At the previous council election in May 2023, the Labour opposition led by John Kent made gains against the incumbent Conservative administration led by Mark Coxshall.[5][6] Labour gained five seats, increasing its total share of seats in the council to 19. The Conservatives, now having 26 seats, retained control of the council but saw their majority reduced to three. The Thurrock Independents lost two seats but held one, leaving them with a single councillor. The election also returned three independents not affiliated to any party.[7][8] Coxshall lost his seat in the election, and later in the month the council elected Conservative Andrew Jefferies as the new leader of the council.[6][9] The election followed the council's declaration of effective bankruptcy in September 2022, which left it in £1.5 billion of debt.[8][10]
In July 2023, Conservative councillor Sue Sammons left her party to become an independent in protest of its decision to cut local bus services. This action left the Conservatives with a majority of two on the council.[11] In the same month, the Thurrock Independents de-registered as a political party.[12] The make-up of the council now consisted of five seats being held by independents, 19 held by Labour and 25 held by the Conservatives.[11] The independents in the council later organised themselves into a single group, the Non-Political Alliance of Independent Councillors (NPAIC),[13][14] with councillor Neil Speight as their leader[15] and spokesman.[16][17] NPAIC candidates would run in the 2024 election as independents.[18]
In February 2024, it was revealed that the Conservative administration was considering an increase in council tax of 7.99% from April to present a balanced budget for 2024–2025.[19] Council tax had already been increased by 10% the previous year as a condition for additional financial support from the government to help reduce the council's £636 million deficit.[20] The administration also planned to make savings of £18.2 million over the next two years. It had already introduced several measures to cut spending, which included a 7.7% increase in rent for council housing and an introduction of charges for school transport among other measures.[19]
The Conservative administration put forward its economic proposals in its budget for 2024–2025, which was voted on by councillors in March 2024. Conservative councillors were whipped to vote in favour of the budget.[14] Labour abstained from the vote, allowing the budget to pass.[21] Two Conservative councillors, Jack Duffin and Alex Anderson, rebelled against the party leadership and voted against the budget with three NPAIC councillors. Duffin and Anderson were subsequently suspended from the Conservative group as a disciplinary measure and became independents, resulting in the Conservatives losing their majority and the council falling under no overall control.[22][13] Duffin and Anderson did not join the NPAIC and instead chose to sit alone as unaffiliated independents.[23][14] Following their suspension, the Conservatives continued to run the council in a minority administration.[22]
Under Thurrock Council's then-electoral system, elections to the council were held annually every three in four years, with a third of its 49 councillors elected to represent one of its 20 wards for a term of four years at each election.[27] As such, three wards were not contested in 2024, including Stifford Clays, Little Thurrock Rectory, and Tilbury Riverside and Thurrock Park. This was the last election held under this system, as all 49 seats are to be contested in elections every four years from May 2025 onwards. This reform was implemented by the government as part of its ongoing intervention in the council following its effective bankruptcy in 2022.[28][29]
The Labour Party and the Conservative Party stood in every ward at the election.[30] Ahead of the election, it was expected that the low national polling numbers of the Conservatives, as well as the financial difficulties faced by the council during the Conservative administration, would influence its outcome, with local election experts Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher suggesting that Labour could regain its traditional control of the council.[31][30] During the election campaign, Conservative leader Andrew Jefferies acknowledged that the election would be "tough" for his party, but also claimed that Labour had no plan for the borough.[32] He pledged that the Conservatives would not close libraries or cut childrens' and lollipopping services and voiced his party's interest in potential business opportunities such as the Thames Freeport if it remained in power after the election.[32] National Conservative leader and prime minister Rishi Sunak visited Corringham as part of his national campaign to secure votes for his party in the local elections. Sunak refused to say if he would resign if the Conservatives lost power in Thurrock and other local councils in Essex.[33][34] The national Labour Party identified Thurrock as one of its main targets out of the local elections taking place across the country, with Labour's deputy national campaign co-ordinator Ellie Reeves stating that it was one of the areas the party needed to make gains in to win the next general election.[35][36] Local Labour leader John Kent warned that Labour would have to "take tough decisions" and could not "promise the earth" amid the financial burden faced by the council, which he blamed on the Conservatives, but promised to cooperate with local communities while protecting services for the elderly and the young and maintaining basic services if his party won power.[30][32]
Former Conservative councillor David Van Day stood for election in the Orsett ward against former Labour councillor Carl Morris and independent candidate Jack Duffin
The strengthened local presence of independent candidates and the Green Party led by Eugene McCarthy, standing in seven and four wards respectively, was also expected to pose a potential challenge to the Conservatives. According to McCarthy, the Greens would focus on building new council homes, investing in high streets and delivering "common-sense" finances.[30] The independents stood in the east of the borough and in North Stifford and Chafford Hundred; according to independent councillor Fraser Massey this council election had the most independent candidates in Thurrock's recent history.[30] The ward of Orsett, traditionally a safe seat for the Conservatives, also attracted attention during the campaign for its three-way contest between former Conservative councillor David Van Day, former Labour mayor and councillor Carl Morris and independent councillor Jack Duffin, who was expelled from the Conservative Party earlier in the year and secured the support of prominent local Conservative activist Brian Little.[37]
Pollster YouGov identified Thurrock Council as one of sixteen key battleground local authorities in the 2024 local elections, possibly indicative of results in the rest of England and Wales, and therefore used multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) polling to gauge voting intention in the borough ahead of the election.[38][39] A poll conducted from 14 April to 29 April and published on 30 April projected significant gains for the Labour Party in the borough, with the overall outcome of the election considered too close to call to predict which party would win control of the council.[38][40]
The Statement of Persons Nominated, which detailed the candidates who stood in each ward, was released by Thurrock Council following the close of nominations on 5 April 2023.[28][18] One candidate was elected per ward.[26] The results were announced in the early hours of 3 May after votes were counted, with different wards having their results declared from 1:35 AM until the confirmation of the final results at 02:49 AM.[4]
^Leader and spokesman of the Non-Political Alliance of Independent Councillors, which represented the majority of independent councillors at the time of the election.
^Including five members of the Non-Political Alliance of Independent Councillors and two unaffiliated independents.
^Including five members of the Non-Political Alliance of Independent Councillors and four unaffiliated independents.
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