Cambridge City Council: Notice of Election – 02 May 2024

Get your nominations in!

Before we start…

BBC Newsnight at Duxford, South Cambs (at the Imperial War Museum)

Have a watch here on what the small audience put to the panel that included:

• Vicky Ford MP (Cons – Chelmsford, and formerly MEP for East of England)
• Daniel Zeichner MP (Lab – Cambridge, and shadow farming minister)
• Daisy Cooper MP (LibDems – St Albans)
• Adrian Ramsay (Greens – PPC/MP-candidate for Waveney Valley)

Phil Rodgers posted this earlier.

Here's the official starting gun for this year's @camcitco elections – the Notice of Election. One third of the 42 seats are up for election – contrary to some earlier indications, there are no by-elections for any of the other seats. pic.twitter.com/hhSNzClxpo

— Phil Rodgers (@PhilRodgers) March 26, 2024

At the time of blogging, the declared candidates so far are in Phil’s spreadsheet that he updates periodically, (see below), with the final official list of candidates by ward published by Cambridge City Council when the nominations period closes on Friday 05 April 2024 at 4pm.

Above – Phil’s list so far – normally the four main parties stand a full slate of candidates.

You can browse through:

• the previous years of city council election results here
• past historical winners of local elections over previous decades here, to see how political control of Cambridge City Council has changed between the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Labour again since the 1970s.

For anyone who wants to stand for election as an independent candidate:

“If you would like information about standing for election as a Cambridge City Councillor, email us at elections[@]cambridge[.]gov[.]uk.”

For anyone who does not want to stand but would like to see local issues debated in a public forum with the candidates taking questions from residents…

…See Chris Rand’s guide on how to organise such a debate/hustings here. Ideally find a local community group, residents’ association, or local campaign group to help you if you are not already a member of one.

Send your questions to the candidates!

When nominations close and candidate lists are published, you can type in your postcode into https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/ and the list of candidates standing in your area will come up – along with any contact details/social media pages they have made public.

If you are going to ask then questions, best stick to issues that the city council has legal responsibility / policy responsibility for. I.e. ***not potholes***.

If you go to the City Council’s main homepage and scroll down you will find a button labelled “Menu” – which gives you these options.

Above – a snapshot of the things Cambridge City Council is responsible for.

Alternatively, there is the option to ask candidates whether our existing system and structure of local government in Cambridge is fit for purpose, or whether it needs an overhaul as The Cambs Unitaries Campaign is calling for.

Either way, the parties standing are:

• Cambridge Conservatives
• Cambridge Green Party
• Cambridge Labour Party
• Cambridge Liberal Democrats

Enjoy the campaigns!

If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:

• Follow me on Twitter
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• Consider a small donation to help fund my continued research and reporting on local democracy in and around Cambridge.

Below: For anyone confused about local government finances. The model we still have was summarised in this publication by the LGIU from 1993 – which also compared it with the Poll Tax/Community Charge, and the old Rates system.