Previewing the twelve by-elections of 2nd July 2026

After last week’s record-breaking Thursday, both in temperature and by-election terms, it’s time for another busy week as twelve by-elections take place on 2nd July 2026. In terms of the seats being defended from last time, we have four Conservative defences, two Labour, two Lib Dem, two independent, and one seat each for Plaid Cymru and a localist party. But of course things are never that simple, as we will now see. Read on...

Aberdeenshire council, Scotland; caused by the death of Conservative councillor George Hall.

Two weeks ago, the Conservatives scored an impressive parliamentary by-election gain in Scotland by gaining the Aberdeen South constituency from Labour. Last week, the voters of George St/Harbour ward in Aberdeen were called out for another by-election, in which the Scottish National Party gained an Aberdeen city council seat from the Lib Dems. This week we have the final entry in a trilogy of by-elections in north-east Scotland, this time with the Conservatives turning from attack to defence.

Our venue is some miles north up the coast from Aberdeen. The town of Peterhead was established at the end of the 16th century - the Peter of the name comes from the dedication of the town’s first church to St Peter - and its economy has always been based on its port, which according to a 2019 survey is the busiest fishing port in the whole of the UK. The South side of the town is newer, covering areas of housing such as Clerkhill, Meethill and Invernettie together with industrial areas and a prison complex. The Victorian-era Peterhead prison closed in 2013 and has been turned into a museum; it has been replaced by the adjacent HMP Grampian, which is a maximum-security prison housing some of Scotland’s most notorious criminals. Scottish electoral law allows anyone incarcerated here for one year or less to vote by post in Holyrood or Scottish local elections at their previous address, but takeup of this option has been low: according to a Scottish Government report, only 38 eligible prisoners in Scotland (out of a total of around 600) were registered to vote at the 2021 Holyrood election.

The two Peterhead wards both include substantial parts of the town’s rural hinterland. In South ward this is represented by Cruden Bay, which was heavily promoted as a seaside resort back in the day. Bram Stoker was a regular visitor, and the early chapters of Dracula were written here during his holidays in the 1890s. The village still attracts visitors for its links golf course, whose sands hide a modern piece of infrastructure: Cruden Bay is where the crude oil from the Forties pipeline comes ashore.

Peterhead South and Cruden ward was created in 2007 and took on its current boundaries in 2017, with three Aberdeenshire councillors. It has always been a strong SNP area, and in the 2007 and 2012 elections the Scottish National Party polled more than 50% of the first preferences and won two out of three seats: the other seat went in 2007 to the Lib Dems’ Sam Coull, who was defeated in 2012 by independent candidate Tom Malone. The SNP vote fell in 2017 and they lost a seat to the Conservatives, and unaccountably the Nationalists didn’t try to get that seat back in 2022. First preferences here last time were 46% to the SNP and 41% to the Conservatives; that would surely have delivered two SNP councillors but the party only had one candidate, so the SNP surplus instead gave the final seat to the Lib Dems who were the only other party to stand. If we rerun the count for a single seat, then the SNP’s 46-41 lead over the Conservatives on first preferences becomes 54-46 after transfers.

Since then we have had elections to both Parliaments. In the July 2024 Westminster election Peterhead and its hinterland were transferred from the Banff and Buchan constituency to the new and cumbersomely-named seat of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East. When Rishi Sunak pressed the trigger on that election, the Banff and Buchan Conservative MP David Duguid was in hospital recovering from a spinal stroke. He was unceremoniously dumped by the Conservatives, who deselected him in favour of the Scottish Conservatives’ then leader Douglas Ross; but Ross then went on to lose Aberdeenshire North and Moray East to the SNP’s Seamus Logan, a Northern Irishman from the Glens of Antrim who had come to the Commons late in life after retiring from a career in healthcare. Logan subsequently resigned his Aberdeenshire council seat, and the SNP lost the resulting November 2024 by-election in Fraserburgh and District ward to the Conservatives.

For the recent Holyrood election the two parts of this ward were in different constituencies. The Cruden area is located within the Aberdeenshire East Holyrood seat, which returned First Minister Alex Salmond at its first election in 2011; in 2026 SNP MSP Gillian Martin, who sits in the Scottish Cabinet with the climate action and rural affairs portfolio, won a third term of office by narrowly holding off Conservative challenger Douglas Lumsden by 943 votes; Lumsden was re-elected to Holyrood on the regional list before he was elected to Westminster in the Aberdeen South by-election two weeks ago. There was an even closer result in the Banffshire and Buchan Coast seat, which includes Peterhead and was the number 1 Reform UK target in Scotland; in the end the turquoise tide came up just short, and SNP backbencher Karen Adam was re-elected for her second term with a majority of 364. The SNP have the withdrawal of the Greens from the constituency ballot to thank for those two seats: in the regional ballot Aberdeenshire East voted Conservative while Reform UK carried Banffshire and Buchan Coast.

The 2022 Aberdeenshire council elections returned 26 Conservative councillors, 21 SNP, 14 Lib Dems and 9 independents. There were three by-elections in November 2024 which all resulted in Conservative gains from the SNP, but this gain for the Tory group has been more than wiped out by defection losses. The Aberdeenshire council website currently lists 20 Conservatives, 18 SNP councillors, 14 Lib Dems, 10 independents, 7 Reform UK councillors and this vacancy; the ruling coalition is made up of the Conservative and Lib Dem groups plus some of the independent councillors.

One of the defectors had been the late councillor George Hall, who died in April at the age of 65. Hall was originally from Lisburn in Northern Ireland and he had had a long police career before entering politics. In 2022 he was elected for his first and only term of office by winning the Conservative seat in Peterhead South and Cruden ward. However, Hall did not stay in the Conservative group for long: in 2023 he became an independent councillor.

The Conservatives will be hoping to recover their by-election loss here, and they have selected Ross Gibb who is fighting his first election campaign. The SNP candidate is Angus Matheson, who lives in Cruden Bay and works in hospitality. Also standing are Tony Ware for the Lib Dems, Dave Bestwick for the Scottish Family Party, Reform UK’s Andy Curwen who is drum major of the Gordon Highlanders Association pipes and drums, and two independent candidates: John Ross gives an address in the ward, while Ross Thomson is a high-profile former Conservative MP (Aberdeen South, 2017-19), MSP (North East Scotland, 2016-17) and Aberdeen city councillor (Hazlehead/Ashley/Queens Cross ward, 2012-17), who is apparently standing here as an independent after failing to get the Reform UK nomination. He completes an all-male ballot paper of seven candidates. Intending Conservative and independent voters should check carefully which Ross they are giving their first preference to.

Westminster constituency: Aberdeenshire North and Moray East
Holyrood constituency: Aberdeenshire East (Cruden), Banffshire and Buchan Coast (Peterhead South)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Peterhead
Postcode district: AB42

Dave Bestwick (Scottish Family Party)
Andy Curwen (RUK)
Ross Gibb (C)
Angus Matheson (SNP)
John Ross (Ind)
Ross Thomson (Ind)
Tony Ware (LD)

May 2022 first preferences SNP 1578 C 1403 LD 414
May 2017 first preferences C 1364 SNP 1346 Ind 790 LD 187
Previous results in detail

Bolton council, Greater Manchester; caused by the resignation of Horwich and Blackrod First councillor Ryan Bamforth.

For our first English by-election of the week we are in the Greatest Town in the Known Universe - or, more accurately, one of its satellite towns. We’re in Horwich (rhymes with Norwich), a town which clings to the south-western slopes of Winter Hill on the two roads between Bolton and Chorley - the old road over the hill, and the flatter but more circuitous Chorley New Road at a lower level. Chorley New Road is the southern boundary of Horwich North ward.

Horwich was not like the other towns which make up the modern Bolton metropolitan borough, which were economically based on textiles, coal mining, chemicals or some combination of those. Instead this was a railway town, with the major employer being the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway which opened its locomotive works here in 1887. Many of the great transport engineers of the early twentieth century, including the London and North Eastern Railway’s Nigel Gresley and the aviator Alliott Verdon-Roe (the A V Roe who gave his name to the Avro aircraft firm), worked at Horwich Works early in their careers.

The railway works site, which is outside this ward, remains in industrial use today and has retained many of its original buildings. In 2004 a piece of public art, known as the “Ghost Train”, was put in on a nearby roundabout to celebrate Horwich’s railway heritage; this sculpture has fallen into disrepair over the subsequent 22 years and is currently being refurbished. Horwich railway station itself closed in the 1960s, and its site is now a park within this ward.

The industry continues up into the open space of Winter Hill, a large chunk of which has disappeared in the last couple of years as a result of an expansion of Montcliffe Quarry. To the west of here Horwich North ward extends northwards along the access road to the massive Winter Hill TV mast, which is just outside the ward boundary. Some of the mast’s support wires actually fly over this ward.

The access road bypasses Winter Hill’s subsidiary summit of the Two Lads, a pair of cairns which lie at 389 metres above sea level and are a stunning viewpoint. You’ll often find me up here on a fine summer’s evening taking in the extensive view. Try to spot the Wrekin 65 miles to the south, Snowdonia over 60 miles to the west, Scafell Pike 65 miles to the north, and - over 90 miles away - the Isle of Man to the north-west, behind Blackpool Tower.

The Two Lads is thought to be a probable prehistoric burial site, and the Woodland Trust, which owns the hill, have plans for this summer to demolish the cairns, do an archaeological dig and then rebuild the cairns in what should hopefully be a safer state. Work should start on this within the next couple of weeks.

Famous former residents of Horwich North ward include Jenny Ryan of The Chase fame, who used to run a quiz league team out of this ward. Still here are the Crown Horwich quiz team anchored by their star player Derek Heyes, who has been blind since the age of 6 but didn’t let that stop him from a successful teaching career. Derek can be heard here competing in the 2021 Brain of Britain semi-finals, and he also took money off Mark Labbett on The Chase. Not many people manage that.

At Parliamentary level Horwich is part of the Bolton West constituency, where the most popular Conservative MP in Greater Manchester Chris Green was chased down to defeat in 2024 despite favourable boundary changes. The Labour MP here is Phil Brickell, who had been tackling financial crime for NatWest before his election to the Commons; Brickell was also a Manchester city councillor before his election.

Horwich still has some self-government in the form of a town council, but for most purposes the local authority is Bolton council whose elections in recent years have been a right old mess. In March 2018 I previewed a by-election in Farnworth ward which was contested by a new localist party called Farnworth and Kearsley First, and I remarked that “it’s surprising in retrospect that nobody has previously tried to form a localist party in Bolton borough given its residents’ reputation for insularity”. Well, Farnworth and Kearsley First won that by-election and their performance inspired the formation of a whole series of localist parties in the satellite towns of Bolton borough, of which the one to note here is Horwich and Blackrod First which started contesting elections in 2019 and found immediate success in Horwich and Blackrod. HBF have won every election in Horwich North ward since it was drawn up in 2023, and they were competitive in the predecessor ward of Horwich North East before then.

Reform UK and another localist party called Bolton for Change had jointly run a full slate in the 2024 Bolton elections and got nowhere. Come 2026 Bolton for Change were nowhere to be seen and Reform UK got their first big chance here: they won nine of the 20 Bolton wards against three each for the Conservatives and the Greens, two for Labour, one for the Lib Dems, and two seats for Horwich and Blackrod First who held out against the turquoise tide that swept away all the other localists. Shares of the vote here in May were 39% for Horwich and Blackrod First, 26% for Reform UK, 12% for the Greens and 11% for Labour. The Labour minority administration in the Greatest Town continues with a reduced Labour group of 19 out of 60 seats, plus another vacancy; HBF (4) and the Lib Dems (5) supported the Labour candidate for leader of the council at the AGM in May, while the other opposition councillors are 10 each for Reform UK and the Conservatives, 3 Farnworth and Kearsley First, 2 remaining councillors in the Communities First group, and one councillor who has recently quit the Conservatives and gone independent.

The Horwich and Blackrod First party hasn’t remained united, and after May two councillors elected on their ticket were sitting as an independents within the Communities First group on the council. One of them was Ryan Bamforth, the council’s Armed Forces champion until his resignation in May, who had first been elected here in 2023 but quit the party a year later and joined the Communities First group. Bamforth had topped the poll in the 2023 all-out election and won a four-year term, so the winner of this by-election to succeed him will need to seek re-election again next year.

