Previewing the six local by-elections of 13th December 2023
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
Six by-elections, for seven seats, on 14th December 2023:
Abbey
Swale council, Kent; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Williams.
There are ten by-elections left in 2023, and if you’re of a Labour persuasion then the chances are that you’ve probably had your fun. It’s generally been a good year for Labour candidates at the ballot box, but the ten seats up this week and next are all in areas of the Midlands and the South where the party doesn’t have much of a presence. Instead, it’s going to be a series of Conservative versus Lib Dem battles to round off the year, with the seven seats up this week being four Conservative and three Lib Dem defences. We’ll start off in the yellow corner by travelling to Kent.
There are a lot of Abbey electoral wards up and down the country, so the first thing to do is to explain which Abbey we’re talking about. This is Faversham Abbey, a Cluniac monastery which was founded in 1148 by King Stephen and Queen Matilda of Boulogne. They were buried there, along with their son Count Eustace IV of Boulogne, in three consecutive years in the 1150s; Matilda died in 1152, Eustace in 1153 and King Stephen in 1154. Stephen’s death finally brought to an end a long period of civil war in England known as the Anarchy; under the terms of a peace treaty signed the previous year, he was succeeded as king by his nephew Henry II. The remains of King Stephen and his family were disturbed when Faversham Abbey was demolished after the Dissolution, and a 1965 excavation found their tombs to be empty.
The site of the Abbey is now occupied by the grounds of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, which was originally founded by the Abbey in 1527 and refounded in 1576. Next to it is the town’s large parish church, dedicated to St Mary of Charity. The town’s main shopping street runs south from here towards Faversham railway station, a major junction on the Chatham Main Line with both classic and high-speed trains towards London. All this is part of Abbey ward, which is the eastern of Faversham’s four electoral wards.
Faversham has been namechecked in the name of a parliamentary seat since single-member constituencies became the norm in 1885. The current constituency of Faversham and Mid Kent is a safe Conservative unit for MP Helen Whately, who has represented the seat since 2015: she is a junior minister with the social care portfolio.
The local authority here is Swale council, named after the waterway which divides the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland: as well as Faversham, the council also takes in Sittingbourne and Sheppey. This was a council which the Conservatives lost control of in 2019, and the 2023 elections here resulted in another very balanced council with the Tories shut out of power. Labour are the largest party with 15 councillors, and they have formed a coalition with the 11 Swale Independents and three Green councillors; the Conservatives (12), Lib Dems (4 plus this vacancy) and an independent councillor are in opposition.
All five of the Lib Dem councillors were elected in Faversham, which is also represented by the party on Kent county council. Abbey ward is now looking like a very safe Lib Dem unit, with the party defeating Labour here in May by 61–21; the Conservatives, who won this ward in 2015, fell to third place. Newly-elected Lib Dem councillor Chris Williams resigned in October, slightly less than six months after his election, so the party are defending this by-election.
That defence falls to Charles Gibson, who has appeared in this column before: in August 2019 he won a by-election in Greater Manchester, to the Hazel Grove ward of Stockport council (Andrew’s Previews 2019, page 239), but he lost his seat there in 2021. Gibson, who now lives in Faversham, works as a PR and communications manager. The Labour candidate is Rob Crayford, who sits on Faversham town council and works in the insurance sector. Also standing are Andy Culham for the Conservatives, William Fotheringham-Bray for Reform UK and Carol Goatham for the Green Party.
Parliamentary constituency: Faversham and Mid Kent
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Faversham and Mid Kent
Kent county council division: Faversham
ONS Travel to Work Area: Canterbury
Postcode district: ME13
Rob Crayford (Lab)
Andy Culham (C)
William Fotheringham-Bray (Reform UK)
Charles Gibson (LD)
Carol Goatham (Grn)
May 2023 result LD 918/807 Lab 314/261 C 276/244
May 2019 result LD 760/641 C 297/285 Lab 280/228 UKIP 186 Ind 167 Grn 167/146
May 2015 result C 839/799 Lab 659/513 Ind 448/305 Grn 389/331 UKIP 365
Previous results in detail
Chorleywood South and Maple Cross
Three Rivers council, Hertfordshire; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Phil Williams.
