden and Stansted Airport) swung strongly to a residents group in 2019. Last time out Maldon council was very close, with 17 Conservative councillors against 14 independents; the Tory group has since fallen apart, and the independents are now in control. Interestingly the Lib Dems won the most recent by-election here, gaining a seat in Heybridge West ward which had been vacated by the ejection of independent Councillor Behaving Badly Chrisy Morris.

Across the Crouch estuary, Rochford has suddenly come into play following a major split in the ruling Conservative group which has left the council hung. The latest composition gives 18 Conservatives, 15 independents and/or localists, 5 Lib Dems and a Green. It’s clear from the 2022 results that the Conservatives stand to lose seats, but with the main residents group also having recently split a par score is very difficult to assess: last time Lodge and Sweyne Park/Grange wards in Rayleigh voted for the Rochford District Residents and Hullbridge ward voted Green, but there are no candidates from those parties there this year. Who knows what will happen here?

No Overall Control might be a recent development for Rochford, but the neighbouring city of Southend-on-Sea has had that status for quite some time now; and the Tories squandered a good opportunity to change that last year. There are currently 21 Conservative councillors, 15 Labour, 9 independents, 5 Lib Dems and one vacant seat; a coalition of everybody except the Conservatives is running the show under a Labour leader. As can be seen from the map above the Tories had a poor result here in 2019, so a repeat of 2022 would actually see them gain two wards: Southchurch from an independent and West Leigh from the Lib Dems. However, they need five gains for a majority.

Southend is next to Castle Point district, which is independent-run and there is no prospect of that changing. Beyond that is what is likely to be a bright spot for the Essex Conservatives: the New Town of Basildon. This currently has a Conservative majority with 25 seats against 10 Labour, 5 independents and 2 Wickford localists; more than half of the Labour group is up for election this year so there is no prospect of a Labour fightback. Indeed, if the 2022 results are repeated then the Conservatives would gain both the Wickford localist seats plus two seats from Labour, Pitsea North West and Laindon Park.

Talking of Laindon Park brings us to our Essex county council by-election, in the large division of Basildon Laindon Park and Fryerns which covers much of the New Town territory: it corresponds to the Laindon Park, Lee Chapel North and Fryerns wards of Basildon, all of which Labour are defending on the borough council today. This is a marginal county division which voted Labour in 2005, Conservative in 2009, and split its two seats between Labour and UKIP in 2013. UKIP gained the Labour seat at a by-election in 2016. In 2017 UKIP lost both their seats, which split one to the Conservatives and one to Labour. That split was retained in 2021, with the Conservative slate polling 43% and Labour 36%. Labour’s Adele Brown is standing down from the county council after two years in office; defending her seat for Labour is Patricia Reid, a former county councillor who is also seeking re-election to the borough council in marginal Pitsea North West — at the far end of the town. The Conservative candidate is Terri Sargent, who previously served as a county councillor for this division from 2009 to 2013. Also standing are Mike Chandler for the Lib Dems and Oliver McCarthy for the Green Party.

Next to Basildon is the Thurrock district on the Thames estuary, which also has a Conservative majority — currently 29 seats against 14 Labour, 3 independents and 3 Thurrock Independents. The latter are the remnants of what used to be a large UKIP group here. There is little sign from the 2022 elections of a Labour revival — but that was before the full horror of the financial and investment scandal at Thurrock council emerged, leading to the council’s finances being taken over by Essex county council. In terms of celebrity candidates, former Conservative councillor David Van Day is not standing again after narrowly losing his seat on the council last year; but student journalist and GB News contributor Sophie Corcoran has been selected as the Conservative candidate for the safe-Labour ward of Chadwell St Mary.

The Conservatives are defending a small majority at the end of the Elizabeth Line in Brentwood, which currently stands at 19 Conservatives, 14 Lib Dems, 2 Labour, 1 independent and 1 vacant seat. The vacant seat is a Conservative defence in South Weald ward which isn’t normally up in this year of the electoral cycle: South Weald was very close between the Conservatives and Lib Dems when it was last contested in 2022. If the 2022 results are repeated then the Lib Dems would gain Ingatestone/Fryerning/Mountnessing ward, reducing the Conservative majority to 19 out of 37.

There used to be quite a few thirds district councils which had predominantly single-member or two-member wards, meaning that the selection of wards up for election could vary dramatically from year to year. The Local Government Boundary Commission have instructions these days to try and avoid that sort of thing, and after a decade or so of work on their part Epping Forest is possibly the most extreme remaining example of this phenomenon. The composition of this council currently stands at 33 Conservatives, 13 Loughton Residents, 4 Lib Dems, 4 independents, 2 Greens and one seat for the far-right British Democratic Party: that’s Julian Leppert, who used to be a BNP councillor in the neighbouring London Borough of Redbridge and was originally elected here on the For Britain Movement ticket. This is the year of the cycle where the district’s main town (Loughton) has a year off and most of the rural Conservative-voting wards come up for election instead. Since 2019 the Tories have gained the Green seat in Waltham Abbey South West at a by-election, so the only opposition candidates up for election this year are Leppert and a single Lib Dem. It’s a lot of seats for the Conservatives to defend, but most of them are very safe.