Communities First are not registered as a political party and they have no defending candidate. Horwich and Blackrod First will be looking to recover their defection loss with their candidate John Scoble, who sits on Horwich town council and runs a construction firm. Scoble gives an address on the street off Chorley Old Road called Bottom o’ th’ Moor, which is a postman’s worst nightmare made real. Well done to anybody who can work out how the house numbers on Bottom o’ th’ Moor ended up in this state.

Reform UK, who will become the official opposition on the council if they gain this by-election, have selected Wendy Parkinson. Standing for the Green Party is Nicola Salmon, a retired ex-teacher and teacher trainer. Labour have reselected Graham Dawson, who will be hoping to improve on his fourth-place finish here two months ago. Also standing are Raymond Ndokwo for the Conservatives, independent candidate Peter Hopkinson who stood in Astley Bridge ward in May and got nowhere, and the Lib Dems’ Scott Turner-Preece. The Chase is on!

Parliamentary constituency: Bolton West
ONS Travel to Work Area: Manchester
Postcode districts: BL1, BL6

Graham Dawson (Lab)
Peter Hopkinson (Ind)
Raymond Ndokwo (C)
Wendy Parkinson (RUK)
Nicola Salmon (Grn)
John Scoble (Horwich and Blackrod First)
Scott Turner-Preece (LD)

May 2026 result Horwich and Blackrod First 1905 RUK 1243 Grn 585 Lab 536 C 257 Ind 252 LD 74
May 2024 double vacancy Horwich and Blackrod First 2028/1835 Lab 1401/1117 C 385/310 Grn 140 RUK/Bolton for Change 140/128 LD 126/48
May 2023 result Horwich and Blackrod First 1910/1709/1494 Lab 1467/1392/1193 C 625/435/426 Grn 238 LD 214 RUK/Bolton for Change 158
Previous results in detail

Cheshire West and Chester council; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Phil Rimmer.

Our second Conservative defence of this week is in the Cheshire countryside to the west of Northwich, running from the Weaver Navigation to the east into the sandstone hills to the west. In the valley we find the town of Weaverham, which is this ward’s largest centre of population, while Cuddington is further up the hill; other villages here include Sandiway (which shares a parish council with Cuddington), Norley and Acton Bridge which is the only crossing of the River Weaver here. Sandiway is the location of a curious relic of the former Vale Royal abbey, the Round Tower Lodge which now stands incongruously between the two carriageways of the A556 road.

The ward has excellent commuting opportunities in many directions. Cuddington and Sandiway are at the crossing of the A49 Warrington-Whitchurch and A556 Chester-Northwich roads, Cuddington railway station lies on the Mid-Cheshire line between Chester and Manchester via Northwich, and Acton Bridge railway station lies on the West Coast main line and is served by local trains between Crewe and Liverpool. This has attracted a commuter demographic to go with the wealthy Cheshire set. The country house of Delamere Manor within the ward (available for weddings, etc) was once home to the Take That singer Gary Barlow, while the Manchester City footballer Phil Foden is reportedly an elector here. Presumably he’ll be able to vote in person, given that he didn’t make the England World Cup squad.

One suspects that the real housewives of Cheshire have voted Conservative in recent elections. Weaver and Cuddington is in the Eddisbury part of the Chester South and Eddisbury constituency, which was one of the few seats in the North West to return a Conservative MP in 2024: she is former Richmond upon Thames councillor Aphra Brandreth, daughter of Gyles Brandreth.

The last local elections here were back in 2023, when Weaver and Cuddington ward split its three seats. Top of the poll was independent councillor Gillian Edwards, who got 42% of the vote and polled almost twice as many votes as anybody else. The race for the ward’s other two seats was unusually close, with the Conservative slate eventually beating Labour by 22-21; Phil Rimmer, who won the third and final seat, had a majority of 64 votes. This places Weaver and Cuddington within the minority on Cheshire West and Chester council, which is run by Labour.

Phil Rimmer stood down in May due to changes in his professional and personal circumstances, so the Conservatives are defending this by-election. Their defending candidate is Patrick Melody, who will hope that he is in tune with the electorate. We have an independent candidacy from Gabrielle Goad, who is standing in her first election. Labour have reselected Bob Cernik, who is the mayor of Northwich and holds the title of emeritus professor of materials engineering at the University of Manchester; Cernik was a councillor for Northwich Winnington and Castle ward from 2019 to 2023 and he has previously served for six years on Cuddington and Sandiway parish council, but his 2023 result here was the latest in a long series of previous failed local election campaigns in Cuddington. Also on the ballot are Elizabeth Jewkes who is not cheap jewellery from Argos but is the Lib Dem candidate, and Reform UK’s Adam Wordsworth who was the losing Conservative candidate here in both 2019 and 2023. It’s likely that Wordsworth lost out on those occasions because his surname is at the wrong end of the alphabet - but will that be a disadvantage this time?

Parliamentary constituency: Chester South and Eddisbury
ONS Travel to Work Area: Crewe
Postcode districts: CW8, WA6

Bob Cernik (Lab)
Gabrielle Goad (Ind)
Elizabeth Jewkes (LD)
Patrick Melody (C)
Adam Wordsworth (RUK)

May 2023 result Ind 2931 C 1515/1498/1327 Lab 1434/1228 LD 1091
May 2019 result Ind 2212 C 2062/2027/1605 LD 1041/689 Lab 875/650
Previous results in detail

Telford and Wrekin council, Shropshire; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Shaun Davies.

The gas was on in the Institute,
The flare was up in the gym,
A man was running a mineral line,
A lass was singing a hymn,
When Captain Webb the Dawley man,
Captain Webb from Dawley,
Came swimming along the old canal
That carried the bricks to Lawley.
Swimming along -
Swimming along -
Swimming along from Severn,
And paying a call at Dawley Bank while swimming along to Heaven.

- John Betjeman, A Shropshire Lad

Our next poll is in the centre of a New Town, as we visit the Architectural Heaven Circa 1970 that is the Telford Shopping Centre. Opened in 1973, this is the largest shopping mall in Shropshire. It’s orbited by a series of commercial and leisure buildings, including the main offices of Telford and Wrekin council together with the Telford International Centre which is a regular stop on the World Snooker tour. The whole complex has easy access to the M54 motorway and is also served by Telford Central railway station, on the line between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury.

