10 or more people from the Stonefield and Christchurch Ward have requested that a by-election be held to fill the wards vacant fifth councillor spot on the town council.
Last month Stone Independent Councillor Tom Adamson resigned from the town council leaving a vacant post that could be filled in two ways. Co-option or by-election were the options, and we explained in more detail what these meant when we reported on the vacancy last week.
In the town council meeting on the 2nd February 2021 it was announced that unofficially Stafford Borough Council has advised the town council that a by-election has been called. This means that at least 10 people from the Stonefield and Christchurch ward have called for a by-election. There is legislation in place to inspect the record of those who have called for the election so we will request access to those records to bring more accurate figures and details shortly.
5 councillor positions represent the Stonefield & Christchurch ward:
- VACANT
- Philip Leason (Stone Independents)
- Tom Kelt (Stone Independents)
- Rob Kenney (Stone Independents)
- Ian Fordham (Stone Independents)
What Happens Next
Elections follow a set procedure and timeline, so once we have the election date, the timeline can be worked back from that. Due to Covid, the next scheduled elections are set for the 6th May 2021, when we will already be voting for our Staffordshire County Councillors, a new Police & Fire Commissioner, and a referendum on the Stone Neighbourhood Plan. These existing elections were due to take place in May 2020, but they were pushed back because of the pandemic.
We expect a decision from the Government soon as to whether the May elections will go ahead as scheduled – the latest word is that they plan to go ahead, but we await official confirmation. This call will need to happen in the next month to allow the statutory period for the election process. Should the May 2021 elections be postponed, then the councillor spot will remain empty until elections are allowed.
Once the election is given the green light, there will be a period for nominations to be made for candidates and then there will be the usual election process of campaigning ahead of the vote. We expect to see candidates from the Stone Independents and the major political parties – full candidate details will be published inline with the timeline.
A Little Bit of Stone had already decided to carry out hustings for the May elections, as we did for the 2019 general election, so we will include the by-election in that coverage too.
Let’s talk money
The Stone town clerk has advised A Little Bit of Stone that he estimates, based on the last two elections in the ward, a cost to the council (or Stone taxpayers) of £9,000-£9,500 to hold the election and select the new councillor.
In Tuesday nights meeting the town council took the option to add an additional £9,000 to the town council’s budget, with many councillors speaking out in dismay at the calling of an election which will financially impact all Stone taxpayers.
At the last Stone Town Council meeting, the council had provisionally set the Band D council precept as £51.61 for the entire 2021/22 year, increasing 97p on the 2020/21 amount (1.9%), this now rises to £53.06 a total increase of 4.8%.
Despite the town clerks estimate, we’ve never held elections in a pandemic before, so there are the possibility of further increased costs to make elections covid secure. This could be additional costs related to more polling stations, more staff, an increase in postal ballots, hand sanitiser, and even more pencils.
Stafford Borough Council is the authority responsible for administering all of the elections across the borough, so the election costs come from them and their commercial third parties who provided the various services.
A Little Bit of Stone raised the question with the town clerk about whether there would be a reduction in costs as there are multiple elections are happening simultaneously, here’s a summary of his responses.
The last two elections in the Stonefield and Christchurch ward were in 2016 when a by-election was called following the resignation of Conservative Councillor Lynne Bakker-Collier and the second and most recent election was in 2019 when there were full elections for Stone Town Council, Stafford Borough Council, five other parish council elections and a Neighbourhood Plan referendum.
The costs from Stafford Borough Council in 2016 were £8,493.96 and a similar amount of £8,497.13 in 2019 when there were full elections.
Stone Town Council recently queried these amounts with Stafford Borough Council, expecting a lower cost in 2019 vs 2016 due to shared resources. Stafford Borough Council Chief Executive, Tim Clegg responded the following breakdown of costs and reasons why the costs were on a par with the 2016 figures:
