User:Ralbegen/sandbox
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19 of the 57 seats to Plymouth City Council 29 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2024 Plymouth City Council election is due to be held on 2 May 2024 to elect members of Plymouth City Council in England. It will coincide with local elections across the United Kingdom.
In the previous election in 2023, Labour gained overall control, winning seats at the expense of the Conservative Party and the Independent Alliance, a group of councillors who had left their parties led by the former Conservative council leader Nick Kelly.
Background[edit]
History[edit]
Plymouth City Council is due to hold local elections, along with councils across England as part of the 2024 local elections. The council elects its councillors in thirds, with a third of seats being up for election every year for three years, with no election each fourth year to correspond with councillors' four-year terms.[1][2] Councillors defending their seats in this election were previously elected in 2021, which had been delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In that election, fourteen Conservative candidates and five Labour candidates were elected.
Elections in Plymouth are usually competitive between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party.[3] The council was controlled by the Labour Party from the 2018 council election until the 2021 council election, when the council entered no overall control, with no party holding a majority of seats. Several Conservative councillors were suspended or resigned from their party, and the Conservative council leader Nick Kelly was replaced by Richard Bingley after he failed a confidence vote in February 2022. Some former Conservative councillors rejoined their former group after the 2022 council election, giving the party an overall majority on 17 May 2022.[4] Kelly resigned from the Conservative group on 15 October 2022 after being suspended, returning the council to no overall control. Several other councillors resigned from the Conservative group with some forming a group called the Independent Alliance, led by Kelly and also including the former Labour councillor Chaz Singh.
The Conservative council leader Richard Bingley signed an excecutive order to approve the felling of 110 mature trees in Plymouth City Centre in March 2023, as part of longstanding plans to regenerate the city centre. The decision was legally challenged and criticised. He resigned as council leader the following week.
Labour won fifteen seats in the subsequent 2023 council election, winning overall control of the council. The Conservatives won only one seat, while independent candidates who had been members of the Independent Alliance group won in Plympton and the former Conservative councillor Steve Ricketts was elected as an independent candidate in Drake ward.
Developments since 2023[edit]
Defections and suspensions[edit]
The Conservative councillor Philip Partridge left the Conservative group to form a new "Free Independents" group led by Ricketts. The independent Plympton councillors formed an "Independent Group".
Efford and Lipson by-election[edit]
The Labour councillor Brian Vincent died in April 2023, having first being elected in 1997 and having served continuously as a councillor since 2006.
The Labour candidate Paul McNamara won the ensuing by-election on 15 June.
{{[[Template:Election box win with party link| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Paul McNamara | 1,204 | 58.8 |  6.7
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| Conservative | Will Jones | 423 | 20.6 |  15.6
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| Green | Pat Bushell | 196 | 9.6 | 2.3
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| Liberal Democrats | Alexander Primmer | 80 | 3.9 | 0.8
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| Independent | Chaz Singh | 69 | 3.4 | N/A | |
| Heritage | Darryl Ingram | 54 | 2.6 | N/A | |
| TUSC | Neil Prentice | 23 | 1.1 | 0.3
| |
| Turnout | 2,049 | 20.2 | 12.5
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Election box win with party link
]]}}
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July 2023 by-elections[edit]
In June 2023, the Conservative councillor and former council leader Vivien Pengelly died and the Labour councillor Sue McDonald resigned due to "family health reasons".
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Stefan Krizanac | 1,072 | |||
| Conservative | Julie Hunt | 919 | |||
| Liberal Democrats | Peter Edwards | 596 | |||
| Independent | Grace Stickland | 480 | |||
| Green | Bruce Robinson | 97 | |||
| Heritage | Darryl Ingram | 55 | |||
| TUSC | Jacke Hilton | 12 | |||
| Turnout | 2,049 | 20.2 | 12.5
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| Labour gain from Conservative | Swing | 32.0 | |||
- ^ "Local government structure and elections". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
- ^ "Election Timetable in England" (PDF).
- ^ "Third of Devon's city councils seats up for election". BBC News. 2022-04-12. Retrieved 2022-04-12.
- ^ Eve, Carl (2022-05-17). "Conservatives back in charge of Plymouth Council". Plymouth Live. Retrieved 2024-01-10.