The New Town of Telford took its name from Thomas Telford, the great civil engineer of the 18th and 19th centuries. Originally the New Town was going to be called Dawley after one of the pre-existing towns in the area, which was a little to the south-west of the modern town centre; as the above poem from Betjeman might suggest, Dawley was the birthplace of the first Channel swimmer Captain Matthew Webb. In between Dawley and Telford is the New Town estate of Malinslee, with Dawley Bank lying to the west of it. The Malinslee and Dawley Bank ward also takes in a large chunk of the open green space that is Telford Town Park. The ward is strongly working-class and has high levels of social housing, reflecting its New Town nature.

Malinslee and Dawley Bank ward was created in 2015 and took on its current boundaries in 2023. The outgoing councillor Shaun Davies had first been elected for the predecessor Malinslee ward in 2011, and in 2016 he took over from his ward colleague Kuldip Singh Sahota as leader of the Labour-controlled Telford and Wrekin council. Davies was just 30 years old, which at the time made him England’s youngest council leader.

In 2022 Davies became leader of the Labour group on the Local Government Association, and then he continued his political rise in the 2024 general election by being elected as the Labour MP for Telford, gaining the seat from its controversial previous Conservative MP Lucy Allan who had stood down at the election. Following his election to the Commons Davies stood down from the council leadership, but he stayed on as a Telford and Wrekin councillor until May 2026 when he resigned from the council in order to take up a post as a government whip.

Davies isn’t the only former Malinslee and Dawley Bank ward councillor who has gone to Westminster: his former ward colleague Kuldip Singh Sahota was elevated to the Lords in 2022. Lord Sahota stood down from Telford and Wrekin council in 2023, when the new Labour slate of Shaun Davies and his wife Elise won both of the ward’s seats by the emphatic margin of 75-18 over the Conservatives. Whether this is Reform UK-proof remains to be seen.

Defending Shaun Davies’s seat for Labour in this by-election is Ben Carter, a factory worker: he is the mayor of Great Dawley parish, which includes the Malinslee part of this ward. The Conservatives have selected Thomas Hoof, who is an IT director for a multinational recycling company and has served on a number of parishes in the Telford area (but not on either of the parishes covering this ward). Also on the ballot paper in Malinslee and Dawley Bank are Patrick Doddy for the Lib Dems, construction worker and martial arts enthusiast Doug Halsall for Reform UK, and Jazz Holmes for the Green Party.

Parliamentary constituency: Telford
ONS Travel to Work Area: Telford
Postcode districts: TF3, TF4, TF7

Ben Carter (Lab)
Patrick Doddy (LD)
Doug Halsall (RUK)
Jazz Holmes (Grn)
Thomas Hoof (C)

May 2023 result Lab 1183/1089 C 282/253 LD 110
Previous results in detail

Powys council, Mid Wales; caused respectively by the resignations of councillors Elwyn Vaughan of Plaid Cymru, Claire Johnson-Wood and Iain McIntosh.

Our ongoing series of by-elections to replace Welsh councillors who have been elected to Senedd Cymru now resumes. Unlike Shaun Davies in Telford, Welsh members of either Parliament are required to resign any council seats which they hold under Welsh local government law. We have four such polls today, three of which occur in the three Welsh counties which merged to create the modern county of Powys in 1974. All of the Powys wards up for election today are rural wards which cover large areas of mid-Wales.

The northernmost of those counties, and the largest by population, was Montgomeryshire to the north. Here we find Glantwymyn ward, which wraps around the south side of Machynlleth town and sprawls over the lower part of the Dovey valley which marks the traditional boundary between North and South Wales. Glantwymyn is the Welsh-language name for the village of Cemmaes Road, whose English name comes from a now-closed railway station on the Cambrian railway line. The only railway station within the ward now is Dovey Junction, which is in a very isolated location to the west of Machynlleth (the nearest road is over half a mile away) and exists solely to allow passengers to change between the Cambrian’s Aberystwyth and Pwllheli branches. In the north of the ward we find the Centre for Alternative Technology, an eco centre which has been demonstrating practical solutions for a sustainable future since 1973; unfortunately, it is no longer open to walk-up visitors. Although Machynlleth town is a separate Powys ward, it hosts the largest of this ward’s three polling station.

Radnorshire had the smallest population of any old Welsh county, and its upland and hilly nature was not well-suited to agriculture meaning that the local squires were chronically hard-up. As an old local poem goes:

Alas, alas poor Radnorshire!
Never a park, nor never a deer
Never a man with five hundred a year
Save Richard Fowler of Abbey Cwm Hir

The Fowlers were large landowners based in the village of Abbeycwmhir, which is a tiny village off the beaten track in the middle of nowhere. It was probably busier in the 12th century when construction work began on Cwmhir Abbey, which was intended to be the largest abbey in Wales; only the nave was ever completed, but even that was longer than several cathedral naves. The abbey is the final resting place of the body (but not the head) of the last native Prince of Wales Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, who was killed in an ambush in 1282.

Abbeycwmhir is one of several scattered villages in the Llanyre with Nantmel ward, which covers countryside to the east and north of Rhayader and to the west of Llandrindod Wells. Despite the order of the names the largest centre of population is Nantmel, on the A44 main road from Rhayader to Leominster; Llanyre lies to the west of Llandrindod Wells, while the ward also takes in the St Harmon community to the north of Rhayader. Within the ward boundary is the former Roman fort at Castell Collen, to the west of Llandrindod.

The Romans were also present in Breconshire at Cicucium, a fort to the west of modern-day Brecon located at the confluence of the River Usk and the River Yscir. Like Castell Collen, Cicucium was constructed around AD 75; it was originally garrisoned by 500 cavalrymen from modern-day Spain, but what they thought of the Welsh weather is not recorded. The military still have a presence in Breconshire, but today they concentrate on the Sennybridge training area which covers a large area of upland to the north.

Ruins from a later era can be found at Llanddew to the north of Brecon, where there was a mediaeval palace belonging to the bishops of St Davids. In the late 12th century this palace was home to the priest and historian Gerald of Wales, who was archdeacon of Brecon at the time. Gerald’s series of books on Ireland and Wales, and his polemic on Henry II and the Angevin dynasty De principis instructione (”Instruction for a Ruler”), form valuable sources for the mediaeval historian of today.