Let’s now talk about something which the best thing since sliced bread — unless you’re in the North, in which case you can’t have that. Yes, it’s High Speed 2, whose route just clips a small corner of Hertfordshire near the village of West Hyde. This extreme south-western corner of Hertfordshire is now a hive of activity: it’s been turned into a major factory and worksite for the new railway, thanks to its location between the Colne Valley viaduct to the south and the long tunnel under the Chilterns to the north. Both of those works are well advanced.
Just to the north of this, sandwiched between the River Colne and the M25 motorway, is the village of Maple Cross. This location is a bit out on a limb within Hertfordshire, with the only roads in and out being north-south towards Rickmansworth and Denham. Maple Cross is essentially a council-built village, and nearly all of its housing stock is postwar. Even now there is no church here; but the village’s proximity to the M25 motorway and Heathrow Airport has prompted a number of large companies to set up head offices here, notably Cadbury’s. Before the housing was built, the main local industry was watercress.
The nearest proper town to Maple Cross is Rickmansworth, but the awkward shape and population distribution of Three Rivers district meant that Maple Cross ended up in an electoral ward with southern Chorleywood. “Essential Metro-land”, said John Betjeman of this former Quaker town, and Chorleywood — despite being outside the M25 — has frequent London Underground trains on the Metropolitan line to link it to the capital. As with the rest of Metroland, the opening of the Metropolitan railway station resulted in strong population growth, and the town is now dominated by the commuter and professional demographic — which is masked in the 2021 census return by Chorleywood South being in a ward with Maple Cross, which is much more downmarket.
Chorleywood has had a major influence on the way we eat: the Chorleywood bread process, developed here in the 1960s to make dough from lower-protein wheat, is used to make four-fifths of the UK’s bread. It’s also had an impact on the way we count our elections, as a result of the Three Rivers Election Court case of 1991. Let me explain.
The Hertfordshire town of Chorleywood is hard up against the border with Buckinghamshire. In April 1991 the county boundary was adjusted to bring the whole of Chorleywood’s urban area into Hertfordshire, transferring a total of 1,790 people. These were added to what was then Chorleywood West ward, and the influx of population meant that Chorleywood West was now entitled to three councillors rather than the two it had had previously. So the boundary change order provided that two councillors would be elected here in May 1991, with the second-placed councillor getting a one-year term and the first-placed councillor serving for four years. (We’ll see another election like that later in this column.)
At the count, the Returning Officer for Three Rivers originally declared that the Conservative slate of Peter Kemp and Charles Downing had won both seats, with their scores of 789 and 769 votes respectively giving majorities of 89 and 69 votes over the lead Lib Dem William Cavill. But the figures declared were far lower than the number of ballot papers issued, and it quickly became clear that around 600 ballot papers had been accidentally left out of the count. The Liberal Democrats launched an election petition.
Watford County Court ordered a recount of the votes the following week, which resulted in a tie for first place between Cavill (LD) and Kemp (C), who polled 1,023 votes each and were five votes ahead of the second Lib Dem candidate Derek Frankland. This posed a problem, because the boundary change order had failed to make any provision for a tie between first and second place and it was not clear who should get which term. The Election Court ordered a second recount which produced the same result.
The Court examined one ballot paper which had written on it ticks for the Conservatives’ Kemp and one of the Labour candidates, Gillian Stone, with crosses against the other four candidates. The Returning Officer had ruled that this was invalid, but the Court decided that the intention of the voter was clear and added one vote each to Kemp and Stone, breaking the tie in favour of Kemp. This set a legal precedent: in future, if you want to vote like that, your vote will count. (But please don’t: it’s much easier for the counters if you actually follow the instructions.)
The two recounts also revealed that there were ten ballot papers which did not have the official mark, and therefore were invalid. These days you almost never see votes rejected for this reason because the official mark is printed on the ballot paper; but back in 1991 the official mark was a unique pattern of holes which was punched into the paper by a stamping instrument when the ballot paper was issued. (I wonder what happened to all those stamping instruments — are they now gathering dust in an Electoral Services cupboard somewhere?) If the votes without the official mark had been counted, then Cavill would have finished in first place, not Kemp.