Last but not least in Essex we come to the New Town of Harlow, where Labour have crashed and burned over this electoral cycle. This council currently has a Conservative lead of 20–13 after the Tories almost swept the board in 2021, and for the second year in a row more than half of the Labour group is up for election this year. A repeat of the 2022 election would see that Tory lead increase to 23–10 with Conservative gains in Bush Fair, Harlow Common and Staple Tye wards.

The last county we need to cover in this region is Hertfordshire. In the east of the county, the Conservative majority in East Hertfordshire is large and that in Broxbourne is impregnable. The A1 corridor is a different matter, as we can see from looking at Welwyn Hatfield. The constituency of long-serving cabinet minister Grant Shapps currently has a Conservative-majority council, with 26 Conservative councillors against 12 Lib Dems and 10 Labour. Last year the Conservatives had a big lead in votes but only won four out of 14 wards, as the opposition vote coalesced around either Labour or the Lib Dems in the wards covering Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield town. The Tories are defending seven seats this year, so a repeat of that performance would cost them three seats and it would be No Overall Control time.

North Hertfordshire district has already got to that stage, with a coalition of Labour (15 plus two vacant seats) and the Lib Dems (13) running the show and the Conservatives (19) in opposition. The coalition looks set to increase its majority; a repeat of last year’s Conservative rout would see Labour gain Baldock Town, Letchworth Grange and Royston Palace to become the largest party on the council, while the Lib Dems would pick up Chesfield ward. Neighbouring Stevenage has a secure Labour majority.

Western Hertfordshire has been a happy hunting ground for the Lib Dems in recent years. The party is securely in control of St Albans and Watford councils, and also has a majority in the Three Rivers district which surrounds Watford on three sides. This currently stands at 22 Lib Dems plus one vacancy, 12 Conservatives, 3 Labour and 1 Green; a repeat of 2022 would see the Greens gain a second seat from the Lib Dems, in the Dickinsons ward of Croxley Green. Some of the Lib Dem strength has also spilled over the other side of Watford into Bushey, which is part of Hertsmere district; but this has a safe Conservative majority, and Labour are in a clear second place on Hertsmere council thanks to their strength in Borehamwood.

Instead, the Western Hertfordshire Lib Dems might feel like taking on as their latest project the final council in this tour of the Eastern region, Dacorum. This once had a fairly large Labour vote in the New Town of Hemel Hempstead, but that’s almost completely disappeared now: the 2019 elections returned 31 Conservatives, 19 Lib Dems and one independent. By-election results here have been positive for the Lib Dems, but they will need to make inroads into the New Town voters to have a hope of taking control.

South East

Our final English region this year is also the busiest in terms of the number of councils up. We have a lot to get through.

Let’s start by travelling to the New City — and, as of last year’s Platinum Jubilee, it is now officially a city, I just haven’t bothered to update the map above to reflect that. Milton Keynes has been hung since 2006, and the Conservatives fluffed a good opportunity for a council majority last year. Instead, going into this election we have a very balanced council with 22 Conservatives plus a vacancy, 19 Labour plus another vacancy, and 14 Lib Dems. This year Labour have an excellent opportunity to become the largest party: the Tories only won four wards last year, and if that is repeated they would lose four seats. The wards at risk are Bletchley Park, Loughton/Shenley and Stantonbury (to Labour) and Shenley Brook End (to the Lib Dems). Neighbouring Buckinghamshire council uses the county council election cycle, and it will next poll in 2025.

As we shall see, much of the south-east region has been a disaster area for the Conservatives over the last local electoral cycle on the principle of “if you have more seats, you have more seats to lose”. There is now only one Conservative-run local authority in Oxfordshire: that’s Cherwell district, where the Tory majority is down to 25 seats against 9 Labour, 7 Lib Dems, 5 independents and 2 Greens. Of the seats in the map above, Launton and Otmoor ward went to the Lib Dems in a by-election last year; a repeat of 2022 would also see the Conservatives lose Adderbury/Bloxham/Bodicote to the Lib Dems and Banbury Hardwick to Labour. That’s two more seats than the Conservatives can afford to lose here.

West Oxfordshire went hung last year; there are now 19 Conservative councillors, 15 Lib Dems, 9 Labour, 3 independents and 2 Greens and a vacant Conservative seat in Ducklington ward, where a by-election will be held as part of this cycle. A traffic-light coalition is in place under a Lib Dem leader. The Conservatives are defending nine more seats this year, so an immediate bounceback into office looks out of the question.

Oxford city council has no elections this year. The Vale of White Horse has a large Lib Dem majority; that council shares a lot of its back-office functions with South Oxfordshire, which is hung. The 2019 elections returned 12 Liberal Democrats, 10 Conservatives, 5 Greens, 3 Labour, 3 Henley-on-Thames localists and 3 independents; looking at the 2021 Oxfordshire county elections doesn’t suggest much improvement in the Conservative position. The Lib Dems and Greens run the council in coalition, and their electoral pact has been renewed for the 2023 election.