Llanddew village hall is one of the six polling stations in Yscir with Honddu Isaf and Llanddew ward. The Honddu Isaf community, as the name suggests, covers the lower Honddu valley to the north of Brecon; its polling station is in the village of Lower Chapel. The largest polling station here, with 392 electors on the roll, is in the village of Cradoc to the north-west of Brecon which lies in the shadow of the Iron Age hillfort at Pen-y-crug. Cradoc is one of a number of villages on the southern fringes of this ward which lie wholly or partly within the Bannau Brycheiniog national park.

All of these wards are in the opposition half of Powys council, which is run by a Lib Dem and Labour coalition. The 2022 elections returned 24 Lib Dem and 9 Labour councillors against 17 independents, 14 Conservatives, 3 Plaid councillors and 1 Green. By-elections since then have seen independents lose two seats in Montgomeryshire, Rhiwcynon to the Conservatives and Machynlleth to Plaid Cymru.

Following the 2024 Westminster boundary changes and the 2026 Senedd electoral reform, there is no longer any constituency wholly within Powys. Montgomeryshire is combined for Westminster purposes with southern parts of the Wrexham council area in the Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr constituency, and its Labour MP Steve Witherden - whose family were involved in the founding of the Centre for Alternative Technology - will have had his electoral base in the Glyndŵr part of that seat. In the 2026 Senedd election Montgomeryshire was the Maldwyn part of the Gwynedd Maldwyn constituency, which takes in most of the Gwynedd council area to the west; this seat gave 45% of the vote and 4 seats to Plaid Cymru, and 27% of the vote and 2 seats to Reform UK.

Elected in fourth place on the Plaid list for Gwynedd Maldwyn was Elwyn Vaughan, who had served since 2017 as the Powys councillor for Glantwymyn ward which, unusually for Powys, is a predominantly Welsh-speaking area. Vaughan had won his seat in 2017 rather narrowly, defeating a Conservative candidate by 55-45. He was re-elected for a second term unopposed in 2022, but has been involved in contested elections since nonetheless: Vaughan was the Plaid candidate for Montgomeryshire in the 2021 Senedd election and for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr in 2024.

Radnorshire hasn’t had a single MP of its own since 1918, when its small population meant it was merged with Breconshire to form the Brecon and Radnorshire parliamentary seat. This was expanded in 2024 by the addition of the Swansea valley to create the present Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe constituency which is the seat of Wales’ only Lib Dem MP, David Chadwick. The Swansea valley wards of that seat are administered by Neath Port Talbot council, and the Senedd electoral reform of 2026 merged it with the Neath and Swansea East constituency to create a 6-seat electoral area of Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd.

There was no room for Radnorshire (Maesyfed) in that seat name, but the use of proportional representation means that there is room for all of the areas in this diverse constituency to be represented. In May Reform UK were top of the poll in Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd with 33% and they won 3 out of 6 seats; Plaid Cymru polled 29% and won 2 seats; the Liberal Democrats polled 12% and won 1 seat, with the party’s Welsh leader Jane Dodds becoming their only MS; and Labour polled 9% and won nothing.

Elected in second place on the Reform UK list for Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd was Iain McIntosh, a carpet and flooring shop owner from Brecon who featured in this column in June 2017 when he won a by-election in Yscir ward. That by-election had a rather unusual cause: nobody had been nominated as a candidate there in the May 2017 Powys council election. McIntosh was then in the Conservatives, and he was re-elected on their ticket in 2022 in the expanded ward of Yscir with Honddu Isaf and Llanddew by a 59-41 margin over the Lib Dems. He had subsequently defected to Reform UK. Following his election to the Senedd, McIntosh has closed his carpet and flooring shop and passed the business on to one of his former employees.

Due to its location in Radnorshire Llanyre with Nantmel ward is part of the Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd constituency, but its former councillor Claire Johnson-Wood now finds herself as an MS representing Gwynedd Maldwyn after being elected in second place on the Reform UK list there. Johnson-Wood was first elected to Powys council in 2017 as a Conservative councillor for the former Llanyre ward, but in 2020 she defected to the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party: in the 2021 Senedd election Johnson-Wood was top of the Abolish list for Mid and West Wales and also stood in the Brecon and Radnorshire constituency. In 2022 she was re-elected to Powys council as an independent candidate for Llanyre with Nantmel, defeating a Lib Dem candidate by the narrow margin of 54-46, before subsequently joining Reform UK in 2025. Her previous local election wins came under her maiden name, Mills.

We have no repeat of Yscir 2017 this time and all three Powys by-elections have attracted a decent field. In Yscir with Honddu Isaf and Llanddew, Reform UK will hoping that their defection gain in Iain McIntosh will be succeeded by a by-election gain for his wife, Dawn McIntosh; in 2022 she was a Conservative candidate for Brecon East ward. The Conservatives’ Mark Burton comes here straight from the last Powys council by-election in May, where he finished in fourth place in Llandrindod South ward. Standing for the Lib Dems is Colin Millichap, who farms sheep and cows in the Yscirfawr valley and is a former chairman of the local NFU branch. Also on the ballot here are Alan Cooper for Labour, Plaid Cymru’s Kate Heneghan who contested the 2017 Yscir by-election and was also on the party’s list for Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd last month, and Eric Rosoman-Matthews for the Greens.

Reform UK are also looking to turn a defection gain into a by-election gain in Llanyre with Nantmel ward, where their candidate Gareth Hughes is a sheep farmer who also owns a children’s nursery with his partner. His predecessor was elected as an independent, and we have one independent on this ballot: David Evans is a long-serving former Powys councillor for the previous Nantmel ward, who served from 1999 until he stood down in 2022. Here the Lib Dem candidate is Tim Wilson, who stood in Llanafanfawr with Garth ward last time. Also standing here are Tyler Chambers for the Conservatives and Steve Court for the Greens on an all-male ballot.

Glantwymyn ward is more straightforward to describe as no defections are involved here: it’s a Plaid Cymru defence. Plaid have selected Rwth Hughes, who is the deputy mayor of Machynlleth; she is opposed by Heidi Rhiann for the Conservatives, Peter Robinson for Reform UK and Angela Standrin for the Lib Dems.

