Voting

Fri 2 May, 17:13

Lib Dem’s win control of Oxfordshire County Council. 👍🍻😁

Fri 2 May, 16:09

Congrats to Liz, commiserations to the other candidates!

LIB DEM WIN- CHARLBURY AND WYCHWOOD

Stephen Gibbons – Reform UK: 722

Liz Leffman – Lib Dem (council leader): 1,828

Emma Nell – Conservative: 769

Robin Puttick – Labour: 169

Mary Robertson – Green: 255

Rejected ballots: 9

Thu 1 May, 07:50

Don’t forget your photo ID!

Wed 30 Apr, 17:09

There have been several leaflets over the past few weeks from me, Claire, I am sorry if they haven't reached you.

Wed 30 Apr, 16:01

Thanks, I haven’t received any leaflets or literature at all, or a polling card, so this is helpful to know! 

Wed 30 Apr, 14:58 (last edited on Wed 30 Apr, 14:59)

Thanks, Liz: 

I stand corrected. The new OCC divisions make no intuitively obvious sense, to me at least. 

It doesn't help that, for Labour, Charlbury is part of the Chipping Norton branch, but Chipping Norton is in a different OCC division than Charlbury, Chadlington and Spelsbury. 

Wed 30 Apr, 14:24 (last edited on Wed 30 Apr, 14:26)

Christine, Charlie Maynard is the MP for the Wychwoods and for Ramsden, in other words for about half of the division, so of course I have been working with him and will continue to do so if I am elected. As it happens I also have regular meetings with Sean Woodcock. But I don't think he would want to appear in my election literature! 

Wed 30 Apr, 14:16 (last edited on Wed 30 Apr, 15:47)

James, The elections tomorrow are for Oxfordshire County Council, not for West Oxfordshire District Council.

Yes, Witney and Chipping Norton are, like us, in WODC, but we are in a different division from them for OCC, as are also Woodstock and Stonesfield. You need to focus on the red lines, not on the green lines on the map I posted: https://www.lgbce.org.uk/all-reviews/oxfordshire

It was in the 2024 election for WODC that Kingham was part of a ward ( Kingham, Rollright and Enstone) that didn't include a LibDem candidate, and where the Conservatives gained 43% of the vote, with Greens on 41% and Labour on 16%.

Richard Fairhurst is right. I did overestimate the degree of difference between the 2025 and 2021 OCC division boundaries. But in my defence that is because none of the campaigning literature that has come round has said anything at all about the boundary changes. And, in fact, I have found the literature that has come through the door extremely confusing. The addition of Kingham to our division is not insignificant, and I had been trying to discover how Kingham has voted in past elections.

As an example of what I have found so confusing -- in one of the recent LibDem leaflets, it states that Liz will "be working with the newly elected Lib Dem MP Charlie Maynard and the strong Lib Dem team in our area ...". But the local MP for Charlbury is not Charlie Maynard, but Sean Woodcock (Labour, Banbury). 

My point is not to tell people which party to vote for, but to point out just how poor the communication about our present options has been. WODC will probably be abolished in the next couple years, and there are likely to be new OCC elections and unitary authority elections in 2027. I really hope that the literature will be less confusing next time around!

Wed 30 Apr, 14:09 (last edited on Wed 30 Apr, 14:14)

Kingham and Ramsden have been added to the division.  Total population of the two villages is roughly 800, out of a total of just under 9000 for the division, 7% larger according to the map that Christine has referenced. 

Wed 30 Apr, 12:07

Christine, the map at the link you have shared shows that Chippy and Witney remain in West Oxon.

Wed 30 Apr, 09:48

“Completely different” is overstating it a bit. Kingham has been added, that’s all. Churchill and the Wychwoods were in our patch in 2021.

Wed 30 Apr, 09:18

Simon makes an interesting point -- especially interesting, given that the boundary divisions for OCC voting are completely different this year. We are now, for the first time, together with Kingham and Churchill. It's a large geographical area, and excludes any major towns, including Witney, Chipping Norton, Burford and Woodstock. Instead it includes places like Milton under Wychwood and Ascott-under-Wychwood, plus Spelsbury, Chadlington and Finstock, 

The map of the new boundaries is here for those who are interested: https://www.lgbce.org.uk/all-reviews/oxfordshire

For one part of the new area (Kingham), the LibDems didn't put forward a candidate in the 2024 local elections, and it was the Greens who came a very close second to the Conservatives in the Kingham, Rollright and Enstone election. 

Tue 29 Apr, 23:20

Should any of the candidates be reading this - I'll be voting for the only person who's taken the trouble to ask for my vote and say what they propose to do.  

Tue 29 Apr, 22:08

Yes, they mean only two results are likely. I dont think election leaflet writers are sticklers for accuracy.

Tue 29 Apr, 19:55

I don't pretend to understand politics so I am hoping that someone can explain a statement on the Lib Dems leaflet that has just been delivered. 

It states that only two results are possible in Charlbury, either Lib Dems or Conservative.

Surely if everyone votes Green for example, then Green will win or is it not that straight forward?

This isn't a post to start an argument on what party to vote for, I am just interested as to how the system works.