Previous Election Court caselaw had established that if ballot papers without the official mark could change the result, then that is reason to void the election — because the most common reason for the official mark being missing is that the poll staff forgot to stamp the ballot paper, which isn’t the voter’s fault. Although it was clear that Bill Cavill and Peter Kemp were the elected candidates, it wasn’t clear which order they had finished in and that was important because of the different term lengths. So the Election Court voided the whole election and ordered a by-election for both seats.
On a massive turnout, that Chorleywood West double by-election returned the Liberal Democrat slate of Derek Frankland and Bill Cavill, in that order. It was another close result, but in the three decades since the Lib Dems in this area have pulled away. Three Rivers is one of the longest-standing districts under Lib Dem leadership, which goes all the way back to 1986 — before the Liberal/SDP merger. For the first 30 years of that period the council leader was Ann Shaw, who was one of the councillors elected for Chorleywood South and Maple Cross ward when it was first contested in 2014. Shaw stood down from the leadership in 2016 and died the following year; the resulting by-election in July 2017 returned the Lib Dem candidate Phil Williams, a Chorleywood café-owner (Andrew’s Previews 2017, page 180).
The Conservatives did manage to win Chorleywood South and Maple Cross ward once, in 2015, but they are a long way behind now. The May 2023 election here gave the Lib Dems a 53–28 lead; there were two seats up in this ward on that occasion, following the retirement of long-serving Lib Dem councillor Martin Trevett.
The 2021 Hertfordshire county elections show up the divide between Chorleywood South and Maple Cross. Maple Cross is part of the Rickmansworth West county division which is safely Conservative; Chorleywood is covered by the Three Rivers Rural county division which the Lib Dems’ Phil Williams gained at a by-election in 2018 (Andrew’s Previews 2018, page 375). This area has a Conservative MP, junior government whip Gagan Mohindra, who represents the South West Hertfordshire constituency. In that seat the Conservative vote dropped badly at the December 2019 general election as a result of the outgoing Conservative MP, former Work and Pensions sceretary and Lord Chancellor David Gauke, seeking re-election as an independent candidate after being expelled from the party for opposition to Boris Johnson. Gauke finished in second place, polling a creditable 26%.
This by-election is to replace Lib Dem councillor Phil Williams, who was chairman of Three Rivers council for 2023–24 and had represented this ward since the 2017 by-election. He stood down from Three Rivers council in November for personal reasons and to spend more time with his family, but has kept his seat on Hertfordshire county council.
Defending this by-election for the Liberal Democrats is Harry Davies, who is a Chorleywood parish councillor and has previously been a Three Rivers councillor: he represented the former Chorleywood West ward from 1999 to 2012. The Conservatives have selected Oliver Neville, a party staffer who has recently completed his degree in politics and international relations at Nottingham University. Also standing are the ward’s regular Green candidate Roger Stafford and Labour candidate Martin Waldron.
Parliamentary constituency: South West Hertfordshire
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): South West Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire county council division: Rickmansworth West (part of Maple Cross and Mill End parish); Three Rivers Rural (part of Chorleywood parish)
ONS Travel to Work Area: London (Chorleywood), Slough and Heathrow (Maple Cross)
Postcode districts: HP8, SL9, UB9, WD3
Harry Davies (LD)
Oliver Neville (C)
Roger Stafford (Grn)
Martin Waldron (Lab)
May 2023 double vacancy LD 1125/1097 C 587/514 Grn 218 Lab 194/126
May 2022 result LD 1251 C 755 Grn 176 Lab 159
May 2021 result LD 1632 C 893 Grn 165 Lab 111
May 2019 result LD 1146 C 832 Grn 205 Lab 68
May 2018 result LD 1149 C 842 Lab 168 Grn 140
July 2017 by-election LD 1428 C 597 Lab 162 UKIP 28 Grn 27
May 2016 result LD 1418 C 687 Lab 171 UKIP 125
May 2015 result C 1972 LD 1884 Lab 446
May 2014 result LD 1216/1196/1106 C 830/729/727 UKIP 431 Lab 226/203/139
Previous results in detail
Lechlade, Kempsford and Fairford South
Cotswold council, Gloucestershire; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Claire Muir.