Crossing into Berkshire, we have polls to West Berkshire council which has a rather slim Conservative majority: the 2019 elections here returned 24 Conservatives, 16 Lib Dems and three Greens. The Lib Dems need six gains for a majority, and there are six Conservative seats which look marginal enough — those are in Hungerford/Kintbury, Newbury Clay Hill and Thatcham Colthrop/Crookham wards. We don’t have much information to go on as the only by-election here since 2019 was in the Reading suburb of Tilehurst South and Holybrook ward, which is a Conservative-Labour battle.

There are more Reading suburbs in Wokingham district where this column has been pointing out for years that the Tories have been underperforming at local level. Last year that finally caught up with them and the council fell; there are now 26 Conservatives, 23 Lib Dems, 3 Labour and 2 independent councillors, with a coalition of everyone except the Conservatives in control. The way Wokingham’s wards come up for election makes a par score difficult to assess, but Labour will definitely fancy gaining the second seat in Norreys ward of Wokingham town which they won last year.

Reading council is safe for Labour and should not be in play this year; despite ward boundary changes and the well-publicised insolvency of the council, the Labour majority in Slough should also be safe enough. Slough will abandon the thirds cycle after this year and hold whole council elections on the same cycle as its neighbouring council of Windsor and Maidenhead, where the Conservatives are sitting on a rather small majority. The 2019 elections — held at a time when the MP for Maidenhead, Theresa May, was Prime Minister — returned 23 Conservative councillors, 9 Lib Dems, 3 seats for the curiously-capitalised “the Borough first”, 3 West Windsor localists, 2 Old Windsor localists and the UK’s only councillor for the National Flood Prevention Party. There are enough marginal wards here that the Conservatives cannot afford to rest on their laurels.

Last in this tour of Berkshire we come to Bracknell Forest. This is probably the safest council I’ve given a paragraph to here, as Bracknell is the UK’s most right-wing New Town and the 2019 elections here returned a massive Conservative majority: 38 Conservative councillors against 3 Labour and 1 Lib Dem. Indeed, the council has been so Conservative for so long that I haven’t needed to draw a new ward map here for the Local Elections Archive Project since 2011. However, Labour took a safe ward (Old Bracknell) off the Conservatives in a by-election in December 2021 and the Tories may suffer from there being a clear electoral pact against them: although new ward boundaries make comparison here difficult, Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens have organised so that in nearly all wards the Conservatives face only one major-party challenger.

Bracknell Forest district takes in Sandhurst, and the military theme continues over the Hampshire border where the safe-Conservative Rushmoor district is based on the airfields of Farnborough and the barracks of Aldershot. To the west of that is Hart, the UK’s least-deprived local government district and possibly too posh to vote Conservative; Hart council is currently a perfect three-way split with the Conservatives, the Lib Dems and other councillors all on 11 seats each. Ten of the other councillors are from the Community Campaign (Hart), who run the council jointly with the Lib Dems. Those two parties have been in an electoral pact for some years now and the coalition here should continue without fuss.

Next along the M3 motorway we come to Basingstoke and Deane district, which got new ward boundaries in 2021. This has recently tipped into No Overall Control after the three councillors for Basing and Upton Grey ward walked out of the Conservative group and went independent last December; the latest composition has 26 Conservatives against 9 Labour, 8 Basingstoke and Deane Independents, 7 Lib Dems, 4 other independents and a Green (who was elected on the Labour ticket). The Conservatives stand to lose three seats if the 2022 results are repeated, Brookvale and Kings Furlong to Labour and the two Tadley wards to the Lib Dems: that might leave their current minority administration untenable.

The Test Valley district hugs Hampshire’s western border, and has a rather narrow Conservative majority at present: the 2019 elections returned 24 Conservatives against 12 Lib Dems and 7 councillors for a new localist party, the Andover Alliance. The Andover Alliance fell apart shortly after the election in Handforthesque scenes, and the Conservatives picked up two of their seats in by-elections in 2021. A further Andover by-election in December 2022 saw the Lib Dems gain Andover Romans ward from the Conservatives, but the official turnout in that election was under 10% and there are suspicions that Royal Mail strike action resulted in the postal votes not being delivered to the count, so the amount that can be read into this result is limited.

Other Hampshire local government districts are better for the Conservatives. The party has large majorities in the large New Forest district and in the East Hampshire district, and Havant council — despite the fact that the Tories are defending every seat up for election there this year — is in no danger whatsoever. In the centre of the county, Winchester council is run by the Lib Dems and looks very safe; Eastleigh council has a Lib Dem majority which is impregnable.

Also in Havant we have a by-election to Hampshire county council, in the division of Purbrook and Stakes South. This is an urban division covering the Purbrook, Widley and Crookhorn areas, sandwiched between the Portsmouth city boundary to the south, the A3(M) motorway to the east and Waterlooville town centre to the north; it includes much of Fort Purbrook, a nineteenth-century fort built for the defence of Portsmouth and never used in anger. Purbrook and Stakes South is a safely Conservative electoral unit, which re-elected county councillor Gary Hughes with a 66–16 lead over Labour two years ago. Hughes had represented the county division since 2017 and the Purbrook ward of Havant council since 2015; he is not seeking re-election to Havant council this year and has taken the opportunity to stand down from the county council as well. For both the county and district vacancies the Conservatives have nominated Ryan Brent, who is currently a Portsmouth city councillor for the adjacent Drayton and Farlington ward and is deputy leader of the Conservative group on Portsmouth council. In the county council by-election he is opposed by Labour’s Munazza Faiz, who was a distant runner-up here two years ago, and by the Lib Dems’ Adrian Tansom.

