Adventures in local elections, Ashford Borough 1981-2005

[yellowperil]

Environmental and Development Policies in Ashford during the 1995-9 administration

As I have already indicated the environment  was one of the  flagship policy areas for the Lib Dems during their administration and Eileen's particular concern. What I haven't discussed is the extent to which there was a legacy from the flurry of activity in these years or whether it was in the end so much hot air (no doubt contributing to global warming). In some ways it's difficult to say. These were long term projects and in some cases the next Conservative  administration would reap the benefits and the kudos which might come from them when years later the benefits started to show- there would be no short term electoral benefit and in the short term all that could be seen were costs which then became ripe for cutting. One can see that most clearly in the waste collection/ recycling area where massive reforms were just starting to kick in by 1999, put into reverse to save money by the next administration, to the point where Ashford was to finish up as the council with the worst recycling record in the country. Then the council completely changed policies once again  and has now a reasonable recycling record because the have resurrected many of the thing's Eileen had been trying to do , and finding it a lot easier to do because many of those policies are now mainstream rather than pioneering. Of course this whole area is complicated by the division of responsibilities between the waste disposal authority,Kent, and the waste collection authority , Ashford, and it did not help that we were at the most critical stage of planning in 1997-9 when Kent had reverted to Conservative control.

Another major area of development was the development of the cycle/ walkway network, sometimes cycle lanes on roads where there was absolutely no alternative, but a huge expansion in the off-road network. Ashford was well suited to that because there were green corridors along the watercourses which led from the open countryside right into the centre. I was able , for example to ride the 7 miles or so from Pluckley to my place of work in the centre of town entirely on country lanes or purpose build cycle tracks, and that was my regular daily commute. However, 2 comments : 1) we were in this case fortunate in our timing as there was a lot of money sloshing about at that stage, but also 2)we still had to build in stages and grab the money to do bits piecemeal, so in the short term we got bits of path ending in nowhere waiting for the next phase of money, so some of those got bad publicity. Then came the big investment in the farmer's market,for a year or two the biggest of its kind in England (scrapped by the next Conservative adminisrtation, now reinstated on a smaller basis by later Tory councils!)

The biggest thing of all of course was the development of Ashford as one of the fastest growing towns ever in this country to expand without benefit of a New Town corporation. Again , this was something where it is impossible to ascribe with any precision particular developments to any one administration-things which happened while we were were in power were probably conceived long before, while some planning decisions I personally made when I was chair of the Local Plan are only just about coming in to fruition now, nearly 20 years later. Nevertheless the time of our administration was one of the most exhilarating in the Borough's history- the coming of Ashford  International  station (which feels more like a smallish airport than a railway station) and the fast lines to London and the continent, the building of the Richard Rogers- designed outlet shopping centre between the existing town centre and Newtown ( Rogers' " Bedouin tent in a Kentish meadow" which went ahead even though the concept of linking it to the town centre by cable car was dropped in favour of a more prosaic bus service!)were just the start.  Both had a slightly uncertain start in life but both have survived and are both now in the process of going through a massive upgrade, the shopping centre on a huge expansion when retail generally is struggling. Against the odds Ashford station is also keeping its international links (I always like being at Avignon station and hearing the announcement of the next train as non-stop to Ashford) as well as being the only place in England with a high speed non-stop  rail link to London, and long may it remain! A lot of our effort was directed at limiting the environmental impact, and Eileen  especially spent a lot of her time visiting the French and German high speed lines studying environmental impacts there.

Then there were all the new  facilities required of an expanding town- revamping the sports centre, building a new cinema, bowling , library, with investments in place but the benefits still some way off.college, revamping existing town centre shopping centres, County Square and Park Mall. Most of this was still a work in progress when we came to the next lot of elections. Two things we did not commit to. though we were under a lot of pressure to do so from some quarters notably Gordon Turner, were a theatre and a big railway museum. Both highly desirable but we could see massive £  signs as soon as they were mentioned, and both were put on the back burner in favour of more affordable  proposals to convert the existing parish church into a performance area dualling as a place of worship, and a modest expansion of the existing museum.The right decisions at the time, I think, but it meant we lost some vocal support from the arty crowd!

[yellowperil]

Streamlining the Council

Although we had said in that detailed 1995 manifesto that we would cut  expenditure and waste, and made specific proposals, in the end it was probably the cutbacks coming down from central government that forced our hand beyond where we might have liked to go (sound familiar, anyone?). We had inevitably a few new items of expenditure including new officers ( e.g. an economic development officer and the local agenda 21 officer) which were a direct result of our policies (and it was quite controversial that the former was a Romanian citizen who had formerly been the chief executive at Brasov!) and some  necessary increase in charges  especially car parking caused a bit of a rumpus and of course the Conservatives were revitalised and coming back on some of these issues. But we kept any increase in council tax within the rate of inflation, partly by such charge increases which now look quite modest by today's standards, and by reducing the number of expensive chief officers (down from 7 to 4 - departments down from 6 to 3). The staff budget as a whole was reduced by £250,000 p.a. - not a huge saving but going in the right direction, and our overall budget was down £ 750,000 p.a. , and we avoided having to raid reserves.  We got all this through the council though politically it wasn't easy as support from our Labour partners was more difficult once Mike Hayes replaced Les Lawrie, and we were finding the Tories were learning the skills of opposition- it had taken them a year or two to get the hang of it, and the independents, especially Gordon Turner were also getting more opposition minded.  The 1999 elections would not be easy. 

[yellowperil]

Yet more by elections, 1997/8..
Note- I completely cocked up my chronology for these two by-elections which remain sufficiently painful for my brain not to work properly when confronting them. Those of you who had already seen what I had written may be perplexed, but I have corrected it now!

As we came towards planning for those difficult 1999 elections, we faced two by-elections in 1997/8 as a result of two sad deaths- first  Ernie Blake, the former Conservative Leader of the council and member for Tenterden East, and so   a December1997  by-election,  and then the Ashford South County by-election in July 1998 where the Labour member Ray Allen  had died, so neither good prospects on the face of it but both where we would be expected to put up a reasonable show.

Tenterden East by election ,December 1997

This was to be the election which proved to be a devastating personal disaster for Eileen and myself, and it started so well! We selected the chair of the Tenterden party and Tenterden town councillor Paddy Platt, , who was already in in place as the prospective candidate for the ward in 1999. Paddy was a train driver- indeed the cream of his profession as he was at that stage a Eurostar driver.,and he was a fully committed and enthusiastic candidate. The Tories brought in Paul Clokie, former Leader of the London Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, no less,who had quite recently retired and moved to Tenterden, a much more professional politician than the average Ashford Tory, but relavely unknown in Tenterden circles outside the inner circle of the Tenterden conservatives, which admittedly was quite a large circle, Tenterden being the very blue town it was.

Paddy was getting stuck in and proving a very good candidate, we had a big team working and it felt very much the sort of campaign vibes we had had with Boughton Aluph. One particular feature was that we were signing up new members to the party wherever we went. Then , acouple of weeks into the campaign, Eileen and I had gone over to Tenterden with Bob Rawlings, had had a good morning canvassing and signed up yet another new member, and got back to Pluckley only to discover that whilst we had been out in Tenterden the mains cable into our lovely home had shorted,  and said home had gone up in flames and was no longer there. 

That was the end of the campaign for us- the next time we managed to go to Tenterden was two or three weeks later for the actual count, and we got the feeling the party was just going through the motions of keeping the campaign going and were no longer thinking it could be won. The stuffing had been completely knocked out of them. 

When I wrote a first draft of this account I wrote that I was still searching for the details of the result to see if I could bear to share them with you. I now have them, except once more  the name of the Labour candidate is missing so will add that when I can.

P Clokie  (Con)    387   (59.3%)
P Platt (LD)          143    (21.9%)
 ?? (Lab)              123     (18.8%)

Ashford South County by-Election, July 1998
Labour were almost certainly going to hold this seat , not least because of the circumstances which led to it and Ray Allen had been widely popular. They nominated Derek Smyth who had got pretty close in North last time. We put up Malcolm Eke  who by now was fairly well known in the area, for good or ill, and the Tories Simon Bates who had beaten Malcolm the year before to take second place behind Ray Allen. There was also a BNP candidate. We went into the contest not really expecting to win, but to do a lot of voter identification with 1999 at the back of our minds, and the immediate target of overtaking the Conservatives and claiming second place.  With an election in mid July in the most working class division in Ashford, we weren't expecting a high turnout, so working on our GOTV would be important.

D Smyth (Lab)       792 (54. 4 %)
M Eke (LD)             370 (25.5 %)
S Bates (Con)         240 (16.5%)
M Easter (BNP)        50  (3.6%)

and we reckoned that we achieved our twin objectives, although it would have been nice if rather more of our newly discovered "supporters" had actually turned out to vote.

[yellowperil]

Borough Elections 1999

These would be the last Borough elections Eileen and I would fight before retiring (so we are nearing the end of this saga, folks), and already Deryck  Weatherall was announcing that he would step down this time, so we would need a replacement as leader. I think we all knew it was going to be difficult to remain control of the council, because the Conservatives had recovered after their 4 years in the wilderness. Ashford town was still pretty anti- Tory except maybe in some parts of North, so Labour would be likely to remain quite strong with their strength in South intact, and the Lib Dems in South East would be equally dominant, but holding on to the rural seats in the context of a strong Conservative revival would be the most difficult thing of all and might depend on how strongly the newer Lib Dem rural councillors. We were decided that we could not settle on the leadership of the group until we could see who had survived the onslaught which was no doubt coming.

Deryck was preparing to leave his beloved Willlesborough and go into retirement in Hythe. Some other big names were preparing to leave, particularly Gordon Turner and so there was a lot of interest in who was best placed to replace him- it looked the best possibility of a Lib Dem gain. Bob Smith in Singleton was in failing health - he had never been all that strong- and probably should have opted for retirement as well and really wasn't up to the campaigning battle needed to hold off the increasingly aggressive attack by Labour now they had taken possession of the other Singleton seat. Indeed a number of our councillors were struggling to stay fit enough to put in the effort required- that also applied to Bob Rawlings in Charing, David Hilliger in Hothfield and Barry Wright in St Michaels,and those years of trying to hold the line had told  on a lot of our councillors who could not easily be replaced.  

One interesting consequence of our reducing the number of senior officers emerged. John Kirk the son of the former chief housing officer,announced that he would stand for the council on the Labour side  (not altogether unexpected),and Stephen Cochrane, the ex chief environmental health officer, then  stunned everyone by announcing he was also standing himself, but on the Conservative side.

One effect of the bruising encounter in the by-election was that Paddy Platt had decided not to try to take on Paul Clokie again but instead would go for Biddenden where he had lived for quite a while before moving into Tenterden, and the consequences of that was that we were back leaving the fight with Paul Clokie to Labour.

Then Malcolm Eke resigned from the party and announced he would stand as an Independent -  in South Willesborough. Gordon had decided that Malcolm would be his heir and would endorse him if he dropped the Lib Dem label, and somewhat shamefully, Malcolm thought that it was his best chance of getting elected and accepted the terms and the endorsement, whereas the Lib Dems were sufficiently incensed by this that they decided to oppose him with Bob Cowley, who unlike Malcolm actually lived in the ward. It was going to be a lively election, 

[yellowperil]

Ashford Borough Council wards by county division 1999- Ashford North

Lib Dems did not put up candidates in Bockhanger but contested the other 7 seats without there being quite the effort there had been last time- even in Bob Graham's defence of Spearpoint.

Labour also had a bit of a mixed bag -in Bockhanger they had a new and energetic candidate and no opposition from us so a relatively easy ride, and Mick Hubert had turned a safe Tory seat into what seemed like a safe Labour one, although as Pete has pointed out below it actually wasn't. It was soon evident Anne Picking was in trouble in  Bybrook and it was also unlikely they could hold the second Central seat, where one had already been lost in the by election and they had two new candidates. Ms Beavis-Schiller could probably hold on in Queens even though we did still stand Steve Smith against her.

The Tories clearly needed to make inroads into North as it was the only real toehold they had in the town still and the effort was masterminded by Norman Ayres who had become their local campaign organiser and trainer- Norman admitted to me that they had been learning from Lib Dem campaign techniques and he had been set up as Tory version of me- a sort of blue peril, you might say. He was standing himself against Bob Graham in his home ward of Spearpoint- he had moved there from Mersham, and he was training up the Tory candidates elsewhere. Hardly necessary in Central, one might have thought , where Michael Claughton was well able to take care of himself and his running mate was Stephen Cochrane, the former Chief Officer from Environmental Health, but probably important in Bybrook where their candidate was Marion Martin. Marian had long been the councillor for this ward before and had lost it, and we all felt she was totally clueless. I knew no other councillor who was around for as many years as her without really having a clue what was going on most of the time. This was most evident in her behaviour in meetings- she never understood the basic conventions as to how and when to speak,and was always in trouble, but it seemed to be how she lived her whole life. Norman had the unenviable job of trying to organise her for her election.John Kemp would of course hold Kennington Lees for hem and they put paper(?) candidates into  Bockhanger, Warren  and Queens -the aim I think was to win 5 out of 8 this time.

