What happened at the last Warwickshire County Council elections?
Warwickshire residents will go to the polls next week to vote in 57 new county councillors.
All the wards across Warwickshire County Council are up for grabs, and big changes at the local authority are expected.
This election will play a vital role in the future of the county's local government, with all the district, borough and county councils looking set to make way for either one or two new unitary authorities further down the line.
Ahead of polls opening on Thursday (May 1), we have taken a quick look back at the last Warwickshire County Council elections.
What happened in 2021?
It is four years since the last elections were held at Warwickshire County Council.
The 2021 election saw the Conservatives strengthen their grip on the local authority, taking 42 of the 57 seats. That was an increase of six seats.
The Tories also took a huge percentage of the votes at 48.6 per cent - some 82,000 votes.
The second biggest party on the council was then Labour, which lost four seats to be left with six.
They were closely followed by the Liberal Democrats who took five seats (down from eight), and then the Greens who won three - adding one to their total.
Warwick district has been the most diverse part of the county in terms of the political makeup since 2021.
All three of the Greens seats are in the district - with the party taking one of the three Tory wards in Kenilworth.
Warwick district also voted in three Labour and two Liberal Democrat councillors, with the rest all blue.
The vote share in 2021 saw Labour take 21.5 per cent, the Lib Dem's 15.3 per cent and Greens 12.6 per cent.
What has happened since then?
Things have changed dramatically in South Warwickshire since the 2021 local elections.
Last year at the general election, Sir Jeremy Wright was left as the last Tory standing, with the Kenilworth and Southam MP the only Conservative left from the previous five.
Labour's Matt Western retained his seat in Warwick and Leamington, meanwhile Manuela Perteghella took a resounding 8,000 vote majority for the Lib Dems in Stratford-upon-Avon.
In the north of the county Nuneaton and North Warwickshire were both taken by Labour, as was Rugby by the party's John Slinger.
Those results matched the local elections the year before where Warwick District Council saw almost all of its Conservative councillors voted out, leaving a Green-Labour joint majority in charge of the council.
Stratford-upon-Avon District Council was taken over by the Liberal Democrats.
Meanwhile Kenilworth Town Council was left with no Tories, being run by the Greens with the Liberal Democrats taking the remaining seats.
And at Warwick Town Council in 2023, Labour took 11 of the 15 seats
What will May 2025 bring?
Ahead of Thursday's vote, there appears wide consensus that the Conservatives will not receive anything like the vote share they did four years ago.
Polls produced in March by political consultants and electoral researchers Electoral Calculus anticipate they will sustain heavy losses, and could be reduced to 18 seats.
That would most likely still leave them as the biggest party of a mixed bag which could see Reform take as many as 16 - if the same poll is to be believed.
Multiple candidates across Warwick district have told Nub News they think Reform will make big strides in the north of the county where Paul Hopkins came a close second in North Warwickshire to Rachel Taylor at the general election next year.
Others have said similar things about Rugby also.
The Greens are clearly eyeing up further successes in Warwick district, having launched their national local election campaign in Kenilworth.
Meanwhile Sir Ed Davey has been out campaigning with local Liberal Democrats in the south of the county this week.
Nigel Farage also headed to North Warwickshire for Reform this April.
What is certain though, is that there will be a huge number of new faces at Shire Hall come May 2 as more than a third of current county councillors will not be seeking re-election.
This includes four members of the current cabinet.
Keep an eye out for our ward-by-ward roundups of all the candidates in Warwick district and hear what they have to say.
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