We’ll now travel west from the Three Rivers district to a small town at the meeting point of three more rivers. Lechlade on Thames takes its name from the River Leach, which flows into the Thames a little east of the town; a little west of here the Thames is joined by the Coln. All three of these rivers drain the Cotswolds to the west and north.
This is the highest point at which the River Thames is navigable; narrowboats which reach the Halfpenny Bridge in the town must turn back. The Halfpenny Bridge, which carries the A361 road towards Swindon, lies on the boundary between Gloucestershire and Wiltshire; by contrast St John’s Bridge, which carries the main road west over the Thames towards Faringdon, is on the Gloucestershire-Oxfordshire boundary.
Lechlade is a place which has inspired artists and writers over the centuries. William Morris’ country house of Kelmscott Manor has a Lechlade postal address, although its location a couple of miles downstream actually places it over the county boundary in Oxfordshire. Definitely within the ward is the churchyard of St Lawrence, whose sight at a different time of year to this inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley to write a poem, A Summer Evening Churchyard.
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray,
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
Lechlade is part of a ward with the small village of Kempsford and the southern half of the town of Fairford. Which gives us a clue as to what underpins this area’s economy: the military airfield of RAF Fairford, which also sees regular use by the US Air Force. Each July Fairford also welcomes some other aircraft as host of the Royal International Air Tattoo, one of the largest airshows in the world. The 2023 Tattoo brought 200,000 people to this corner of Gloucestershire last summer.
Despite the generally low-lying nature of this Thames-side area, Lechlade is part of the Cotswolds parliamentary seat. It has been represented in Parliament for over 30 years by veteran Conservative backbencher Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who is currently the treasurer of the 1922 Committee. Population growth in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire means that Clifton-Brown’s seat will be split into two halves at the next general election: this ward will become part of the brand-new South Cotswolds constituency, which will cross the county boundary to take a large amount of territory from the abolished North Wiltshire seat.
The local county council division of Fairford and Lechlade on Thames is, like the current parliamentary seat, a safe Conservative unit. However, local government in Gloucestershire has been tough going for the Conservatives in recent years. The 2021 local elections gave the Tories a majority of one seat on the county council, which has since disappeared partly as a result of the suspension of county councillor Nick Housden from the party. He is awaiting trial on a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm, and that trial is scheduled for next week.
Cotswold council is another matter again. This district had a Conservative majority administration from 2003 to 2019 which was never far from the pages of Private Eye; but in 2019 the Tory administration was defeated by the Liberal Democrats who won a majority of one seat on the council. The Lib Dems made further gains in May 2023 including both seats in Lechlade, Kempsford and Fairford South ward; vote shares here were 56% for the Liberal Democrat slate and 38% for the Conservatives, in a ward which had previously had very comfortable Conservative majorities.
Perhaps it helped that the polltopping Lib Dem candidate was Clare Muir, who had previously been a senior RAF officer, leaving the Forces in 2019 with the rank of Group Captain; afterwards she worked in the charity sector, including two years with the National Trust. Muir resigned from the council last month due to a change in her personal circumstances.
Defending for the Liberal Democrats is Tristan Wilkinson, who is described as a senior business consultant who has worked with the Number 10 policy unit under three Prime Ministers. So that’s about three months, then. The Conservatives have selected Kempsford parish councillor Stephen Andrews, who was previously a councillor for this ward from 2015 until he lost his seat in May; Andrews also has a Forces background, with a previous 35-year career in the Army including a spell as the UK defence attaché in Beirut. Also standing are Anna Mainwaring for Labour and independent candidate Marshall Regan, who gives an address in Lechlade.