Bockhanger
S Storer(Lab)        465  (65.2%)
P Grugeon (Con) 248   (34.8%)

Bybrook
M Martin(Con)       225  (43.0%)
A Picking (Lab)        151  (28.9%)
R Richardson (LD)   147  (28.1%)

Central(2)
M Claughton (Con)   710 (54.6%)
S Cochrane (Con)      512 
W Davies (Lab)          339 (26.1%)
D Topley (Lab)            327
R Packham(LD)           252(19.4%)
G Thorogood               126

Kennington Lees
J Kemp (Con)                 327 (56.3%)
R Bradford (Lab)           143 (24.6%)
M Butcher(LD)               111 (19.1%)

Queens
M Beavis-Schiller (Lab)  229  (45.7%)
S Smith (LD)                     137   (27.3%)
C Findlay (Con)                135  (26.9%)

Spearpoint
N Ayres (Con)                    375 (54.6%)     
R Graham( LD)                   172 (25.0%)
R Kilkie (Lab)                      140  (20.4%)  

Warren
M Hubert(Lab)                    245 (37.3%)
P Goddard (Con)                 212 (32.3%) 
J Smith (LD)                          199  (30.3%)

So the" blue peril "strategy had worked for the Tories and the wins in Spearpoint and Bybrook was largely down to that, though Kennington Lees and the two Central seats were almost certainly going to be their's anyway. Labour were probably mightily relieved to hold on to Bockhanger,   Queens and Warren in the end, and the latter two were looking like 3-way marginals thanks to the continuing efforts of the Smiths, but the loss of Bob Graham . to our group would be pretty shattering.

[Pete Whitehead]

Surely Mick Hubert was in Warren which was far from a safe Labour seat

[yellowperil]

May 26, 2018 14:53:05 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Surely Mick Hubert was in Warren which was far from a safe Labour seat

And indeed so it proved -his majority was down to 33 , so that was hardly safe. I think what I meant at that point was that Mick exuded such confidence that he made you feel he was safe in a seat which not so long before had been safe conservative. What I was trying to convey at that point in the narrative was how we felt about the seats ahead of the actual voting and without benefit of hindsight and having the actual results in front of us. We thought he was safe, he was hardly that, but he would win nevertheless.

[Pete Whitehead]

I was thinking more in terms of the result in 1995 which was the position being defended

Ashford Warren (1425)
vote share
Hubert M.  Lab 260  35.6%
Ford G.*     Con 238  32.6%
Smith J. Ms. LD 233  31.9%

So in fact in 1999 his majority was not down to 33 - it was increased by exactly 50%

[yellowperil]

May 26, 2018 15:58:16 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I was thinking more in terms of the result in 1995 which was the position being defended

Ashford Warren (1425)
vote share
Hubert M.  Lab 260  35.6%
Ford G.*     Con 238  32.6%
Smith J. Ms. LD 233  31.9%

So in fact in 1999 his majority was not down to 33 - it was increased by exactly 50%

fair enough! I  am probably trying to get how I remembering it feeling, which is not always what the hard facts tell us

[yellowperil]

Ashford Borough Council Wards by County Division 1999 Ashford South

The feeling in South Ashford was that this was more of a Labour fortress than ever before. The areas where Conservatives and Lib Dems had been able to make a mark, like Victoria Park, Singleton and   Stanhope were much weaker this time round, and the newer Labour councillors like Brendan Naughton and Alan Allcock were becoming very much part of the scene.The Lib Dem effort was pretty pathetic everywhere in this division; the branch was near to collapse and this was not a priority for the rest of Ashford to try and hang on in there. Even in Singleton where Bob Smith was defending a seat which he had now represented for years, little attempt was being made to save him,  only going through the motions with Tony Hardwick from Boughton Aluph as his running mate, a late replacement for Malcolm Eke. Elsewhere we had paper candidates from other areas like Dr Stuart Dove from Brabourne standing against Les Lawrie in Brookfield, Pat Packham from Central in Woolreeds ,or Melvyn Eliff from Hampden against Brendan Naughton in Victoria Park. South was no longer able to find candidates of their own: the only one apart from Melvyn was Bob Smith, and he was a very sick man to be attempting to stand again- in the unlikely event that he held his seat, a by-election would have swiftly followed. In Stanhope and Musgrove we failed to stand candidates at all, and Derek Madgett found himself unopposed.What that tells is that the Conservatives were in little better state than we were in this division and Labour generally were going to win by default , whether they were nominally opposed by paper candidates or not opposed at all.

