{"id":876,"date":"2026-05-16T15:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/?p=876"},"modified":"2026-05-16T15:19:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:19:00","slug":"reform-uk-gains-control-of-essex-county-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/?p=876","title":{"rendered":"Reform UK gains control of Essex County Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reform UK&nbsp;has&nbsp;secured&nbsp;a majority&nbsp;by&nbsp;14&nbsp;seats.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reform UK&nbsp;has gained political control of Essex County Council with a total of&nbsp;53&nbsp;seats after residents across the county voted on 7 May 2026.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now all the votes have been counted, the political makeup of the council is as follows:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Reform UK\u00a0&#8211;\u00a053<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Conservative Party &#8211;\u00a013<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Liberal Democrats\u00a0&#8211;\u00a05<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Independent &#8211;\u00a02<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Green\u00a0Party\u00a0&#8211;\u00a01<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Labour Party &#8211;\u00a01<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Residents for Uttlesford &#8211; 1<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The People\u2019s Independent Party &#8211;\u00a01<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Voter turnout across the county was&nbsp;43.6%,&nbsp;the highest it has been for decades.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cmis.essex.gov.uk\/essexcmis5\/Elections\/tabid\/63\/ctl\/ViewWards\/mid\/386\/ID\/31\/Default.aspx\">Visit&nbsp;the Essex County Council website<\/a>&nbsp;to see the&nbsp;full&nbsp;results for all divisions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A record&nbsp;428&nbsp;candidates ran for election to Essex County Council in 2026. It marks an almost 25% increase from the 350 who stood in the&nbsp;previous&nbsp;elections in 2021.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The next annual meeting of the council will be held on 28&nbsp;May&nbsp;2026&nbsp;where a&nbsp;Leader of the Council will be&nbsp;elected&nbsp;in&nbsp;accordance with&nbsp;the council\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cllr Peter Schwier AIEMA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cabinet Member for Environment, Waste Reduction &amp; Recycling<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reform UK&nbsp;has&nbsp;secured&nbsp;a majority&nbsp;by&nbsp;14&nbsp;seats.&nbsp; Reform UK&nbsp;has gained political control of Essex County Council with a total of&nbsp;53&nbsp;seats after residents across the county voted on 7 May 2026.&nbsp; Now all the votes have been counted, the political makeup of the council is as follows:&nbsp; Voter turnout across the county was&nbsp;43.6%,&nbsp;the highest it has been for decades.&nbsp; Visit&nbsp;the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877,"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions\/877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toppesfield-pc.gov.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}