Parliamentary constituency: The Cotswolds
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): South Cotswolds
Gloucestershire county council division: Fairford and Lechlade on Thames
ONS Travel to Work Area: Swindon
Postcode district: GL7
Stephen Andrews (C)
Anna Mainwaring (Lab)
Marshall Regan (Ind)
Tristan Wilkinson (LD)
May 2023 result LD 1150/976 C 785/776 Lab 131/114
May 2019 result C 829/826 LD 483 Grn 468 Lab 235
May 2015 result C 1798/1572 LD 633/323 Lab 423 UKIP 384/283
Previous results in detail
Dunsmore and Leam Valley
Warwickshire county council; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Howard Roberts; and
Dunsmore
Rugby council, Warwickshire; a double by-election caused by the resignations of Conservative councillors Deepah and Howard Roberts.
We now come to the week’s four Conservative defences, three of which are in the same corner of rural Warwickshire. This is Dunsmore, an area of open land to the southwest of Rugby and the southeast of Coventry. It’s crossed by major roads: the Roman Fosse Way runs north to south, while the modern A45 and M45 run east to west to connect Coventry with the Watford Gap.
The A45 is the modern successor to the coaching road between London and Birmingham, which passed through the middle of this area’s largest settlement. Dunchurch at one point had 27 coaching inns, one of which was used by the Gunpowder Plotters in 1605 while they waited for news as to how Guy Fawkes had got on. Dunchurch was the main settlement in this area before the railways came to nearby Rugby, prompting Rugby to develop into a proper town.
Given the time of year we’re in we should note that Dunchurch has a rather strange Christmas tradition. In the centre of Dunchurch is a statue of Lord John Douglas-Montagu-Scott, who was the landowner here in the mid-19th century and briefly served as MP for Roxburghshire in the 1830s. (His wife, Alicia Ann Spottiswoode, was a talented songwriter who wrote the tune for the Scottish song Annie Laurie.) For decades this statue has been dressed up for Christmas by anonymous pranksters, usually in the form of a well-known character; last year Lord John was turned into Pinocchio, while recent year’s costumes have included Homer Simpson, Peppa Pig, the Grinch, Pikachu and Olaf from Frozen II. At the time of writing, we wait to see what delights the pranksters of Christmas 2023 will bring to Dunchurch.
At the other end of the A45 we find the other main village in this area, Ryton on Dunsmore. This is rather different from Dunchurch: we’re only just outside Coventry here, and Ryton has for many years been a very industrial village. In 1940 the Rootes Group opened a factory here to make aircraft engines for the war effort; after the war the Ryton plant became the headquarters of the Rootes Group and started rolling cars off the production line. Over sixty years of operations for Rootes, Chrysler and finally Peugeot, millions of cars were made at Ryton: more than a million for the Peugeot 206 alone. Peugeot closed the factory down in 2006 ad it was demolished the following year; the site is now used by Network Rail as a logistics hub and by Jaguar Land Rover, who have restarted the tradition of car manufacture at Ryton on Dunsmore.
Ryton on Dunsmore is just one of seven parishes in Dunsmore ward and thirteen parishes in Dunsmore and Leam Valley division, which adds in Leam Valley ward: this is a sparsely-populated area based on a number of villages to the south, along the course of the River Leam. Despite Ryton’s industry, this is a true-blue area within the Kenilworth and Southam parliamentary seat, which has been represented since 2005 by the former culture secretary and Attorney General Sir Jeremy Wright.
The only candidates in recent years to defeat the Conservatives here were Howard and Deepah Roberts. Howard Roberts was first elected to Rugby council in 2008 for the predecessor ward of Dunchurch and Knightlow as a Conservative candidate, but by 2012 he had fallen out with the party and sought re-election as an independent. With success. Howard topped the poll in Rugby’s 2012 all-out elections, then gained the Dunchurch county division from the Conservatives in 2013. His wife Deepah was then elected to Rugby council in 2014, again gaining a Conservative seat.
The Robertses and the Conservatives eventually patched up their quarrel, and since 2018 Howard and Deepah have been re-elected as Conservative candidates. Howard was last re-elected to both Warwickshire county council and Rugby council in 2021; in the county division of Dunsmore and Leam Valley he enjoyed a 65–19 lead over Labour. Dunsmore ward last went to the polls in May 2023, when Conservative candidate John Keeling won with 45% of the vote against 26% for Labour and 20% for the Lib Dems. Warwickshire county council has a large Conservative majority, but the Tories lost their majority on Rugby council this year; before the Robertses’ resignations the Conservatives held half of the Rugby council seats, so if they can’t defend both seats in the Dunsmore by-election then Labour and the Lib Dems might be in a position to take control.