Westminster constituency: Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr
Senedd constituency: Gwynedd Maldwyn
ONS Travel to Work Area: Aberystwyth
Postcode district: SY20

Rwth Hughes (PC)
Heidi Rhiann (C)
Peter Robinson (RUK)
Angela Standrin (LD)

May 2022 PC unopposed
Previous results in detail

Westminster constituency: Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe
Senedd constituency: Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd
ONS Travel to Work Area: Llandrindod Wells and Builth Wells
Postcode districts: LD1, LD6, SY18

Tyler Chambers (C)
Steve Court (Grn)
David Evans (Ind)
Gareth Hughes (RUK)
Tim Wilson (LD)

May 2022 result Ind 386 LD 332
Previous results in detail

Westminster constituency: Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe
Senedd constituency: Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd
ONS Travel to Work Area: Brecon
Postcode district: LD3

Mark Burton (C)
Alan Cooper (Lab)
Kate Heneghan (PC)
Dawn McIntosh (RUK)
Colin Millichap (LD)
Eric Rosoman-Matthews (Grn)

May 2022 result C 515 LD 354
Previous results in detail

Torfaen council, Gwent; caused by the resignation of Jason O’Connell.

Now this is a story I’ve got to share
It’ll only take a minute, sit right there
If you shop at Iceland or Matalan
Let me tell you about a special place called Cwmbran

- Goldie Lookin Chain, Fresh Prince of Cwmbran

This is the GLC we’re talking about here, so let’s get one thing out of the way immediately: some of the lyrics of Fresh Prince of Cwmbran might be construed as not safe for work. You knows it.

Yes, that’s former Newport Labour councillor Rhys Hutchings and his band Goldie Lookin Chain’s take on the Welsh New Town of Cwmbran, which was designated in 1949 to cover a site in the Lwyd valley between Pontypool and Newport. We’re in the South Wales coalfield here, so by 1949 there was plenty of industry here already with two railway lines and the Monmouthshire Canal to serve it. But the point of the New Town was to provide new employment which wasn’t completely dependent on the coal industry.

And that’s been reasonably successful. You saw in the video the large Burtons biscuit factory in Llantarnam, which has been making the UK’s entire supply of Jammy Dodgers and Wagon Wheels since 1939. That’s at the southern end of Llantarnam ward; at the northern end is the covered shopping of the Cwmbran Centre, the second-largest shopping mall in Wales. In between is the former village of Old Cwmbran.

Cwmbran is one of the two major towns which make up the Torfaen county borough, the other being Pontypool further up the valley. Torfaen council has had a Labour majority at every election since 1974 with the exception of 2008, which returned a hung council. At the last Welsh council elections in 2022 Labour increased their majority in Torfaen, winning 30 seats with the other 10 going to independents.

The borough now has the same boundaries as the Torfaen Westminster seat, which has returned only Labour MPs since its creation in 1983. Since 2015 its MP has been Nick Thomas-Symonds, who has been on the Labour frontbench for nearly his entire time in Westminster. Throughout the Starmer government Thomas-Symonds has held the junior ministerial roles of Paymaster General, minister for the Cabinet Office and minister for the constitution and EU relations.

For Senedd purposes Torfaen is combined with Monmouthshire to the east to form the Sir Fynwy Torfaen constituency, which elects six Members of the Senedd. In May Reform UK topped the poll here with 31% of the vote and won two seats; Plaid Cymru polled 24% and also won two seats; and the remaining two seats were shared between the Conservatives on 17% and Labour on 15%. The Labour MS for the seat is Lynne Neagle, who had previously represented the single-member Torfaen constituency from 1999 to 2026; Neagle is one of two MSs, alongside Elin Jones of Plaid Cymru, who have been ever-present at Cardiff Bay since the first Welsh Assembly election in 1999.

Reform UK’s poll-topping performance in Sir Fynwy Torfaen followed up on them winning a Torfaen council by-election last year in the seriously deprived Trevethin and Penygarn ward. The by-election winner has formed a Reform UK group with the three councillors for Llantarnam ward, who had been elected as independents in 2022 with 44% of the vote against 27% for Labour and 18% for the Plaid Cymru candidate.

One of the independent councillors resigned later that year, and the resulting Llantarnam by-election in February 2023 returned independent candidate Jason O’Connell with 42% of the vote, against 35% for Labour and 9% for Plaid. O’Connell had previously served in the 2017-22 Torfaen council term as an independent (and briefly Conservative) councillor for Greenmeadow ward in western Cwmbran; when that ward was cut down from two councillors to one by boundary changes in 2022, O’Connell had lost the resulting duel against his Labour ward colleague. Jason O’Connell has now gone on to greater things, as in May’s Senedd election he was top of the Reform UK list for Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr and was duly elected there.

O’Connell’s election has provoked the second Llantarnam ward by-election of this council term, and this has a completely fresh ballot paper with none of the five defeated candidates from the 2023 by-election standing again. Hoping to convert a defection gain into a by-election gain is Reform UK’s Jonathan Hollins, whose varied career has involved “roles in major private and public sector organisations, including a nearby council”. The Labour candidate Sean Wharton is a Cwmbran town councillor and a former professional footballer, who once played for Sunderland and later became the first black manager in the Welsh Premier League with Cwmbran Town. Plaid Cymru have been forced to find a new candidate after their 2023 Llantarnam by-election candidate Matthew Jones was elected to the Senedd this year, and they have selected Joe Tresidder who is a volunteer Cub and Scout leader and works as a student support team manager. The Conservatives have also had to find a new face after their 2023 by-election candidate Stephen Senior defected to Reform UK and was elected to the Senedd this year on their ticket; the new Conservative candidate Roger Morgan, the Greens’ Tom Pedley and the Lib Dems’ Brendan Roberts complete an all-male ballot paper.

Westminster and Senedd constituency: Torfaen
ONS Travel to Work Area: Newport
Postcode district: NP44

Jonathan Hollins (RUK)
Roger Morgan (C)
Ian Pedley (Grn)
Brendan Roberts (LD)
Joe Tresidder (PC)
Sean Wharton (Lab)

February 2023 by-election Ind 489 Lab 406 PC 111 C 85 Grn 69 LD 13
May 2022 result Ind 1081/996/950 Lab 667/550/481 PC 432 Grn 268
Previous results in detail

Gloucestershire county council; and

Cotswold council, Gloucestershire; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Joe Harris.