Of the five urban councils on the Solent coast, Havant has already been mentioned while there are no polls this year in Fareham or Gosport. That leaves the two big Hampshire cities. Southampton has a small Labour majority at present with 26 councillors against 20 Conservatives, 1 Lib Dem and 1 ex-Labour independent; that takes into account a Labour gain at a by-election in Bitterne ward last December. This year the whole council is up on new ward boundaries with three new councillors being added to the chamber, and that should sort out some of the messy political maps we have seen in Southampton over the last cycle. Given that last year Labour won 12 Southampton wards out of a possible 16, we should probably expect a large increase in the Labour majority here.

This column has never given the full treatment to Portsmouth, which is rather more politically diverse than that other port city up the coast. The current composition has 17 Lib Dems running a minority administration against 13 Conservatives, 6 Labour, 3 Portsmouth Independents and 3 ex-Labour independents. The 2022 results map is rather different to the above, and suggests that the par score is for the Lib Dems and Conservatives to both go backwards: the Conservatives stand to lose Paulsgrove and Hilsea to the Portsmouth Independents, Cosham to Labour and Eastney/Craneswater to the Lib Dems, while Labour would also gain Fratton and Central Southsea from the Lib Dems.

Those who would forecast large Conservative losses at these local elections would probably do well to bear in mind that in 2019 the Tories had already lost more than 100 council seats in Surrey, 60 of them in Waverley and Guildford districts alone. A lot of the low-hanging fruit has already gone, as you can see from the above map of Guildford where there are only nine Conservative councillors still standing: the 2019 elections also returned 17 Lib Dems, 15 “Residents for Guildford and Villages” councillors, 4 councillors for the Guildford Greenbelt Group, 2 Labour and a Green. The Lib Dems and the Residents for Guildford and Villages run the council in coalition.

The Conservatives are still the largest group on Waverley council with 23 councillors as of 2019, but they are outvoted by 15 Farnham Residents, 14 Lib Dems, 2 Labour, 2 Green and an independent. By-elections over the last four years have seen the Conservatives lose three more seats, and a comeback does not look on. Which might be embarrassing for the local MP — that’s Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

These two districts cover part of the military complex in the Blackwater Valley which is divided between Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire. Completing our survey of that area we come to the Surrey Heath district, represented in Parliament by Michael Gove, which returned a Conservative majority of one in 2019: 18 seats against 10 Lib Dems, 4 independents, 2 Greens and 1 Labour. The Tories and Lib Dems have both suffered defection losses over the term, and a Lib Dem gain at a by-election in Bisley and West End ward last year tipped the council into No Overall Control. We might need to wait some time for this result to settle down, because the poll in Frimley Green ward has been postponed after one of the Conservative candidates died; Andrew’s Previews will be back here to throw some darts at a later date.

In fact, there are only two Surrey councils with Conservative majorities left standing right now. One of those is Runnymede district, which currently stands at 24 Conservative councillors against 6 for the Runnymede Independent Residents Group, 4 independents, 3 Labour, 3 Lib Dems and a Green. A repeat of the 2022 results here would see the Conservatives lose Addlestone North to the Greens and both Englefield Green wards, West to Labour and East to an independent; that would leave a Conservative majority of one.

Runnymede is directly over the River Thames from Spelthorne district, which has combined financial instability with political instability over the last term — and not just because it’s Kwasi Kwarteng’s constituency. We’re now quite a long way on from the 2019 elections here which returned 23 Conservatives, 8 Lib Dems, 4 Labour, 2 Greena and 2 independents. The Tory group has comprehensively split and has also lost a number of by-elections, and control of the council has seesawed between a succession of unstable coalitions. Added to that, Spelthorne council has taken on a lot of debt to invest heavily in commercial property which might no longer be worth what was paid for it.

The financial chickens may also be coming to home to roost at Woking council, where a spectacular 2022 election result saw the Conservatives lose every seat they were defending and the Lib Dems take a council majority — to find all sorts of nastiness lurking in the council’s huge investment portfolio. Whether the council can meet its debt repayments, following the recent surge in interest rates, is not clear. The Tories have four more seats — half their group — up for re-election this year, and the par score is for a greatly increased Lib Dem majority.

Elsewhere in Surrey, the Lib Dems also have a majority on Mole Valley council which is all-up this year with radical new ward boundaries; there’s nothing in that council’s recent results to suggest that a Conservative fightback is on. At parliamentary level the Liberal Democrats have their eye on the Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab’s constituency of Esher and Walton; this roughly corresponds to the Elmbridge district where local politics is complicated by the presence of a large number of long-standing Residents Associations. Elmbridge council is currently hung with a coalition of 20 Residents councillors and 13 Lib Dems opposed by 15 Conservatives. A repeat of 2022 would see the Lib Dems confirm a by-election gain from the Conservatives in Cobham and Downside, and also gain Hersham Village, Walton North and Walton South; the Conservatives, meanwhile, have the chance to strike back against the Residents in Molesey East and Weybridge St George’s Hill. Overall, that would increase the ruling coalition’s majority.

