Local Election 2026. Baslidon and Essex

 

The local elections have been said to be a triumph for Reform UK PLC.  That's not the whole picture.  In Billericay, the Conservatives retained their seats. Not my ideal, but not the worse that could happen.  In Baslidon, Reform took 11 of the 14 seats, which is no surprise, as the Labour led council was very unpopular and apparently chaotic.

We will now see how the council responds to the planning applications that are going through, particularly in Billericay, where they had been rubber-stamped.  This led to an unreasonable amount of development, with no improvements in infrastructure.

Here's the new numbers 

Labour	12
Conservative	12
Reform	11
Independent/Other	7

Essex, meanwhile was won by Reform UK PLC, convincingly.

 

Party	Seats	Notes
Reform UK	53	Gained control of the council.
Conservative Party	13	Lost long‑held majority.
Liberal Democrats	5	Minor representation.
Independent	2	Includes non‑party councillors.
Green Party	1	Single seat.
Labour Party	1	Single seat.
Residents for Uttlesford (R4U)	1	Local party.
People’s Independent Party (PIP)	1	Local party.

 I can only hope we do better than Kent, where Reform made a complete mess.

How will the new council deal with the problems that they have.  The main issue for Essex that I see day-to-day is the awful state of the roads, but I suspect that that is not the worse problem they have.  I expect the Essex part of my council tax to rise by the maximum allowed next year, and for things in Essex to get slightly worse. 

Essex is a beautiful place

We decided to take a walk around Danbury, it was only supposed to be about two and a half miles, but because I didn't pay attention to the instructions in the guide book we ended up here:

Almost a mile from the start of the walk. Still, the tea (one pot = 3 cups) was very welcome, and the location wery pleasant. Brody seemed to enjoy it too, even though he doesn't really like walking on the side of a busy road (A414).

When we finally did get on the walk proper we realised that our guide book is dated 1994, and is a few years out of date.  Some of the things it describes are no longer there. So it took a little while for us to find the path, once on it we were soon in Thrift Wood where there used to be wild boar, and out the other side. Then past the golf course and into some fields.

This is where the beauty of Essex can really be seen.  We appeared to be miles from anywhere, on a lovely summer's day.  Brody can walk freely here, there are no horses or cows to distract him, and no streams for him to get muddy in.  Shortly after that we were back at the starting point:

Once seated in the garden we had a very nice lunch (Fisherman's Ploughmans), and drove home.  Our total walking distance today was about 4.7 miles.