Local Elections 25: Will Buckinghamshire remain true blue?

Throughout its recent existence, the county of Buckinghamshire has been one of the safest Conservative areas of the United Kingdom. Indeed, at the first election to the Buckinghamshire unitary authority which took place in May 2021, the Conservatives won a whopping 113 seats out of the 147 up for grabs. For context, the next largest Party, the Liberal Democrats, won a mere 15 seats. Therefore, surely conventional wisdom is that despite their travails nationally over the intervening four years, the blue flag will still be metaphorically flying over County Hall in Aylesbury?

Well, there is some evidence to suggest this election may not be the Conservative landslide which Buckinghamshire residents have become accustomed to. Firstly, at the 2024 General Election, the Conservatives were reduced to a mere two seats in Buckinghamshire (Beaconsfield and Mid Buckinghamshire) with Labour winning three seats (Aylesbury, Buckingham & Bletchley and Wycombe) and the Liberal Democrats retaining their unlikely by-election win in Chesham & Amersham. The fact that the Conservatives lost some of the historically most Conservative areas of England in these seats sent shockwaves across the political parties in the County and has made some believe that this could be replicated this year at a local level.

Secondly, the national Party leaderships appear to believe that Buckinghamshire is firmly in play with Kemi Badenoch choosing Beaconsfield as the location to launch the Conservatives’ local election campaign, Ed Davey visiting the waterways of the Chess Valley and even Nigel Farage campaigning in Winslow on St George’s Day.

Thirdly, with the number of Buckinghamshire councillors being reduced from 147 (more representatives than the Scottish Parliament) to a more manageable 97, the margin for error for the Conservatives has reduced somewhat. Moreover, this reduction in the number of councillors has seen some sitting Conservative members deselected and several of these members have responded by standing as Independent candidates at these elections with the hope of syphoning off a sizeable chunk of their former Party’s voter base in several wards. Clearly this may damage the Conservative vote in several seats.

These three factors mean that the highly experienced Council Leader, Martin Tett, is fighting hard for his administration’s survival. Tett, who was one of the main drivers of the move to a unitary authority in Buckinghamshire (and the abolition of the four former District authorities), has positioned himself as a redoubtable defender of the Green Belt for many years. Under Tett’s leadership, Buckinghamshire Council has generally taken a firmer approach against large scale development in the former Chiltern and South Buckinghamshire Districts than in the former Aylesbury Vale District. Should the Conservatives lose control of the Council on 1 May, it is likely that it will be to a coalition of Independents, Liberal Democrats and potentially Labour members, many of whom will have been elected in wards based in the larger towns such as Aylesbury, Wycombe and Buckingham. Such a coalition may be headed by Independent councillor Stuart Wilson, who is standing in the Flackwell Heath & The Wooburns ward. This possible scenario has not been lost on the Conservatives who have pointed to the problems in nearby Central Bedfordshire as an example of the dysfunction arising from Independent-led authorities.

In the long term, such a change may alter the Planning dynamic in Buckinghamshire of seeking to prioritise the protection of land in the South of the County from development. Furthermore, it should be noted that the Buckinghamshire Local Plan has not proceeded towards adoption at pace and it could potentially look very different in the event of a non-Conservative coalition running the Council.

Having said all this, reports of the Conservatives’ demise in Buckinghamshire may be somewhat exaggerated and the Party’s historic strength in the more rural areas of the County undoubtedly runs deep. For this reason, it is likely that the Conservatives will remain the largest Party but they can no longer be totally assured of a majority in this once true-blue bastion.