BEVERLEY – There is an old saying in politics that governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning them. Whether that proves true in the local elections in East Riding in 10 months time remains to be seen. One thing is clear, the campaigning in Beverley has already begun.
On social media, letter boxes and on some door steps, there is bits of movement. Local parties are selecting candidates, councillors are keen to show they are ‘not just around at election time’ and ward associations are deciding where to concentrate their efforts.
By the time most people begin thinking about the election next year, much of the groundwork will already have been done.
The last local elections in 2023 changed East Riding politics more than any election since the council itself was created in 1996.
For almost three decades there had been one political certainty: the Conservatives governed East Riding Council. Steve Parnaby became the defining figure of that period, serving as Leader for almost twenty years before Richard Burton, Jonathan Owen and, most recently, Anne Handley took over.
Councillors came and went. Individual wards changed hands from time to time. The authority itself remained firmly under Conservative control. That all ended in 2023, although the Conservatives where still the biggest party, winning 29 of the council’s 67 seats. The group fell five short of the 34 needed for an overall majority. The Liberal Democrats got 22 seats, Independents won nine, Labour four and the Yorkshire Party three.
For the first time in its entire history, East Riding Council was under no overall control.
This time around, the Conservatives will need to recover at least 5 seats to govern outright again. The Liberal Democrats require a much larger advance if they are to become the largest party in their own right. The rest, including Labour are left in the stalls with single digit results.
In 2027 every ward will matter and every loss or gain could be decisive in who gets to run the council for the following 4 years.
In the past couple of years there has been quite a bit of political bed swapping too. One Conservative councillor defected to Reform UK in 2024, quit it within a year citing a lack of integrity, and later became Restore Britain’s first councillor anywhere in the country.
Another Conservative left to sit as an independent. A Liberal Democrat crossed to Labour and three former Yorkshire Party councillors in Bridlington resigned to form the council’s first Green group.
None of it has changed who runs County Hall, but it is a reminder of how, like in national scen party politics has become much more fluid.
The result in 2023 meant Anne Handley inherited one of the most demanding leadership roles the council has seen. Becoming East Riding’s first female Leader would have been significant in any circumstances. Doing so without an overall majority presented an additional focus.
Minority administrations leave little room for complacency with most significant decision needing to be agreed beyond just the governing group.
Nearly three years later the council remains stable which compared to other local authorities is quite an achievement. Local government across England has become increasingly difficult. Rising demand for adult social care, pressure on children’s services and years of financial restraint have left many councils making painful choices. Several authorities have effectively declared bankruptcy. Others have sold assets simply to balance their books. East Riding has avoided that fate.
Handley and her team have also lead from the front on the creation of the Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority representing the council on the national stage to several different governments. In regional terms it could prove to be the most significant constitutional change affecting the area since local government reorganisation almost thirty years ago and bagging the region over £400 in committed inward investment to transport, housing, regeneration and economic development.
From a campaign perspective this is probably the starting point for the Conservatives thats’s more interesting than simply their past record. They can argue they have not only governed East Riding competently for much of the last thirty years but have also laid the foundations for the next thirty.
The Liberal Democrats will see the election very differently. Their performance in 2023 was their strongest for many years and established them as the principal opposition across much of the East Riding.
Anyone that has received one of their many leaflets will realise they have built an energetic campaigning organisation in Beverley. They will no doubt argue that nearly thirty years of uninterrupted Conservative rule naturally creates a case for change.
There is, however, one important difference between 2023 and 2027. Last time the Liberal Democrats invited voters to judge the Conservatives. This time many voters may judge them.
Strictly speaking, Beverley Town Council has nothing to do with East Riding Council. They are different authorities with different responsibilities and different budgets. Voters rarely make such careful distinctions, and infact many of the very same councillors occupy seats on both authorities. As such, Beverley’s Town Hall project is likely to feature heavily in the campaign.
The building at the centre of it has stood on the corner of Morton Lane and Wilbert Lane since 1888 and had sat empty for five years when the Town Council bought it in September 2022 for £235,000, drawn from reserves, with the stated aim of turning it into a permanent civic headquarters.
Beverley Review later established that total expenditure reached £278,882.42 once architects’ fees, project management, insurance, legal costs, surveys, business rates and maintenance were included. The building was subsequently marketed for £240,500, leaving an estimated loss of around £38,000 before wider opportunity costs are taken into account.
It was the town’s second failed attempt at a permanent home — a 2019 plan to convert St Nicholas School was abandoned after a consultant’s report put the cost as high as £2 million. Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart called the episode a “town hall fiasco.” Residents will reach their own conclusions.
The same applies to the town precept, which has climbed across all three budgets the current council has set since taking office in 2023 — for 2024/25, 2025/26 and, most recently, 2026/27 — a rise of close to 54 per cent in total, according to figures cited by former Labour Town Mayor Margaret Pinder, representing more than £1.25 million levied on Beverley households over that period. Supporters point to inflation and increasing costs.
Critics argue residents have every right to ask what they have received in return. Politics has a habit of attaching itself to one defining issue. For the Lib Dems, that issue is probably the Town Hall and implied financial shortcomings.
Beverley itself has changed as well. Drive towards Woodmansey or the southern edge of the town and the scale of recent development is obvious. The Boundry commission have changed around all of the Beverley wards to cater for this and other population changes which will be a factor at the election.
The old St Mary’s and Minster & Woodmansey wards disappear, replaced by Beverley North and Beverley South & Woodmansey alongside a revised Beverley Rural. The change was confirmed when the Local Government Boundary Commission for England sealed its order on 19 January 2026, taking the council from 26 wards to 28 while keeping the total at 67 councillors.
Seven wards across the East Riding keep their existing boundaries; the rest, including Beverley’s, do not. Beverley North will be the single largest of the new wards, with an electorate above 13,300 — nearly double the smallest ward, East Wolds, at just over 7,100. On paper it is an administrative exercise designed to equalise elector numbers.
Politically it is much more interesting. New communities arrive with largely unknown voting habits , which makes Beverley less predictable than it was a decade ago and considerably more important to every major party.
The Conservatives need Beverley if they are to rebuild an overall majority. The Liberal Democrats see it as their greatest opportunity.
Then there is Reform UK. They start with something no party had in 2023: a sitting elected Mayor, chairing a combined authority that covers every one of these new divisions.
Whether that translates into ward-level organisation is a separate question — winning a single regional contest on a low turnout is not the same as recruiting candidates and delivering leaflets in twenty-eight wards — but the party is no longer arguing from opinion polls alone.
Labour continues to search for opportunities in a county where it has historically struggled to gain a foothold, although national politics has a habit of influencing local elections in unexpected ways. So if Andy Burnham turns out to be any good, it will no doubt help their chances here.
This article is the first in Beverley Review’s election series. Over the coming months we’ll examine each of Beverley’s new divisions in detail, explain what the boundary changes mean on the ground, profile every confirmed candidate and test the claims made by every party against the evidence.
The first candidate selections are already taking place. By the time the Christmas lights are switched on , most of the names on next May’s ballot paper will already have been decided.
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