Brookfield
L Lawrie  (Lab)      242   (80.7%)
S Dove (LD)             58    (19.3%)

Hampden
M Hayes (Lab)          156 (64.5%)
L Brown (LD)               86 (35.5%)

Musgrove
D Madgett(Lab)      unopposed

Singleton(2)
A Allcock (Lab)             411 (61.8%)
S Williams (LD)             355
J Rymer-Jones (Con)    131  (19.7%)
R Smith (LD)                  123  (18.5%)
A Hardwick (LD)            101

Stanhope(2)
P Laughton (Lab)         327 (64.6%)
V Macdonald(Lab)      299
J Holland (Ind)             119 (23.5%)
S Bates (Con)                60  (11.9%)

Victoria Park
B Naughton (Lab)         217 (64.0%)
M Eliff (LD)                      78  (23.0%)
 B Lewis(Con)                  44  (13.0%)

Woolreeds
A Wells (Lab)                   226 (75.3%)
C Vavasour(Con)                48 (16.0%)
P Packham (LD)                  26 (8.7%)

Looking through these results I am struck with how weak the Tory vote was- I knew the Lin Dems were awful, but hadn't quite remembered that the Conservative performance was equally bad. The newer Labour councillors- Allcock , Williams, Naughton, Wells- were all definitely in the New Labour mould and the other parties were giving up.  Note John Holland standing again as the sole independent anywhere here, but standing in Stanhope this time, primarily, one suspects, against Vicky Macdonald -nobody expected to beat Palma Laughton. Notice, though, how low the votes were- it wasn't a massive surge by Labour, just everybody else giving up making for a boring election. In the end a clean sweep by Labour- 9 seats out of 9

[yellowperil]

I have made a small change in the text above in relation to Warren ward in the light of Pete's eagle-eyed comment. Nice to have text editors at the ready to save me from some solecisms. And as they always say, any remaining errors are all mine.

[yellowperil]

Ashford Borough Council wards by County division 1999- Ashford South East

Even South East wasn't as predictable as usual in 1999 because of the departure of two institutions -Deryck Weatherall in Twelve Acres and Gordon Turner in South  Willesborough - councillors who had been around since the sixties. In Twelve Acres we had plenty of people willing to step into Deryck's shoes and inherit three decades of his untiring work, people who had been  much less prepared to take on a new area and work it  for years in the hope of eventually maybe getting some reward for their efforts- funny that, isn't it?We selected Brian Norris , half of a husband and wife team who lived in the ward and been long helping Deryck- I have to say I would have preferred the other half of that team because I long suspected it was Jill rather than Brian who did the bulk of that work. In South Willesborough we selected Bob Cowley, an excellent potential councillor and resident in the ward, but as related above Gordon Turner had decided he wanted Malcolm Eke to inherit his mantle, so Bob would have a hard struggle  to overcome Gordon's recommendation to his former electors. Many of us had been prepared to see out the Turner era before reclaiming this ward, but faced with the prospect of the Turnerite split continuing indefinitely we felt we had to fight it hard. The other 5 seats- Barbara Simmons in Eastmead, Fred Winslade in Henwood. George Koowaree in Waterside, Bob Davidson in Windmill,and Bill Heaton in Willesborough Lees, were all well established and pretty safe, we felt, so getting the new boys into Twelve Acres and South Willesborough would be where the battles lay.

Labour also felt much the same, it seemed, not bothering with candidates in Henwood, Waterside, Windmill or Willesborough Lees, and concentrating their effort in Eastmead, Twelve Acres and South Willesborough. The Tories in turn didn't bother with South Willesborough and Eastmead, and put up paper candidates in 4 others, reserving their sole effort for Willesborough Lees, undoubtedly by some margin the poshest of the seven wards

Eastmead
B Simmons(LD)    321 (66.4%)
M Sykes (Lab)       170 (34.6%)

Henwood
F Winslade (LD)      252 (80.5%)
B Smith   (Lab)          61  (19.5%) 

South Willesborough
M Eke( Ind)                234 (42.2%)
M Wiggins (Lab)        163 (29.4%)
R Cowley (LD)             158 (28.5%)

Twelve Acres
R B Norris(LD)                 287 (61.9%)
M J Kirk (Lab)                 141 (30.4%)
G Carter (Con)                 36   (7.8%)

Waterside
SG Koowaree(LD)          386 (90.0%)
 R Reese( Con)                  43 (10.0%)

Willesborough Lees
W Heaton(LD)                476 (62.1%)
N Green (Con)                290 (37.9%)  

Windmill
R Davidson (LD)                392 (80.8%)
E Green (Con)                      93 (19.2%)

In the end the overall score remaining 6 Lib Dems and one independent, so no change, and in the area where Liberals/Lib Dems had been dominant for a generation there was no sign of that ending any time soon, whatever was happening elsewhere in the Borough where the attemits to attack them were far more determined. Across the urban  half of the Borough Labour had if anything strengthened its overall position, with 12 councillors to the Lib Dem's 6 and Tories' 5, with the one Independent.

