Cambridgeshire local elections 2025: The battle for county council seats – the parties answer our key questions
Voters will go to the polls tomorrow (Thursday, 1 May) to elect councillors to Cambridgeshire County Council.
The authority is currently controlled by a coalition of Liberal Democrat, Labour and Independent councillors after the Conservatives lost control of the council at the elections in 2021.
The county council is responsible for delivering a number of services including, highways maintenance, education, adult and children’s social care, and running libraries.
The Liberal Democrats are currently the largest party with 23 councillors, followed by the Conservatives with 21 councillors.
Labour has 10 councillors and there are two independent councillors, four non-aligned independent councillors, and one St Neots Independent councillor.
Read their answers - listed in alphabetical order by party - to help you decide how you should cast your vote.
Conservatives
By Delowar Hossain
1. Why should readers vote for your candidates?
For the last four years, the Labour and Liberal Democrat alliance has made a mess of Cambridge city, with their anti-motorist policies, profligate spending and lack of highways maintenance.
Voting Conservative will prioritise highways, cycleways and pavement maintenance ahead of vanity projects.
2. How would you balance the books while maintaining services?
The Conservatives have a track record of efficiency and delivering value for money. It is important that when a councillor decides to spend money they remember it is the hard-earned cash of a resident they represent.
Conservatives hate waste and were appalled to see all of the efficiencies, such as shared services dismantled over the last four years. For example, the current Labour and Liberal Democrat partnership running the county council, has recently pulled out of the learning disability partnership, with the NHS, increasing costs and resulting in poorer outcomes for vulnerable residents.
3. What should we do to keep the county moving? Are you in favour of the GCP busway schemes?
The Conservatives are working hard as a team, not just to serve the public on the county council, but to elect Paul Bristow as the mayor as well. This will give us united ability to back the forward-thinking light rail proposal for Cambridge city and its environs. Rather than the current GCP, looking to the past for bus solutions, increased taxation and penalising of motorists.
4. How will you approach the transition to a unitary authority or authorities in the county?
This Labour enforced reformation is being driven at the wrong speed to achieve the best outcomes. Having said that, we acknowledge it has to be done and can recognise some advantages. However, it is important we hear the voice of the people and businesses, not just Whitehall, to formulate the best plan possible in the time allocated. As Conservatives we understand some costs can be lowered, but it is vital that does not come with the lowering of services our residents enjoy that can respond to local needs.
Green Party
By various candidates
1. Why should readers vote for your candidates?
With Greens, you get local community councillors who work for the community. We’re not out of touch careerists. We listen and work harder to make better decisions for residents and local communities. We’ll continue to call out all the cruel cuts imposed by the government on the most vulnerable members of our community and work to preserve our natural world at the local level. We’ll also refuse to play the growth game and will continue to press for more realism about our limited natural resources and housing shortage.
By Kathryn Fisher, Histon and Impington
2. How would you balance the books while maintaining services?
My experience of running a much-loved local business helps me stay grounded. I will look after public finances with the same respect and care that I show for my own money and seek out opportunities to collaborate with other councils on sharing costs. I will stand firm against large vanity projects that offer poor value and lobby central government to remove restrictive national rules that make local councils less efficient. I will also press for an updated public report and independent professional advice on the This Land and Shire Hall losses.
We also need to do less harm to the local economy. I’ll push for the county council to be more active in managing road works to keep local businesses working and see council highways work brought under control of the council instead of contracted out.
By Darren Green, Romsey
3. What should we do to keep the county moving? Are you in favour of the GCP busway schemes?
We all want better public transport across the county, but I cannot support the Cambourne to Cambridge (C2C) busway proposal which combines appalling waste of public money with environmental vandalism. It’s not just the damage to Coton Orchard; the C2C busway doesn’t even link to major schools or employment sites and discharges into an already congested residential area without easy onward connections.
I cannot support the Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) busway either because it offers poor value for money and damages the environment. In the short term we need quick wins such as smart ticketing, better travel information, breakfast clubs for schools and flexi-time for employees. In the medium term we need a wider range of bus sizes and on-road bus routes to provide an effective service for everyone. In the long term, we need to consider light rail.
By Peter Rees, Newnham
4. How will you approach the transition to a unitary authority or authorities in the county?
Make no mistake, the new councils will have fewer powers than the current unitary councils, with many of their current powers concentrated at mayoral level.