Also in Elmbridge, the Conservatives are defending a by-election to Surrey county council in the Walton South and Oatlands division. Pretty much as it says, this is the southern half of Walton-on-Thames stretching south from the town centre to the railway station on the South Western main line; the division also stretches west to take in the Oatlands Park area. Much of Walton South ward, one of the Lib Dem targets mentioned above, is covered by this division, although the Conservative lead over the Lib Dems from 2021 of 54–37 looks safe enough at first glance. Tony Samuels, a lawyer who has represented the division since winning a by-election in 2010 and has served as chairman of Surrey county council, is retiring after 13 years’ service. The defending Conservative candidate is Hilary Butler, who is also seeking re-election to Elmbridge council in Oatlands and Burwood Park ward. The Lib Dems’ Ashley Tilling is also an Elmbridge councillor; he is seeking re-election this year in Weybridge Riverside ward, which covers a very small corner of this division. Also standing are Warren Weertman for Labour, Stephen Ringham for the Greens and Nicholas Wood for UKIP.

The Residents Associations have a large council majority in the London outer suburbs of Epsom and Ewell, a borough which roughly corresponds to the parliamentary seat of international laughing stock Chris Grayling. The fact that the Tories only have one seat on this council isn’t his fault: Epsom and Ewell has been voting for the Residents continuously since it became an Urban District in the 1930s, and I’m going to stick my neck out and say that their council administration is in no danger whatsoever.

Next to Epsom and Ewell is the other remaining Surrey district with a Conservative majority, Reigate and Banstead. If Runnymede falls, this will probably be the last one standing as the Tories are currently on 27 seats against 9 Greens, 6 residents and 3 Lib Dems; a repeat of last year would see the Greens gain two seats, Horley East/Salfords and South Park/Woodhatch. If you think there is anything funny about the fact that three of the councillors here represent the Nork Residents Association, then all I can say is that you have a very dirty mind.

Last but not least in Surrey we come to the hung Tandridge district at the eastern end of the county, where the Conservatives have been comprehensively routed over the last cycle: in 2022 they won only one ward, Warlingham West, and that ward isn’t up this year. The current council composition is 12 independents, 10 Lib Dems, 10 Conservatives, 8 Oxted and Limpsfield residents and 2 vacant seats; the independents and residents are currently running the show.

Conservative weakness in the South over the last electoral cycle has not been confined to Surrey, as we can see by crossing over the border into West Sussex. Chichester was once described by the great psephologist Robert Waller as a place where, following the revolution, the Workers Soviet would be Conservative-controlled; but that’s not the case at the moment. In 2019 the Conservatives won half of the seats here, 18 against 11 Lib Dems, 2 Greens, 2 Labour, 2 Local Alliance and an independent. Two Conservative councillors are now independent, which wipes out a by-election gain the party made in Loxwood ward from the Lib Dems.

Perhaps more surprisingly in 2019, Arun district fell into No Overall Control for the first time; in fact, the Lib Dems were the largest party in the 2019 Arun elections, winning 22 seats against 21 Conservatives, 8 independents, 2 Greens and 1 Labour. A Lib Dem minority administration was initially formed, but this proved to be unstable and was replaced by a Conservative minority administration. The Tories subsequently gained two seats off the Lib Dems in by-elections, but two further by-elections at the tail-end of last year were both won by the Green Party who held one seat and gained another off the Conservatives.

Further along the coastal strip, Worthing council now has a large Labour majority and Adur council is not up for election this year. Inland, Horsham and Mid Sussex districts both have large Conservative majorities despite some rather embarrassing by-election losses over the last term. So instead I’ll focus on the delicate situation in the New Town of Crawley, where Labour have a very small majority: they hold 19 seats against 16 for the Conservatives and a vacant Conservative seat. It appears from last year’s result that the Conservatives’ chance to gain control may have passed: a repeat of 2022 would see Labour gain Three Bridges ward from the Conservatives.

A by-election also takes place for West Sussex county council in East Grinstead Meridian, which is the northern of the three county divisions covering the town of East Grinstead. Although this is part of the Mid Sussex district, we are hard up against the Surrey county boundary here. Liz Bennett is standing down from a 16-year career in elected office: she was first elected to Mid Sussex council and East Grinstead town council in 2007, has served as Mayor of East Grinstead, and has been a county councillor since 2009. Bennett was re-elected to the county council in 2021 with 54% of the vote, and a close four-way race for second place was won by independent candidate Norman Mockford on 13% ahead of the Lib Dems on 12%. The defending Conservative candidate in the county by-election is John Dabell, who is also seeking re-election to the district council in East Grinstead Town ward; independent Mockford, who is a former Conservative member of the district council, is back for another go; and also standing are Andrew Lane for the Lib Dems, Timothy Cornell for Labour and Alex Langridge for the Green Party.