There was a young lady of Cirencester
Whose fiancé went down to virencester
By the Great Western line,
Which he swore was divine,
And he couldn’t have been much explirencester.

This week’s two Liberal Democrat defences both fall in the Gloucestershire town of Cirencester - or “Sisiter”, as it used to be pronounced. The pronunciation may be curious, but the spelling is derived from Corinium which was one of the most important towns in Roman Britain. Corinium grew up at the point where the northeast-southwest Fosse Way crossed the River Churn, whose name comes from the same etymological root as Corinium. Other Roman roads here are Ermin Way from southeast to northwest, and Akeman Street which ran east towards St Albans.

More modern development has added another straight alignment running into Cirencester: the Broad Avenue, which spreads west from the town for some miles into Cirencester Park. This park is privately owned by the Earls Bathurst and a fee is charged for admission. Next to the park is the campus of the Royal Agricultural University, which has been here since 1845 and was the first agricultural college in the Anglosphere. King Charles III is the RAU’s president, and RAU alumnus Lord Benyon - the former Conservative MP for Newbury - is now running the King’s household as Lord Chamberlain.

The Cirencester Park division of Gloucestershire covers the Park together with the majority of the town, excluding only the village of Stratton to the north and the Beeches estate to the east. St Michael’s ward, which is named after a local park, covers the eastern side of the town centre and the eastern part of the Watermoor area to the south; it includes the Cirencester town council offices at Bingham House.

All this is part of the South Cotswolds parliamentary seat represented since its 2024 creation by Liberal Democrat MP and ocean rower Roz Savage. The Lib Dems also run Gloucestershire county council as a minority, having finished just short of overall control in 2025, and they have a large majority on Cotswold council which includes holding all five wards within the Cirencester Park county division - including not only St Michael’s but also Chesterton ward, which the party successfully defended in a by-election last year.

The outgoing councillor Joe Harris was just 18 years old when he started his local government career by being elected to Cotswold council in 2011; two years later, he was mayor of Cirencester for 2013-14 at the age of 20. In 2013 he was elected to Gloucestershire county council, representing Cirencester Park division until 2021, Cirencester Beeches from 2021 to 2025, and then Cirencester Park again from this year. Harris was the leader of Cotswold council from 2019 to 2025, and at the time of his resignation last month he was the county council’s cabinet member for highways. He is leaving elected politics to take up a new job on the East West Rail infrastructure project.

Joe Harris’ last re-election to the district council was in 2023 in St Michael’s ward, which he had represented since its creation in 2015; his margin two years ago was 68-32 over the Conservatives in a straight fight. Defending here for the Lib Dems is Naomi Bloomer, who already represents this ward on the town council. The Conservatives’ Glasyn Gibson is fighting her first election campaign. There will not be a straight fight in St Michael’s this time, with interventions from Dylan Brook for the Greens, Joe Day for Reform UK and Joshua Littler-Jennings for Labour.

The larger Cirencester Park county division had a wider choice of candidates at its last contest in 2025, with the Lib Dems polling 52% against 21% for Reform UK and 15% for the Conservatives. Here the defending Lib Dem candidate is Andrea Pellegram, a chartered town planner who was elected to Cotswold council in a by-election for Chesterton ward last year and now has the chance to double up at county level. Reform UK have again nominated Joe Day, who is an engineer. The Conservatives have selected David Fowles who has a number of failed attempts at election in the Cotswold district under his belt, most recently in the 2025 county election when he contested Cirencester North with Ermin division. The Greens’ Dylan Brook and Labour’s Joshua Littler-Jennings are also on both the district and county ballot papers.

Parliamentary constituency: South Cotswolds
Cotswold council wards: Abbey (most), Chesterton, Four Acres, St Michael’s, Watermoor
ONS Travel to Work Area: Swindon
Postcode district: GL7

Dylan Brook (Grn)
Joe Day (RUK)
David Fowles (C)
Joshua Littler-Jennings (Lab)
Andrea Pellegram (LD)

May 2025 result LD 1546 RUK 635 C 460 Grn 176 Lab 151
Previous results in detail

Parliamentary constituency: South Cotswolds
Gloucestershire county council division: Cirencester Park
ONS Travel to Work Area: Swindon
Postcode district: GL7

Naomi Bloomer (LD)
Dylan Brook (Grn)
Joe Day (RUK)
Glasyn Gibson (C)
Joshua Littler-Jennings (Lab)

May 2023 result LD 512 C 236
May 2019 result LD 554 C 147 Lab 58
May 2015 result LD 665 C 422 UKIP 118 Grn 90 Ind 33
Previous results in detail

Harborough council, Leicestershire; caused by the death of Labour councillor David Gair.

We now travel to the East Midlands for a by-election which has already had consequences for our local government. Our setting is Lutterworth, a Leicestershire market town which lies next to the M1 motorway. This was the town where Sir Frank Whittle developed the first jet engine in the 1930s, and Lutterworth has not forgotten that. The town’s museum holds a large collection of Whittle’s papers, and travellers into the town from the motorway will pass an impressive memorial to him which lies in the middle of a roundabout.

The East ward covers the town centre of Lutterworth and suburbs to the north along the old road towards Leicester. Here we find the old town hall, a neoclassical building opened in 1836 and designed by Joseph Hansom (who was the namesake of the Hansom cab, but was principally an architect), together with the 13th-century St Mary’s Church whose rector between 1374 and 1384 was John Wycliffe. The first copies of Wycliffe’s translations of the Bible into Middle English appeared in 1382, and they were presumably written here in Lutterworth. The modern ward has relatively high rates of social renting for the local area and ranks third in the East Midlands for households in shared ownership (3.8%), which is normally an indicator of significant recent housebuilding.

Lutterworth falls within the South Leicestershire parliamentary seat represented by Conservative MP Alberto Costa, who holds the powerful Commons position of chair of the standards committee. The Tories also held off Reform UK here in the Leicestershire county elections last year, when they narrowly retained the larger Lutterworth county division.

