The 2023 Plymouth City Council election was held on 4 May 2023 to elect members of Plymouth City Council in England. It coincided with local elections across the United Kingdom.
In the previous election in 2022, both Labour and the Conservative Party gained seats, primarily due to councillors who had left their party groups standing down or unsuccessfully seeking re-election. The Green Party won its first ever seat on Plymouth Council in that election. After being deselected by the Conservative Party, the former council leader Nick Kelly started a new "Independent Alliance" group with the ex-Conservative councillor Terri Beer and the ex-Labour councillor Chaz Singh. The Independent Alliance group grew with more defections from the Conservative group. After two Conservative councillors who had moved to Gloucestershire resigned, by-elections took place in Moor View and Plympton Chaddlewood, which were won by Labour and the Green Party respectively. The Conservative council leader Richard Bingley, who had been elected to replace Kelly in March 2022, resigned in March 2023 after controversially ordering the felling of trees on Armada Way. His deputy, Mark Shayer, took over as leader of the Conservative group and interim council leader.
The election was won by the Labour Party, who gained seven seats to hold an overall majority for the first time since the 2021 election. The Conservatives only won a single seat, with ex-Conservative councillors winning as independent candidates in Plympton, where they were aligned with the Independent Alliance, and in Drake, where Steve Ricketts returned to the council after losing his seat as a Conservative in 2018.
Background
History
Plymouth City Council held local elections, along with councils across England as part of the 2023 local elections. The council elects its councillors in thirds, with a third of seats being up for election every year for three years, with no election each fourth year to correspond with councillors' four-year terms. Councillors defending their seats in this election were previously elected in 2019. In that election, ten Labour candidates and nine Conservative candidates were elected.
Elections in Plymouth are usually competitive between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. The council was controlled by the Labour Party from the 2018 council election until the 2021 council election, when the council entered no overall control, with no party holding a majority of seats. One Labour councillor elected in 2018—Kevin Neil—was suspended from his party in the same year. Another councillor, Chaz Singh, left the Labour Party in 2019. Several Conservative councillors left their group to sit as independents, including the former council leader Ian Bowyer, after two of them were suspended by the group leader Nick Kelly for publishing a press release supporting a reduction in the speed limit on the A38 road through the city. Kelly was later suspended from his party after making comments about a local murder that were characterised as victim-blaming. He was later reinstated. Around the same time, other Conservative councillors left the group or were suspended. After Kelly was unable to pass a budget in February 2022, Labour called a vote of no confidence in him. Kelly lost, and the council selected a new leader: the Conservative councillor Richard Bingley, who had previously been a member of the Labour Party and the UK Independence Party. Terri Beer resigned from the Conservative group to sit as an independent councillor in response to Bingley's election.
The council remained under no overall control after the 2022 council election. Neil and several of the former Conservative councillors who had left their group didn't seek re-election; the former Conservative councillor Dave Downie unsuccessfully sought re-election as an independent candidate. The Green Party won their first ever seat on the council in Plympton Chaddlewood. Labour won Compton ward for the first time, with the winning candidate, Dylan Tippetts, becoming Plymouth's first trans councillor. The overall result saw the council remain under no overall control, with Labour and the Conservatives each on 24 seats. The independent councillor George Wheeler, who had originally been elected as a Labour candidate, joined the Green Party shortly after the election. Five independent councillors who had been suspended from or left the Conservative group rejoined it on 17 May, giving the Conservatives an overall majority on the council.
Developments since 2022 Defections and suspensions In October 2022, Kelly was again suspended from the Conservative group after "complaints and allegations" were made against him. He resigned from the group on 15 October, complaining that he had been deselected and accusing Bingley of a "vile, defamatory, and inaccurate outburst against me and fellow councillors". His resignation meant that the council returned to no overall control only five months after the Conservatives had held a majority of seats on the council. Later that month, Kelly formed an independent group on the council called the Independent Alliance with the former Conservative councillor Terri Beer and the former Labour councillor Chaz Singh. The Conservative councillor Maddi Bridgeman, who had recently had complaints upheld against Bingley in an independent investigation, was suspended from the Conservative group in the same month. In December, the councillor Stephen Hulme left the Conservative group to sit as an independent councillor, saying "I don't think the council listens to the people of Plymouth". He joined Kelly's Independent Alliance group later that month. In January 2023, another Conservative councillor and former council leader, Patrick Nicholson, left his party to join the Independent Alliance in protest against the proposed council budget and not being reselected as a candidate for the 2023 elections. Bridgman left the Conservative Party in January, saying that her local party had "harassed, bullied, and publicly humiliated" her because she was a woman. A report into her from the Conservative association said that her claims of sexism "amount to unbefitting conduct".
