North Warwickshire covers, as its name suggests, the northern part of Warwickshire and includes the town of Atherstone (home of England's hatting industry) which serves as the council's headquarters. North Warwickshire is England in miniature. The more rural parts (including the villages of Fillongley, Nether Whitacre, Over Whitacre) come straight out of something like Middlemarch, Lark Rise to Candleford and Pride and Prejudice and as such are Conservative heartlands. The more industrial areas such as Dordon, Grendon and Hartshill, where the coal mining industry dominated, are solid Labour.
The council first came into existence in 1973 following the reorganisation of local government in the United Kingdom but the furthest back I have been able to go (through personal research) is the 1995 local elections. These elections I remember very well indeed as I happened to be in Atherstone for the elections (as the following day my grandparents were attending the Malvern Spring Gardening show) and it was there that I met one of the two Conservative councillors for Coleshill South, Cllr. Colin Hayfield (and yes, you've guessed it, he is indeed a relative) and as a result was able to attend the count. Although I rather fear that he wished I had not as Labour GAINED North Warwickshire as part of the 1995 Labour landslide in the local elections winning 28 seats across the borough (including that of my relative) and establishing a majority of 23 over the 4 remaining Conservatives and a lone Independent.
By the time the 1999 elections had come around, I asked if we would be attending the show again. However this time we were not and so I could only watch from afar (whilst keeping an eye on the first Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections) and saw that the Conservatives had made a slight recovery and the Liberal Democrats were doing very well indeed. Although Labour held North Warwickshire, their majority was down to just 10 (Labour 22, Conservatives 9, Liberal Democrats 2, Independents 1).
In 2002, the local government boundary commission announced the North Warwickshire was going to have an extra councillor and as you might expect activists were wondering which ward was going to get the extra councillor. However, the boundary commission had other ideas and announced that it was going to restructure the Council into a series of two and three member wards, replacing the existing single member arrangement. When I heard this news, I instantly started work on a new North Warwickshire election file for UK-Elect and waited for the results of the 2003 elections with expectation.
Labour: 11,743 votes (43.91%) winning 16 councillors
Conservatives: 10,293 votes (38.49%) winning 15 councillors
Liberal Democrats: 2,867 votes (10.72%) winning 4 councillors
Independents: 1,838 votes (6.87%) winning 0 councillors
Labour lead of 1,450 votes (5.42%) but short of an overall majority by 2
Table 1: % Votes Cast per ward and councillors elected in 2003
Ward | CON | LAB | LD | IND |
Arley & Whitacre | 28% (0) | 55% (3) | 16% (0) | |
Atherstone C | 50% (2) | 38% (0) | 12% (0) | |
Atherstone N | 22% (0) | 33% (0) | 45% (2) | |
Atherstone S | 40% (1) | 30% (0) | 29% (1) | |
Baddesley | 28% (0) | 57% (2) | 15% (0) | |
Coleshill N | 61% (2) | 17% (0) | 23% (0) | |
Coleshill S | 65% (2) | 14% (0) | 21% (0) | |
Curdworth | 88% (2) | 12% (0) | ||
Dordon | 19% (0) | 65% (2) | 16% (0) | |
Fillongley | 2 elected unopposed | |||
Hartshill | 41% (0) | 59% (2) | ||
Hurley & Wood End | 24% (0) | 76% (2) | ||
Kingsbury | 14% (0) | 55% (2) | 31% (0) | |
Newton Regis | 34% (1) | 31% (0) | 34% (1) | |
Polesworth E | 17% (0) | 67% (2) | 15% (0) | |
Polesworth W | 31% (0) | 69% (2) | ||
Water Orton | 59% (2) | 41% (0) | ||
Labour's performance in the 2003 local elections was the worst in the borough's history demonstrated by the result in Atherstone North where the Liberal Democrats had defeated not only the mayor for the 2004 year, but also her consort as well. It should be no great surprise to hear that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats entered into a formal coalition which meant that not only was my relative back in office (having been unopposed in the Fillongley ward) but also a Lib Dem friend of mine representing Atherstone North was the first Liberal Democrat cabinet holder in North Warwickshire's history.
In the 2007 elections, I have to admit I was half expecting the results from North Warwickshire long before the polls closed, but even I was stunned by the sheer weight of movement in those local elections:
Conservatives: 18,935 votes (52.21% +13.72%) winning 21 councillors (+6)
Labour: 14,282 votes (39.38% -4.53%) winning 14 councillors (-2)
Liberal Democrats: 2,282 votes (6.29% -4.43%) winning 0 councillors (-4)
Independents: 687 votes (1.89% -4.98%) winning 0 councillors (unchanged)
Greens: 77 votes (0.21% +0.21%) winning 0 councillors (unchanged)
Conservative lead of 4,653 votes (12.83%) on a swing from Lab to Con of 9.13%
Conservatives GAIN from No Overall Control with an overall majority of 7
Table 2: % Votes Cast per ward and councillors elected in 2007
Ward | CON | LAB | LD | IND | GRN | Swing |
Arley | 52% (3) | 48% (0) | 16% to Con | |||
Atherstone C | 48% (1) | 44% (1) | 9% (0) | 4% to Lab | ||
Atherstone N | 34% (0) | 39% (2) | 24% (0) | 4% (0) | 14% to Lab | |
Atherstone S | 44% (2) | 26% (0) | 20% (0) | 10% (0) | 4% to Con | |
Baddesley | 42% (0) | 58% (2) | 7% to Con | |||
Coleshill N | 64% (2) | 16% (0) | 20% (0) | 3% to Con | ||
Coleshill S | 87% (2) | 13% (0) | 22% to Con | |||
Curdworth | 82% (2) | 18% (0) | 6% to Lab | |||
Dordon | 35% (0) | 55% (2) | 11% (0) | 13% to Con | ||
Fillongley | 79% (2) | 21% (0) | ||||
Hartshill | 53% (2) | 47% (0) | 12% to Con | |||
Hurley | 42% (0) | 58% (2) | 18% to Con | |||
Kingsbury | 34% (0) | 54% (2) | 12% (0) | 8% to Lab | ||
Newton Regis | 50% (2) | 20% (0) | 30% (0) | 10% to Con | ||
Polesworth E | 39% (0) | 61% (0) | 14% to Con | |||
Polesworth W | 50% (2) | 50% (0) | 19% to Con | |||
Water Orton | 54% (2) | 36% (0) | 10% (0) | 0% to Con |
Since those elections, the Conservatives have been on an absolute tear. In the 2009 county council elections, winning eight of the nine county wards in North Warwickshire on an 11.5% swing to Con, and in the European Elections held on the same day the Conservatives polled 29%, compared to Labour's 17% who were ranked third behind UKIP (polling 23%). In the General Election last year Daniel Byles gained the parliamentary constituency of North Warwickshire, which contains all the wards of the borough bar Arley and Hartshill, on an 8% swing to the Conservatives (but only winning by 54 votes).
However as we have seen in both local by-elections and national opinion polls, Labour have been making gains at the expense of the Liberal Democrats which has been continued in the nominations for 2011. When nominations closed, the Conservatives were fielding a full slate (35 candidates) as were Labour with five Independents and 1 UKIP candidate but not a single Liberal Democrat candidate. This means there are two thousand Liberal Democrat votes up for grabs and people will naturally assume that they will switch straight to Labour, but will Liberal Democrats in the borough follow this? We only have three weeks to wait before we find out.
Harry Hayfield
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