Council mergers will cost our region an estimated £18million according to county council CEO Stephen Moir.
With no financial help from central government, that is going to hit jobs and services hard.
We will aim to reduce the financial damage caused by the reorganisation and in particular will petition the government to terminate the Greater Cambridge Partnership, close down the Cambridge Growth Company and Police and Crime Commissioners’ Office and transfer remaining
funds and projects to the new councils.
By Cllr Elliot Tong, Abbey
Labour
By Elisa Meschini
1. Why should readers vote for your candidates?
Labour holds the balance of power on the county council putting our policies at the heart of the county’s programme.
This means free school meals for our children who need them, better social care services for all users, and a net-zero council by 2030.
We have invested record sums in frontline services: education, social care, road maintenance, libraries, recycling, and buses.
We are building a social care service fit for the future. We are making it easy and safe to travel around the county.
We are breaking down the barriers that hold young people back. We’ve added new school buildings, supported arts and sports programmes for children, and started rolling out free breakfast clubs. We are putting the heart back into communities, investing in local hubs.
We are combating climate change and protecting residents from flooding and damaged roads.
We’ve achieved all this with 10 councillors. We can do much more with a bigger team. That’s why we chose pro-active candidates who will make a real difference for their communities.
2. How would you balance the books while maintaining services?
Labour has maintained high levels of services based on sound budgeting, despite savage cuts by the previous Conservative government. The Labour government is bringing in multi-year deals meaning we can plan ahead and spend efficiently.
We will lobby the government for a fairer funding formula that properly recognises population growth.
We will bring more services in-house to manage spending and to continue focusing on services for the most vulnerable. We will implement better contract management for higher value for money for residents.
We will live within our means and seek quick returns on investment.
3. What should we do to keep the county moving? Are you in favour of the GCP busway schemes?
Our fast-growing county requires strategic thinking about transport, to deliver reliable services that work for residents in urban centres and in more rural parishes.
We’ve secured record funding for road maintenance and with the Labour government promising more money for councils that mend roads fast, there’s never been a better time to act. We will get away from the poor value contracts left by the Conservatives, so we can renew roads, tackle soil-affected camber, and fix those potholes.
I am proud of the busway schemes as they bring faster, more reliable and sustainable public transport along with dedicated cycling and walking paths. The existing busway is already the most highly used piece of public transport infrastructure in the county. Busway investment goes together with our mayoral candidate’s plan to run franchised bus routes, so everyone can travel at the times they want, on the routes they need, at a price they can afford.
4. How will you approach the transition to a unitary authority or authorities in the county?
It’s currently difficult for residents to know which council is responsible for what. No wonder when half of county councillors are also district councillors.
We will embrace the government's ambition to simplify local government and to give back control of more services.
We will work with ministers and our communities to identify the most practical unitary model. We will involve residents in deciding, and we will implement the resulting proposals without fuss, without unnecessary posturing, and without waste.
Our manifesto: cambridgelabour.org.uk/2025-manifesto/.
Liberal Democrats
By Lucy Nethsingha
1. Why should readers vote for your candidates?
If you want to elect strong local champions who put people and places first, believe in strong local decision-making, and will fight for a fair deal for every part of Cambridgeshire, it’s got to be the Liberal Democrats—not least because we are the challengers to the Conservatives across the county, and to Labour in Cambridge.
2. How would you balance the books while maintaining services?
The new county council will need to fix the results of years of Conservative cuts and mismanagement, while facing a further cash squeeze from the Labour government. Liberal Democrats have a strong record of running councils well, and we understand the challenges ahead.
Cambridgeshire makes an amazing global contribution to our economy, from health and biotech to manufacturing and food production. But it can only continue to do that if it is a healthy and happy place to live.
Fixing the crisis in the health and care system is a top priority for Liberal Democrats. Councils like Cambridgeshire that have responsibility for social care face special cost pressures, but we can be trusted to work hard to improve care services locally.
3. What should we do to keep the county moving? Are you in favour of the GCP busway schemes?
Travel and transport come up time and time again on doorsteps. Liberal Democrats will continue to do what we can to repair our rapidly collapsing road network, left in a dire state after years of Conservative neglect. And we’ll need to press the Government hard for extra funding to address the scale of the problem.