January 2023 by-elections
Two Conservative councillors, Dan Collins and Shannon Burden, moved from Plymouth to Gloucestershire in May 2022. Labour councillors called on them to resign while Bingley said he was "confident that they are doing their job as councillors" and that he was "comfortable with the situation". In November 2022, the council passed a motion proposed by Beer calling on them to resign immediately. They resigned, saying that they had previously planned to stay until the 2023 elections. By-elections took place on 12 January 2023. Independent by-election candidates Gavin Marshall and Andrew Hill said they would join the Independent Alliance group if they were successful. The Moor View by-election was won by the Labour candidate, Will Noble, a cleaner at Derriford Hospital. The Plympton Chaddlewood by-election was won by the Green candidate, Lauren McLay, a communications specialist. Bingley blamed his party's losses on national politics, and declined to resign. The BBC journalist Ewan Murrie wrote that the Labour group would be "unlikely to call a no confidence vote before the May elections".
Armada Way tree felling Since 2017, the council had been preparing for regeneration work along Armada Way, a major commercial street in the city centre. The plans would create public meeting places, areas of wildflowers, a cycle lane and new seating. They also required cutting down mature trees along the road, with more being planted than would be initially removed. After opposition to the tree felling from the group Save the Trees of Armada Way (Straw), the council announced an additional one-week consultation. A majority of responses to the consultation opposed the plan, but the council said that most opposition did not include a reason and that the numbers were increased by activism from Straw. The council leader Richard Bingley said that the public supported the scheme, saying it would make the road safer and provide better drainage.
During the night of 14 March, contractors cut down 110 mature trees after Bingley signed an executive order to approve the work. Sixteen more had been planned to be cut down, but the work had to be stopped after a judge "granted an injunction against the tree felling" requested by Straw. One of Straw's lawyers said that the group wanted to preserve the stumps of felled trees as "we view them as living trees still". The council said it would dispute the injunction. The injunction was upheld pending judicial review of the decision-making process, preventing the council from cutting down any remaining trees but allowing the council to remove the trees that had been felled "under expert advice and with Straw involved". Bingley said that there should be a public inquiry into the regeneration scheme, suggesting that Labour and Green Party politicians should share responsibility for decisions about it. He accused Labour and the Green Party of "political extremism" for their opposition to the felling.
On 22 March, the Independent Alliance and Green Party group both called for Bingley to resign, with the latter proposing a vote of no confidence. Later that day, he announced that he would resign as leader of the Conservative group on the following Monday. The two Conservative MPs whose constituencies include parts of Plymouth City Council, Johnny Mercer and Gary Streeter, said that Evans should take over the council until the local elections in May. Evans said that his party should not take control of the council without a mandate from the May election. The deputy leader of the Conservative group, Mark Shayer, took over as leader of the Conservative group and interim leader of the council until the election. At the same meeting, the council unanimously voted to establish an independent review of the regeneration project.
Nick Kelly collapsed at a public event in his ward on 25 March. The former Labour councillor Chaz Singh took on the role of acting leader of the Independent Alliance group while Kelly recovered. The Labour councillor Brian Vincent died in April. Vincent had first been elected in 1997 and had served a continuous term since 2003.
Campaign Statements of persons nominated were published on 5 April listing all validly nominated candidates. To hold a majority of seats after the election, the Conservatives needed to win thirteen out of the nineteen seats up for election, while Labour needed to win twelve. Labour activists said they were confident they would be able to win at least twelve seats.
Mark Shayer, who took over as acting leader of the council after Bingley resigned, said he would not seek re-election as Conservative group leader after the council election.
The Labour group leader Tudor Evans said that the Conservative administration felling trees in the city centre was not one of the issues raised most often by voters, who were instead focused on the cost of living, particularly food and energy prices. He said that a Labour council would increase the number of trees, wildflowers and greenery in the city centre alongside "economic diversification". The Conservative candidate and former councillor Andrea Johnson said that most voters who bring up the cost of living were grateful for government support rather than critical. All parties except the Conservatives said they would protect the remaining healthy trees on Armada Way. The Conservatives "said they did not have a policy".