[yellowperil]

Ashford Borough Council wards by county division 1999- Ashford Rural West

It was evident that this, along with North,  was where the main Conservative onslaught would be- if the Tories were going to get back control they probably needed all four Rural West wards we had somehow stolen off them. This was a real affront to them - after all Damian Green lived in Charing and the Conservative HQ was in Bethersden and somehow we had managed to get ahead of them on numbers of councillors in a county division which was comfortably their's at Westminster level and was now back fairly firmly their's at County level too.  We expected a big Tory push and we weren't wrong. Damian Green was very visibly out canvassing my ward which was most probably their principal target - I was almost certainly their public enemy no 1. I did get some extra support on my side - Deryck Weatherall as leader of the Council made a point of spending quite a lot of time canvassing in my ward- I just hoped it wasn't losing me too many votes, as personally I was stressing what I was doing at  ward level and playing down the party political angle as much as I could , and not too much stress on what the Lib/Lab administration had done either.  I know Deryck insisted on going and calling  on one voter on Smarden High Street where I had told him not to call, where he got a half-hour diatribe  about the iniquities of all liberals there had ever been, with special emphasis on David Lloyd George. But he came away on the whole with quite a favourable canvass which was encouraging ,as I knew Deryck as a canvasser was cautious to the point of downright pessimism. The Conservative candidate this time was a Smarden resident ( last time Elaine Sutherland had come from Egerton) and fairly low-profile,but his team certainly wasn't.

Eileen had the same opponent in Pluckley as the last two outings, and we were fairly sure we could beat her, though we rather expected the result to be less good than 1995. Hothfield was going to be very diificult- David Hilliger was always handicapped by having to nurse a sick wife, and now his own health was suffering, but he was determined to give it his best shot. Charing was also going to be a battle: Bob Rawlings was popular and very knowledgeable about Charing, and had a good running mate this time in Len Micklewright our new party chairman, but the Tories had a popular local doctor ,Sara Butler-Gallie, as well as the shopkeeper Doug Gillard who was the other incumbent with Bob Rawlings. One hopeful fact was that Doug had made himself rather unpopular with certain pronouncements and decisions on local planning issues- would he be the one to fall?

Bethersden could be interesting - Keith Brannan had gone back to standing as an independent and fighting hard, and "little Oliver "for the Tories could be in trouble, the Tories being less sure of their line of attack when faced with an Independent than when attacking the Lib Dems for their years of running the council. They did however launch a full-scale  attack on Reg Harrington at Kingsnorth, and employed their secret weapon there of Cathy Rosson,the long time Conservative councillor for Tenterden West, shifting to take on the long time Independent. On the other hand they decided not to oppose Tony Maltby who at this stage was still styling himself as an independent Conservative, and who was returned unopposed. Probably they considered they could buy his vote if necessary  by making him a juicy offer if they just failed to get an overall majority, while had they opposed him, then a Lib Dem or Labour candidate might have come through the middle- they were not to know neither opposition party would field a candidate.

Bethersden
K Brannan (Ind)       215  (42.8%)
R Oliver (Con)          188   (37.5%)
J Moriarty (Lab)         99   (19.7%)  

Charing (2)
S Butler-Gallie (Con) 537  (59.1%)
D Gillard (Con)           487 
R Rawkings (LD)         371   (40.9%)
L Mickelwright (LD)   355

Great Chart
A Maltby (Ind Con)  unopposed

Hothfield
L Parsons (Con)            227  (53.3%)
D Hilliger (LD)               110   (25.9%)
J Hallwood (Lab)             88   (20.7%)

Kingsnorth
R Harrington (Ind)          855 (64.6%)
C Rosson (Con)                468 (35.4%)

Pluckley
E English (LD)                    330 (61.2%)
J Grebby (Con)                  209 (38.8%)

Smarden
G English (LD)                      469 (50.5%)
A Pritchard (Con)                460  (49.5%)

Looking at my boxes ( and you might guess they got to be looked at pretty closely I had lost Smarden parish by about 50 votes but held the lead  in Egerton by about 60 votes to finish up with a majority of 9.The turnout was high by the standards of these elections* where generally it was really poor, so we had done our bit for democracy, and with Eileen holding on we had at least kept 2 of our 4 seats against a very determined attack, though we were of course devastated to be losing Bob Rawlings and David Hilliger. The Independents had done well, especially Keith Brannan, but also Reg Harrington who had comfortably rebuffed the challenge from a senior councillor and recent ex-Mayor in Cathy Rosson. Tony Maltby hadn't had to do anything, of course, but from now on he was steering a course more clearly away from the official Conservatives and more visibly aligning himself with the Independents.  The new overall scores were Cons 3 (+1), Inds 3 (+1) LDs 2 (-2), but it wasn't really the decisive breakthrough the Conservatives had pinned their hopes on.