Further down the Brighton Line we come to, well, Brighton and Hove. This has been a hung council for many years thanks to having large Labour, Conservative and Green Party groups which haven’t yet been able to knock each other out and reach a majority on their own. The usual arrangement is that the largest party forms a minority administration. Following the 2019 elections this was Labour, who won 20 seats against 19 Greens, 14 Conservatives and an independent; however, the Labour group subsequently split, and the Greens have taken over the leadership. Brighton and Hove is one of three councils presently with a Green leader, the other two being Stroud (which is not up this year) and Lancaster. New ward boundaries make comparisons difficult, but by-election results suggest that the Conservatives may be in some trouble here: they lost two seats to Labour last year, and Brighton and Hove’s demographic makeup is really not a good fit for what the Conservative demographic has become.

The counter-culture influence of Brighton has spilled over into neighbouring Lewes district, which is hung. In 2019 the Conservatives won 19 seats against 9 Greens, 8 Lib Dems, 3 Labour and 2 independents; the Tories briefly formed a minority administration before all the other groups were able to thrash out a coalition agreement, under a Lib Dem leader. Last year the Conservatives lost a by-election to Labour in Peacehaven, which is part of the Brighton Kemptown parliamentary seat.

The other hung council in East Sussex is a rather surprising one. Rother went into No Overall Control in 2019 as the result of a revolt by Conservative voters in Bexhill-on-Sea, and local sentiment towards the national government might not have been helped by a recent proposal to site a refugee internment camp in Bexhill. Because the 2006 film Children of Men was in fact a documentary.

Children of Men was a film set in a world with no young people on it, so picking on Bexhill was clearly a natural choice given the town’s elephant’s-graveyard demographic. Which makes the Tory revolt there even more surprising. The 2019 elections to Rother council returned 14 Conservatives, 13 independents, 7 Lib Dems, 3 Labour and a Green councillor; the Conservatives did do a bit better here in the 2021 East Sussex county elections, but they have a long way to recover.

Rother district surrounds the town of Hastings, which has no elections this year. Of the other two districts in East Sussex, Eastbourne is safe for the Lib Dems while the large Wealden district has a large Conservative majority despite some by-election reverses over this term.

Which brings us to the final county in this preview, Kent. The 2019 local elections reveal a curious geographical divide, with the Conservatives generally performing much better in the western half of the county. There are large Conservative majorities at present in Dartford, Sevenoaks, and Tonbridge and Malling districts. Medway council might also fall into this category given that the 2019 elections returned 33 Conservatives, 20 Labour councillors and two independents, but Labour have put in some decent by-election results over the last term (gaining a Conservative seat in Strood North) and appear confident of making significant gains. There are new ward boundaries here which makes it difficult to identify target wards.

Next to Medway is Gravesham council, which is somewhere where the Conservative and Labour votes are so geographically polarised that Labour (thanks to differential turnout) can regularly win council majorities while polling fewer votes than the Conservatives. That happened in the 2019 election, which returned 24 Labour councillors, 18 Conservatives and two independents. The Conservatives have gained two by-elections from Labour since 2019, both in the Westcourt ward of Gravesend.

Maidstone council looks like being rather hard-fought. The current composition is 28 Conservatives, 12 Lib Dems, 9 independents, 5 Labour and 1 Green; that gives a Conservative majority of one, which rests on independent councillor Nick de Wiggondene-Sheppard rejoining the Tories shortly after the 2022 elections. He is standing down this year as councillor for Detling and Thurnham ward. A repeat of last year would suggest that the Conservatives might well hold this council; in 2022 the Lib Dems won North ward where they messed up their nomination in 2019, but this would be cancelled out by a Conservative gain in Coxheath and Hunton ward.

East Kent has rather a lot of hung councils, with only Dover having a Conservative majority at present. The Tories are not involved at all in the administration of Swale district, which is based on Sittingbourne and the Isle of Sheppey: this had a very messy result in 2019, with the Conservatives winning 16 seats against 11 Labour, 10 Swale Independents, 5 Lib Dems, 2 independents, 2 Greens and a UKIP councillor. The Conservatives have since gained a by-election in Sheerness, but they are shut out of power by a coalition of most of the other parties led by the Swale Independents.

Mention of Sheerness brings us to the last of today’s sixteen by-elections, which is for the Sheppey division of Kent county council. Since 2017 the Isle of Sheppey has formed a single electoral unit electing two county councillors, and it voted Conservative at both the 2017 and 2021 county elections. Cameron Beart was elected for his first term on the county council two years ago at the top of the poll; his Conservative slate polled 51% against 18% for the Swale Independents and 17% for Labour. Beart had also been a Swale councillor since 2015, representing Queenborough and Halfway ward until his death in January at the shockingly early age of 31. To replace him on the county council the Tories have selected Mike Whiting, who is currently a Swale councillor for Teynham and Lynsted ward on the mainland but is seeking re-election in Queenborough and Halfway; Whiting is a former Kent county councillor who lost his seat in Swale West division, also on the mainland, two years ago. The Swale Independents have reselected Elliot Jayes, who was runner-up here two years ago and is also seeking re-election as a Swale councillor for Sheppey Central ward. The Labour candidate is Peter Apps, and the Lib Dems’ Linda Brinklow rounds off the candidate list.

Next along the north coast we come to Canterbury district, which also takes in Whitstable, Herne Bay and a large rural area. This returned a Conservative majority in 2019 with 23 seats against 10 Labour and 6 Lib Dems; Labour have since lost a by-election in Whitstable’s Gorrell ward to the Greens. A recent split in the ruling Conservatives means that Canterbury has fallen into No Overall Control going into these elections.