Howard and Deepah Roberts submitted their resignations to Rugby council and to Warwickshire county council in November. Howard is now in poor health, and Deepah is his full-time carer. There was just time to hold by-elections for all three seats. If the resignations had been a few days later, then Howard’s Rugby council seat would have remained vacant until his term would have expired in May 2024.
For the county council by-election in Dunsmore and Leam Valley division the defending Conservative candidate is Dale Keeling, who was elected in May as the Rugby councillor for Leam Valley ward. He lives within the division in Ryton on Dunsmore. The Labour candidate is another Rugby councillor, Alison Livesey, who represents Coton and Boughton ward in Rugby town. Also standing are Helen Ford for the Greens and Stephen Pimm for the Lib Dems.
There are two seats available in the Rugby council by-election for Dunsmore ward, so electors here have two votes on that particular ballot paper. Here the defending Conservative candidates are Salome Eric and Jill Simpson-Vince; Eric is a senior IT professional currently working for the London Stock Exchange, while Simpson-Vince is a Warwickshire county councillor representing Brownsover and Coton Park ward, and she sat on Rugby council for Coton and Boughton ward until she lost her seat to Alison Livesey (above) in 2022. The Labour slate consists of Stephen Dyke, who appears to be standing for election for the first time, and Jenny Offordile who came close to gaining Hillmorton ward from the Conservatives last year. The Lib Dems bookend the ballot paper with their candidates Jonathan Bennett and Tricia Trimble; Bennett fought this ward in May, when Trimble contested the safe-Labour Benn ward in Rugby town. Also standing are Helen Ford (again) and Mark Summers for the Green Party. Whoever finishes top of the poll will take over Deepah Roberts’ term which runs to 2026; the second-placed finisher will be straight back on the campaign trail to seek re-election in May 2024; remembering what happened in Chorleywood all those years ago, let’s hope for a clear-cut result.
This column likes to highlight pubs which do their bit for democracy by acting as polling stations, so a shoutout is due to the Friendly Inn in Frankton.
Dunsmore and Leam Valley
Parliamentary constituency: Kenilworth and Southam (almost all), Rugby (two small corners of Dunsmore ward)
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Kenilworth and Southam
Rugby council wards: Dunsmore, Leam Valley
ONS Travel to Work Area: Coventry (Dunsmore ward), Leamington Spa (Leam Valley ward)
Postcode district: CV8, CV22, CV23, CV47, NN11
Helen Ford (Grn)
Dale Keeling (C)
Alison Livesey (Lab)
Stephen Pimm (LD)
May 2021 result C 1990 Lab 571 Grn 255 LD 210
May 2017 result C 2636 Lab 434 LD 294 Grn 145
Previous results in detail
Dunsmore
Parliamentary constituency: Kenilworth and Southam (almost all), Rugby (two small corners of Dunsmore ward)
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Kenilworth and Southam
Warwickshire county council division: Dunsmore and Leam Valley
ONS Travel to Work Area: Coventry
Postcode district: CV8, CV22, CV23
Jonathan Bennett (LD)
Stephen Dyke (Lab)
Salome Eric (C)
Helen Ford (Grn)
Jenny Offordile (Lab)
Jill Simpson-Vince (C)
Mark Summers (Grn)
Tricia Trimble (LD)
May 2023 result C 1089 Lab 638 LD 494 Grn 212
May 2022 result C 1239 LD 807 Lab 454
May 2021 result C 1888 Lab 552 Grn 339
May 2019 result C 1374 LD 477 Lab 321
May 2018 result C 1775 Lab 547
May 2016 result Ind 1916 C 434 Lab 181
May 2015 result C 2001 Ind 1669 Lab 535 Grn 248
May 2014 result Ind 1289 C 1039 Lab 233 Grn 124
May 2012 result Ind 1281 C 1058/1033/868 Lab 460 LD 324/304
Previous results in detail
Billinghay Rural
North Kesteven council, Lincolnshire; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Gill Ogden.
