On this day the elections for Canterbury City Council took place. It was a low key affair with none of the hype of previous years. As it is mid-term for the government a swing against them would have been expected, but the recent ending of hostilities in Iraq appears to have caused some polarisation between those who thought the war had been necessary and those opposed to war under any circumstances. This, together with recent hikes in council tax, produced a mixed bag of results. The town seats returned Labour councillors with Conservatives being elected for the seats on the surrounding areas.
The councillors representing Whitstable's wards on the City Council are now:
| Gorrell | Peter Halfpenny (Lab) Wes McLachlan (Lab). |
| Harbour | Julia Seath (Lab) John Wratten (Lab) |
| Chestfield, Swalecliffe & Monument (newly enlarged ward) | Jennifer Samper (Con) Ian Thomas (Con) Pat Todd (Con) |
| Seasalter (also enlarged) | Jean Law (Con) Cyril Windsor (Con) Michael Sharp (Con) |
| Tankerton | Jean Harrison (Con) David Cavell (Con) |
The count for the City Council did not go smoothly and the closeness of some wards in Canterbury delayed the results until the next afternoon, in fact Canterbury was the last council in the country to declare their results. In Canterbury's Barton ward the final outcome hinged on just one ballot paper which was eventually awarded to the Liberal Democrats giving them the seat over the Conservatives.
When all the dust had settled the final share of the seats was:
- Conservative.......24
- Lib/Dem...............19
- Labour...................7
The new council will probably be controlled again by an alliance of the Lib/Dem and Labour councillors.
The town has no real control on the council that runs it, with it's representatives somewhat on the periphery, either as part of the opposition, or as a minor part of a coalition. All we can hope is that the town's dedicated and experienced councillors are able to obtain seats on the committees whose decisions have the most impact on the town. We would expect our councillors to put aside party politics in representing our town and it's residents. This would help to quell the growing unease within the town that the city's interests are totally alien to our own and that in the future we should look to 'Whitstable' candidates to support rather than ones affiliated to national political parties.
On a final note the real winner of these elections was the 'Apathy Party', but we are pleased to report that the average turnout for the town's wards was better than the local and national turnouts. Well done!
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