In the political instability stakes, that’s positively amateur hour compared to the sort of things that go on in Thanet council. The 2019 Thanet elections resulted in a hung council with 25 Conservatives, 20 Labour, 7 Thanet Independents (the main remnant of the UKIP group which won a majority here in 2015 before shattering in all directions), 3 Greens and an independent. Initially a Conservative minority administration was formed; this was then deposed and replaced by a Labour minority administration, which itself fell in 2021 after the Conservatives made by-election gains and formed another minority administration. And, this being Thanet, there are councillor defections all over the place going on in the background. Confused? You will be, and don’t expect this election to sort everything out either.

Further down the Kent coast we come to Folkestone and Hythe council, which was left in a delicate balance by the 2019 elections: on the right were 13 Conservatives and 2 UKIP councillors, on the left 6 Greens, 6 Labour and 2 Lib Dems. Holding the balance of power was a single independent councillor from New Romney, who joined a coalition with the Conservatives and UKIP to run the show. There have been no by-elections to this council since, but this column travelled here in March for a by-election to Kent county council in which the Green Party gained Hythe division from the Conservatives rather convincingly.

In neighbouring Ashford district the Conservatives won a small majority in 2019 with 26 seats against 11 Ashford Independents, 7 Labour, 2 Greens and an independent. Three by-election losses since then (in Park Farm North, Downs North and Highfield wards) have wiped out that majority and left the council hung.

But when it comes to what can happen to a Conservative council administration when the electorate really get outraged, there’s only one place we can appropriately finish with: the spiritual home of disgust, of green-ink letters, of Colonel (retd) Sir Bufton Tufton and his like. Well, the latter might be an outdated stereotype, but Tunbridge Wells still has the rest of those attributes in abundance.

The map above was of the 2019 local election results in Tunbridge Wells, which was seen at the time as a shocking result off the back of a controversial proposal by the council to build a new civic and arts centre on a local park. The 2022 ward map was even worse for the local Conservatives, who won just two wards in the district last year — that’s one fewer than Labour. Did you ever think you’d see the day when Labour won more seats in Tunbridge Wells than the Conservatives?

The council now stands at 15 Lib Dems, 13 Conservatives, 9 seats for the Tunbridge Wells Alliance, 7 Labour and 4 independents; the Lib Dems, Tunbridge Wells Alliance and Labour have a coalition administration, and the Conservatives will need to do far better than last year to have a hope of changing that.

In memoriam

As usual, before finishing this mega-preview we should pause, to remember those elected representatives who passed away during the municipal year 2022–23. Whether young or old, veteran or rookie, independent or a member of whatever party, they all served us. Andrew’s Previews has told many of their stories over the last twelve months, but there were some councillors whose seats were left vacant after their deaths without a by-election being held, and they are listed here.

Margaret Atkinson, North Yorkshire CC and Harrogate
Phil Awford, Gloucestershire CC
Mohammed Azim, Birmingham
Sheila Bailey, Stockport
Beatrice Bainbridge, Durham
Cameron Beart, Kent CC and Swale
Andrew Belben, Crawley
John Bell, Cumbria CC
Judi Billing, Hertfordshire CC and North Hertfordshire
Richard Billington, Guildford
Brian Blakeley, Denbighshire
Roger Blishen, Waverley
Michael Brown, Newark and Sherwood
Barry Burkhill, Cheshire East
Tony Burnell, Rhondda Cynon Taf
Stephen Carter, Cheshire East
Malcolm Cavill, South Somerset
Chad Chadwick, East Riding
John Charles, West Sussex CC and Arun
Melvin Cohen, Barnet
John Collop, King’s Lynn and West Norfolk
Eddie Cubley, Nottinghamshire CC and Broxtowe
Malcolm Cunning, Glasgow
Dan Daley, Kent CC
Ann Davidson, West Lothian
Ian Davis, West Lancashire
Merv Evans, Lancaster
Barbara Flack, Canterbury
Christine Foley-McCormack, Redcar and Cleveland
Isabel Ford, South Staffordshire
Gordon Friel, Sefton
John Galley, Chelmsford
Alan Gardiner, Barnsley
Nick Geary, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
Andy Gibbons, Wandsworth
Derek Giles, Cambridgeshire CC
Fred Gleaves, Copeland
Ratilal Govind, Leicester
John Gray, Waverley
John Greenhalgh, Mendip
Bob Greenland, Monmouthshire
Pauline Greenwood, East Riding
Alan Griffiths, Derbyshire CC
Janice Hanson, Lancaster
Hag Harris, Ceredigion
John Haste, Dover
Brian Holden, Ribble Valley
Patricia Holmes, North East Derbyshire
Vaughan Hopewell, Mansfield
John Horner, Warwickshire CC
Graham Houston, Stirling
David Hume, Braintree
David Jenney, North Northamptonshire
Pauline Kettle, Basildon
Arthur Lamb, Cumbria CC
Ian Lawson, Staffordshire CC and Staffordshire Moorlands
Barry Lees, North Warwickshire
Carlo Lionti, Pendle
Brian Lohan, Mansfield
John Loveluck, South Cambridgeshire
Hilary Lucas, Darlington
Hazel Lynskey, Scarborough
John McAlpine, Argyll and Bute
Avril Mackenzie, Aberdeen
Olawale Martins, Barking and Dagenham
Kenneth Matthews, Central Bedfordshire
Stephen Moons, Bedford
Les Morgan, Warrington
Alun Mummery, Isle of Anglesey
Leon Murray, Telford and Wrekin
John Mutton, Coventry
Graham Newman, Suffolk CC
Angela Newton, Lincolnshire CC and South Holland
Colin Organ, Gloucester
Garry Peltzer Dunn, Brighton and Hove
Mick Pendergast, Medway
Gareth Prosser, Redditch
Badsha Quadir, Croydon
Val Ranger, East Devon
Brian Rolfe, Epping Forest
Ann Shackleton, Sandwell
Nigel Shaw, Broadland
Hilda Sheldon, Staffordshire Moorlands
Judith Smith, South Kesteven
Richard Smith-Ainsley, Spelthorne
Patrick Solomon, Bedford
Anthony Spencer, Hertsmere
Melanie Steadman, Melton
Terry Streets, Southampton
Jean Stretton, Oldham
Ron Sturrock, Angus
Anthony Sykes, Wigan
Ray Theodoulou, Cotswold
Ann Thomson, Barrow-in-Furness, and Westmorland and Furness
Valerie Thorpe, Amber Valley
Kevin Thurland, North Northamptonshire
Alison Todd, Surrey CC
Anthony Trollope-Bellew, Somerset West and Taunton
Seamus Walsh, Coventry
Mary Webb, Wiltshire
Tom Willis, Chelmsford
Bernard Wing, Blackpool
Leslie Winwood, Shropshire
Nigel Woollcombe-Adams, Mendip