We finish with another remote rural ward, this time in Lincolnshire. Billinghay lies in the centre of Lincolnshire, about ten miles north-east of Sleaford: it’s one of a series of villages in fenland surrounding the River Witham. With the fens having been long drained this is a rich agricultural area, although modern mechanised farming doesn’t provide as many jobs as it used to. Lincolnshire was one of the most densely-populated parts of England in the eleventh century, and several villages in this ward are mentioned in the Domesday book; Billinghay had the wealth to support a particularly fine church which is now Grade I listed.
This two-seat ward was created in 2007 by merging two rural single-member wards, and originally had the name of “Billinghay, Martin and North Kyme”. A boundary review for the 2023 elections kept the lines here unchanged but shortened the name to “Billinghay Rural”. Martin and North Kyme are still here, but they’re no longer namechecked.
The impression that this is a story of country folk will only be reinforced by the fact that topping the poll here in the 2007 election was Conservative candidate Frederick Ambridge, who had previously represented Martin ward. Michael Powell (outgoing councillor for Billinghay ward) won the other seat as an independent, and for the next 12 years Billinghay, Martin and North Kyme ward has split its two seats between the Tories (from 2011, Gill Ogden) and an independent candidate. This changed in 2019 when Lincolnshire Independents councillor Susanna Matthan retired and nobody stood to replace her. When nominations for the ordinary May elections closed, the Conservatives’ Gill Ogden was the only candidate for two available seats.
Ogden was therefore declared elected unopposed and a by-election was held for the other seat in June 2019 (Andrew’s Previews 2019, page 175), which was gained by the Conservatives’ Amanda Sanderson. Shares of the vote were 48% for the Conservatives, 24% for the Lincolnshire Independents and 11% for another independent candidate.
In May 2023 Amanda Sanderson stood down and the Conservatives nominated a two-woman slate, with Gill Ogden seeking re-election and Sarah Lawrence being a new face. When nominations closed, Lawrence and Ogden were the only candidates and they were accordingly elected unopposed.
As can be seen, this is a ward where finding candidates to stand can be difficult. Of the six previous elections on these boundaries, only three were contested (2007, 2015 and June 2019). The late Gill Ogden won four terms of office and only had to face her electors once, easily topping the poll in 2015.
North Kesteven council was a rare Conservative gain in the 2023 local elections (independent candidates had won the most seats here in 2019), and elections at other levels continue the true-blue theme. The Billinghay Rural ward is split between two safe-Conservative divisions of Lincolnshire county council (one of them, Heckington, saw the Tories beat Labour in the 2021 county elections by the huge margin of 82–18), and the local parliamentary seat of Sleaford and North Hykeham has been a very safe berth for Tory backbencher Caroline Johnson since she won a by-election in 2016.
This by-election is to replace Gill Ogden, who passed away in October after 12 years on the council. She had been chairman of North Kesteven council in 2014–15, raising nearly £20,000 during her year in office for two charities, the International Bomber Command Centre and Canine Partners.
The defending Conservative candidate for Billinghay Rural is Andy Wilkes. Unlike some recent elections in this ward, this by-election will be contested: Wilkes faces competition from independent candidate Anthony Brand (who missed out on election in Sleaford by one vote in May), Wendy Liles from the Lincolnshire Independents and Adrian Whittle for the Liberal Democrats.
Parliamentary constituency: Sleaford and North Hykeham
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Sleaford and North Hykeham
Lincolnshire county council divisions: Heckington (part: Billinghay, Dogdyke and North Kyme parishes), Metheringham Rural (part: Martin, Timberland and Walcott parishes)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Lincoln
Postcode districts: LN4, LN10, NG34
Anthony Brand (Ind)
Wendy Liles (Lincs Ind)
Adrian Whittle (LD)
Andy Wilkes (C)
May 2023 result 2 C unopposed
Previous results in detail
If you enjoyed these previews, there are many more like them — going back to 2016 — in the Andrew’s Previews books, which are available to buy now (link). The 2022 edition is out now, and might make an excellent Christmas present for the political enthusiast in your family! You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).
Andrew Teale