At second-tier level Lutterworth is administered from Market Harborough to the east as part of the Harborough district, where the Conservatives lost control at the 2023 election. They were still the largest party with 15 seats, but a coalition of 13 Lib Dems, 3 Labour and 3 Greens was formed to run the show. Lutterworth East ward, which has significant votes for all three of the main Westminster parties, gave 32% of the vote to Labour, 31% to the Liberal Democrats and 23% to the Conservatives: Labour’s Martin Gair topped the poll, gaining his seat from the Conservatives, while the Lib Dems’ Martin Sarfas was re-elected to the ward’s other seat.

There have been a lot of changes in Harborough district since then. Last year the Conservatives gained two separate by-elections from the Lib Dems in Market Harborough - Logan ward, while Reform UK took a seat from the Conservatives at a by-election in Fleckney ward. The Lib Dem group has also suffered a split with four of their councillors currently sitting as independents and only 7 Lib Dems left in the group: one of the defectors was Lutterworth East councillor Martin Sarfas who walked out of the Lib Dems in December 2024 in a dispute over the local development plan. Sarfas was then the Reform UK candidate for Lutterworth in last year’s county elections and he nearly won, but interestingly he has signed the nomination papers for the Lib Dem candidate in this by-election.

Following the Conservative gain in the second Market Harborough - Logan by-election last December, the Conservative group put forward a motion for an extraordinary council meeting on 20th April to remove the Lib Dem council leader and to elect Simon Whelband, leader of the Conservative group, as the new leader of the council. Six days before this meeting, Lutterworth East Labour councillor David Gair died. The loss of his vote proved to be crucial, as the Conservative motion passed by 17 votes to 16 and the traffic-light coalition running Harborough council fell. Whelband accordingly became leader of the council and he is running a Conservative minority administration, which would be a bit more secure if the party can gain this by-election.

The defending Labour candidate Martin Cullen will need to do better than the third-place 18% he managed in last year’s county elections if he is to have any chance of winning. Cullen runs an events company, and he is a parish councillor in the neighbouring parish of Gilmorton. The Lib Dem candidate Stephen Walkley has been a regular candidate in Harborough local elections, most recently as runner-up in the Fleckney by-election last year, and he is on the committee for the charity which runs Lutterworth town hall. Also on that committee is Lutterworth town councillor Sarah Simms, who is the Conservative candidate here. Completing the Lutterworth East ballot are Adam Holmes for the Greens and Reform UK’s Bill Piper, a former mayor of Lutterworth and long-serving former town councillor who finished in seventh and last place in this ward in 2023. Piper was elected last year as the Leicestershire county councillor for Broughton Astley, and he has previously stood for Parliament on both the Reform UK and UKIP tickets, including being the UKIP candidate for faraway North Down in the 2016 Stormont election.

Parliamentary constituency: South Leicestershire
Leicestershire county council division: Lutterworth
ONS Travel to Work Area: Leicester
Postcode district: LE17

Martin Cullen (Lab)
Adam Holmes (Grn)
Bill Piper (RUK)
Sarah Simms (C)
Stephen Walkley (LD)

May 2023 result Lab 527/351 LD 497/239 C 367 Grn 126 RUK 110
May 2019 result LD 491/370 C 480/376 Lab 459/392
Previous results in detail

Dorset council; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Barry Goringe.

We finish for the week in the countryside of Dorset - although that’s only been the case since 1974, when the parish of St Leonards and St Ives was transferred from Hampshire to Dorset along with Bournemouth and Christchurch to the south. The Salisbury Avon now forms the county boundary, with Ringwood on the eastern side and St Leonards and St Ives on the west side: these villages have fused together with the neighbouring village of Ashley Heath to form a surprisingly large urban area along the A31 road from Ringwood to Wimborne and Poole. The A339, the main road link towards Bournemouth to the south, branches off the A31 here. Off-limits to the general public is the Hurn Proving Ground, which is run by the defence company Qinetiq as a testing area for military vehicles.

Much of this urban development has been for the benefit of old people, and St Leonards and St Ives is in the top 60 wards in England and Wales for the 65-84 age bracket (34.0%) and for retired population (41.2% of adults). It ranks 13th of all the wards in England and Wales for detached housing (81.2%) and is also in the top 100 for households which are caravans or other mobile or temporary structures (6.7%) and for owner-occupation (88.1%).

Since 1983 this area has been part of the Christchurch parliamentary seat, represented by long-serving member of the Conservative awkward squad Sir Christopher Chope. He is one of four remaining MPs who were first elected in the 1983 general election, but Chope is a long way down the Father of the House rankings because he was absent from the 1992-97 Parliament after losing his seat in Southampton Itchen; his service as the MP for Christchurch goes back to 1997.

Despite this, St Leonards and St Ives was not included within the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole district created when Dorset’s local government was reorganised in 2019: instead it’s part of the large Dorset council area, administered from Dorchester 30 miles to the west. Dorset council is still on a transitional electoral cycle arising from that reorganisation, meaning that its last elections were in 2024 and the next will be in 2029.

The Liberal Democrats gained overall control of Dorset council in 2024, but their majority is small (42 out of 82 seats) and they have formed a coalition with the Green Party group for a more stable administration. St Leonards and St Ives is in the opposition Conservative column and has been for many years. The 2024 election here was a straight fight between the Conservatives and Lib Dems, with the Tory slate prevailing by 63-37. Barry Goringe, who died in April, had represented this ward on Dorset council since its creation in 2019, and he was previously an East Dorset councillor for the predecessor St Leonards ward from 2015 to 2019.

Defending this seat for the Conservatives is Barry’s widow Margaret Goringe, who has previously served on St Leonards and St Ives parish council. The Lib Dems have reselected Andrew Barham, who was one of their losing candidates here in 2024. This time there will not be a straight fight as we have interventions from the Greens’ Mark Keith and from Reform UK’s Philip Leach, who is a town councillor in nearby Ferndown.

Parliamentary constituency: Christchurch
ONS Travel to Work Area: Bournemouth
Postcode districts: BH23, BH24

Andrew Barham (LD)
Margaret Goringe (C)
Mark Keith (Grn)
Philip Leach (RUK)

May 2024 result C 1236/1160 LD 730/626
May 2019 result C 1406/1363 UKIP 604/482 LD 490 Lab 286
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). You can also support future previews by becoming a paid subscriber to this blog - which will also you get you early access to the Previews.

Andrew Teale