* I checked the turnout -it was 50.6% which was actually the highest for any ward in this election.

[yellowperil]

Ashford Borough Council wards by County division 1999- Ashford Rural East

As was often the case, Rural East had a much quieter election than most other parts of the Borough. One might have expected the same level of attack on Rita Hawes in Boughton Aluph that was happening in our seats in Rural West - maybe the Conservatives had assessed Rita's popularity and decided it wasn't on, or maybe it was just different party branches working in different ways, but it just failed to materialise, although they did stand a high profile candidate against her- Gerry Clarkson was much later to  become Leader of the Council. He at this stage , oddly enough,l ived  in  Egerton, and might have been a more dangerous opponent for me had he stood at home, but he seems to have decided to stand in Boughton and only to run a quite low-key campaign there- maybe he just wasn't ready to go all out for a win. He was fairly senior in the fire service,and maybe his work was still too central to his life at this point. In which case I don't know why the Tories didn't put up a more committed  candidate against Rita.

Otherwise the six Conservative defences looked pretty straightforward for them, even though only Cllrs  Foster in Aldington ,Farrant in Brabourne and  Coey in Wye were standing again - in  Aldington and Brabourne more unopposed elections. In Chilham the Tories had Jane Marriott, and John Hawes took her on -the Hawes family would have a lot of walking to do covering a big chunk of the North Downs between their two wards and provoking quite a lot of interest - Chilham was to be the only other ward besides Smarden to top a 50% turnout. Mersham had a new candidate in Paul Bartlett, another possible future Leader, and we put up Clare Hardwick , another of the Boughton Aluph "exports ", to oppose him. Hamstreet had another new Conservative candidate (and future leader of the Independents!) in Peter Davison, who faced a rare Labour opponent in Viv Wheatley, and Rosemary Davies from the Lib Dems (a Pluckley export this time).  Viv and Rosemary are perennial candidates popping up all over the place, and fairly obviously paper candidates only. Wye was another nominal 3-horse race, but unlikely to give Colin Coey much of a fright. The Lib Dem candidate, Nick Fawcett was the son of a former Principal of Wye College, so at least the Fawcett name was well known in Wye circles.

Aldington
S Foster (Con)     Unopposed

Boughton Aluph
R Hawes (LD)         467 (73.2%)
G Clarkson(Con)    171 (16.8%)

Brabourne
B Farrant (Con)    Unopposed

Chilham 
J Marriott (Con)      682 (79.2%)
J Hawes (LD)            179 (20.8%) 

Hamstreet
P Davison (Con)       466 (64.7%)
V Wheatley (Lab)    156 (21.7%)
R Davies (LD)              98 (13.6%)

Mersham 
P Bartlett (Con)         516  (74.8%)
C Hardwick (LD)        174   (25.2%)

Wye
JC Coey (Con)             438 (59.3%)
S Vokes  (Lab)             187 (25.3%)
N Fawcett (LD)           114  (15.4%)


At the end of the day, 6 Con , 1 LD, no change.

[yellowperil]

Ashford Borough Council wards by County divisions 1999-Tenterden

The Tenterden division we knew would be an almost impossible mountain to climb in the climate of 1999. We had only ever won a single seat, St Michaels last time, and then only by a single vote- obviously we would do all we could to hold on to St Michaels but we knew in our hearts there would be little we could do to hold off a determined Tory onslaught, and the omens from the Tenterden East by election had not in the end been at all encouraging. The Tenterden Conservatives  in the past had sometimes been a bit slapdash and complacent in the days of their complete domination- the strong will of the time when they ousted the last of the Independents was well in the past.  Now their steel was back in the form of Paul Clokie, very much the professional politician, whatever you thought of his views, and he would reinforce the Tory will to succeed at all costs.

A forecast of the Conservatives taking 10 out of 10 here was very much on the cards.

The Lib Dems were contesting, in the limited sense that they had names on the ballot paper, in 7 of these contests,but 3 were missing, Appledore, Tenterden West, and quite inexcusably Tenterden East, after all the work that had gone into the by election not so long before.  Paddy Platt had  decided to go for Biddenden instead, and along with Barry Wright was the only conceivably serious candidate. The paper candidates included Ann Murray ,another Pluckley export, now standing in Rolvenden where she used to live and had many contacts, Brian Tranter a former Mayor of Tenterden standing in South east and Pat Rickwood another disabled wheelchair-user, standing in Wittersham (and I guess there were few areas more difficult for a wheelchair bound candidate than the Isle of Oxney).