We need better walking and cycling routes, and good public transport across the whole of the county, to address gridlock in Cambridge and isolation for many in our rural areas without access to a car.
Bus services are vital for people to reach schools, colleges and jobs. Busways are a major part of the transport plan for the area around Cambridge, but they are not enough. We need to build a consensus on what a transport system for the future should look like, working as a coherent whole and including not only better bus services across the whole of Cambridgeshire, but a mass transit system for Cambridge and its travel to work area that is fit for the future.
4. How will you approach the transition to a unitary authority or authorities in the county?
As if all this was not enough, the Labour government is throwing councils an additional challenge, insisting on changes in council boundaries and responsibilities. This will mean fewer, larger councils doing the jobs of both district and county councils. These new ‘unitary’ councils will need to be large enough to manage the financial risks of social care and maintaining our roads, but also local enough for residents to feel that their council is truly theirs and really does reflect the place where they live.
We would not have chosen to have to focus on reorganising local government when the practical needs of our communities are so great and the costs so challenging. But we will work together and with partners across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and consult local people to try to find the right outcome for our area and its residents.
Reform UK
By Ryan Coogan
1. Why should readers vote for your candidates?
If you want real people that put family, community and country before their own political party it is time to give Reform a chance rather than the legacy politicians that have let us all down. Allow successful local people to put your priorities first, rather than the wasteful spending we have seen. Local councils should be about common sense and investing tax payers money into front line services, not liberal vanity projects.
2. How would you balance the books while maintaining services?
Reform’s top five priorities for Cambridgeshire:
Law-abiding people should be able to live without fear. We will recruit dozens more community officers and reclaim our streets. We will hold failing police forces to account. No more politically correct woke policing.
We want to stop the war on motorists. We need to be building an environment to support small businesses.
No more £200,000 salaries for incompetent bosses. Stop rip-off charges from private contractors and agencies. No more politically correct, ‘woke’ nonsense. A Reform-run council will make less money go further.
Potholes are dangerous and should be dealt with in a quick and cost efficient manner. Your Reform council will get this crisis under control.
Too often local people to to the back of the queue. We will fight against government rules and put local people at the front of the queue.
3. What should we do to keep the county moving? Are you in favour of the GCP busway schemes?
There is so much waste in local government, it is because we have career politicians making the big decisions rather than people from a business background.
You only have to look at the Labour government to see everything that is wrong with our political class.
We have seen the liberals squandering our council financial situation where so many services are broken, but we have some great multi-million pound vanity projects appearing around the county whilst our roads crumble away.
Cambridgeshire Council is wasting over £130,000 a year on translation services. Spending £18m on a new office, only for staff to work from home. Council tax has gone up by 25 per cent in the last five years and shows no signs of slowing down under the other parties. We need to bring in a new mindset rather than taking more money out the pockets of hardworking residents.
4. How will you approach the transition to a unitary authority or authorities in the county?
We have seen the Labour party and the Conservatives work together to cancel elections across the UK. We have councillors that will get seven-year terms now. While the two failed parties are terrified of the rise of Reform, cancelling elections the way they have is the behaviour of dictators, unfit to be in power in a democracy.
At the same time we as a party believe less politicians and high paid civil servants is a good thing.
These changes should be put to the people to reset the balance, the politicians should serve the people, not the other way around.
If you want change on 1 May in Cambridgeshire, you have one choice: Vote Reform.
We will fix it!
Independents
Voters heading to the polls on 1 May will also have the chance in some divisions to vote for Independent councillors.
They currently play an important role on the county council, as Independents form part of the coalition – with Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors – running the council.
In Cambridge, David Carmona is standing as an Independent candidate in the King’s Hedges division.
In South Cambridgeshire, Guy Lachlan will stand as an Independent in Cambourne, and Mark Howell will stand in Papworth and Swavesey.
There are no independents standing for the county council within divisions in East Cambridgeshire.
In Huntingdonshire, Independents standing include Tom Sanderson in Huntingdon West, Robin Carter in Somersham and Earith, Julie Kerr in St Ives North and Wyton, Kevin Reynolds in St Ives South and Needingworth, Sam Smith in St Neots Eynesbury. Bev White will stand for the Party of Women in St Neots The Eatons.
In Fenland, Independents standing include Dal Roy in March North and Waldersey and Barry Wainwright in Whittlesey South.