Requiescat in pace.

Concluding remarks

Results for these elections will trickle through on Thursday night and all through Friday, and I think there is one by-election covered here which won’t declare until after the bank holiday weekend on Tuesday. The Press Association have published their usual list of estimated final declaration times (link), although anybody who has followed counts should be well aware that these times are often little more than guesswork. Pace yourself: there’s a long day of result-following on Friday ahead of you.

One of the results due on Friday is, as stated, that of Britain Elects’ very own Ben Walker so our coverage of the Friday declarations might well be limited. Ben will have his own count and his own future to worry about before thinking about anyone else’s.

But Britain Elects isn’t just Ben. There is a team behind the scenes who will, as usual, be working their socks off to bring you cold hard ward-by-ward results as they come in from the counts on Thursday night and all through Friday. As you will have seen from Ben’s Twitch streams in the run-up to these polls, the interactive map from recent years is coming back; watch the Britain Elects Twitter for links.

When the results come through, be prepared for shocks. If there’s anything I’ve learned from all these years following local elections, it’s that there is always one result which makes my jaw drop when I see it come in.

On that note, if you’re one of the 25,751 candidates in these local elections and you think that I’ve unfairly written off your chances of winning, the best way to counter that is to get out there on the campaign trail and prove me wrong. It will be much more satisfying for all of us if you send me a smug message afterwards than a whinging message now — and you’ll give me material for future columns. And the prize for winning is a worthwhile one: the chance to improve your local community, to fix those potholes rather than point at them.

We should salute the efforts of the 230 Returning Officers and their poll and count staff, who do a thankless job that doesn’t just last for one day a year. There is a fantastic amount of behind-the-scenes work that’s needed to put this show on for your benefit: polling day is just the tip of the administrative iceberg, representing the culmination of months of planning. Your council election teams have no margin for error: it all has to go right, every single time. This column sends its best wishes to everybody working on this election for a smooth and trouble-free poll and count.

This weekend we will see a festival of royalty; before then we have a festival of democracy. And the most important person on Thursday is you, the voter. Celebrate at your local polling station with your photo ID in hand: you can find where that polling station is on your polling card or by going to wheredoivote.co.uk. If you want information on your local candidates (I’m not listing them all here) and you haven’t had flyers from all of them, enter your postcode into whocanivotefor.co.uk.

As we have seen over the last 14 months and longer, democracy is a fragile thing. There are many people all over the world who live in places where democracy is not free, not fair or not existent. The people of unoccupied Ukraine are literally fighting for their right to live in a country that holds elections rather than stages election-type events. The best way you can defend Britain’s local democracy is to take part in it. Your vote will be free, it will be fair, it will be secret, and it will count in the same way as my vote and everybody else’s vote. But if you don’t vote, your voice won’t be heard when the ballot papers tumble out of the box onto the counting table, to decide your councillors’ future — and yours. If you have a postal vote you should have received it by now; if you intend to vote at a polling station, don’t forget to go there between 7am and 10pm on Thursday and take your photo ID with you. You will be most welcome.

This column doesn’t just come out at election time: Andrew’s Previews works hard for you all year round. We will continue to fulfil our advertised role of covering all the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order, by returning in less than two weeks’ time for the first by-election of the municipal year 2023–24, which will take place in Gloucestershire on Wednesday 17th May. Stay tuned.

Andrew Teale

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). You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).

Andrew Teale is the Britain Elects Previewer and is webmaster of the Local Elections Archive Project.