Labour were only contesting 4-  semi-serious candidates in Tenterden East and South-east , and paper candidates in Rolvenden and Tenterden West
- very little for the Conservatives to fear there.

Of the Tory candidates, they included Martin Gray In Appledore, a kindly gent of the old school who now became Conservative leader and therefore their candidate for leader of the Council, a role for which he was manifestly unsuited, and three old-time returners:  Harold Apps in High Halden, Jim Hoad in Rolvenden and Mick Burgess in Wittersham. Newcomers included Neil Bell in Biddenden, a youngish and rather brash businessman, very much the new Conservative type, a pair of new ladies on the scene in Jill Hutchinson and Joy Masters in South-east and West respectively, and John Link another former Tenterden mayor, in St Michaels. Quite a varied group, but formidable- and all expecting to be elected.

Appledore
M Gray  (Con)       unopposed 

Biddenden
N Bell (Con)      417  (73.2%)
W Platt (LD)      171  (26.8%)

High Halden
H Apps (Con)      334  (75.6%)
B Pearce (LD)      111  (24.4%)

Rolvenden
AJ Hoad (Con)     456   (71.8%)
J Knight (Lab)      105   (28.2%)

Tenterden St Michaels
J Link  (Con)         578  (72.2%)
B Wright (LD)       222  (27.8%)

Tenterden East
P Clokie (Con)      509  (78.4%)
J Moriarty(Lab)   140   (21.6%)

Tenterden South-East
J Hutchinson (Con) 302 (53.5%)
D Johnson (Lab)      181 (32.0%)
B Tranter (LD)            82  (14.5%)

Tenterden West
J Masters (Con)        334  (82.9%)
S Pearce (Lab)            69   (17.1%)

Wittersham
M Burgess (Con)       416  ( 79.8%)
P Rickwood (LD)       105    (20.2%)

paging  Pete Whitehead  !!

 The Conservatives had indeed swept up all 10 places without much of a challenge, and that left them much as predicted with 24 seats, one short of an overall majority. Did they try to get Tony Maltby back on board to give themselves outright control? If they did, they got no joy and settled for minority administration. Labour had 12, Lib Dems 9, Inds 4 (Eke,Maltby, Harrington, Brannan). Could there have been a rainbow coalition with Labour leading and Lib Dems and Indies supporting? Don't be silly!

[yellowperil]

A new Council for the Millenium, 1999-2001

The new council was confirmed  with a Conservative minority administration led by Martin Gray, a very nice man but totally unsuited to the leadership and the first few councils were embarassing with a lot of dither and uncertainty- but then we know some Conservative leaders can be like that. The Tories were clearly unhappy and we were told Martin had some domestic problems which needed to be resolved and we waited for the coup which was not long coming. Our new Leader was to be Paul Clokie, not a surprise at all. Meanwhile we on the Lib Dem side had a leadership issue to settle as well as Deryck had gone and we had waited to see who got elected before making the final decision on leadership and the mantle fell on -me! It wasn't long before Peter Davison  was causing Paul Clokie quite a lot of headaches so that effectively the Tory group was down to 23, because even though nominally he remained part of the Tory group for quite a while, he would eventually become a second Independent Conservative. Paul was being very frank about his problems and enlisting Lib Dem help to get him out of a hole and was prepared to offer all sorts of deals. We certainly weren't going in to a junior partnership with the Tories, but were prepared to discuss our position with the Tories issue by issue ahead of meetings to ease the business of getting the right policies through. Astonishingly I was now in danger of being criticised by Lib Dems(not to mention Labour of course) for being too pally with the Tories- moi?

[yellowperil]

Anyone closely following this thread might spot the small change in the title- I have extended the time limits by another 2 years. It's amazing what tricks your memory plays on you and what you can get wrong. I have been researching the end years of my political activism ( it's all rather sad) and realised I had got the end date wrong. I retired from the borough council in 2003 and I had thought that was the end and that my three ventures into County elections were 1993, 1997 and 2001. Now I start digging out the records I find that was wrong- I had missed out in 2001 when I was busy as both group leader and constituency agent (more anon) but had been persuaded back for one final go two years after retiring from active politics,so 2005. Of course I knew that, but somehow that had completely melted from my mind.  Looking at my result though you can see why I had wanted to forget.Maybe I hadn't quite rescinded that retirement and wasn't as committed as at all previous elections.

[Crimson King]

we can only be pleased at the extra

[Pete Whitehead]

[yellowperil]

When I say I like it, I don't like this one as much as the '95, but that's not your fault, Pete