Across Milton Keynes the Liberal Democrats had a successful election, successfully defending 3 seats and gaining 3 more. The results increased the number of seats held by the Lib Dems on MK City Council to 18 out of 57.
A summary of the election results in our main target wards this year is below.
Marie Bradburn retained her seat with another strong majority in 2024, receiving 54% of the vote.
Uroy Clarke successfully defended his seat in Broughton ward.
Graham Eaton was successfully elected in Campbell Park and Old Woughton ward, one of the three seats where gains were made from the Conservatives in Milton Keynes.
Duncan Banks was elected in Monkston, successfully defending the seat in Monkston following the retirement of longstanding Liberal Democrat Councillor Vanessa McPake who had represented the area for many years.
Tony Oyakhire was elected in Newport Pagnell South ward. This was a gain compared to when the 2024 seats were last fought in 2021, however Tony was first elected in the summer of 2023 following the resignation of the Conservative councillor who had been elected in 2021. Therefore this counts as a gain in the electoral cycle, and a successful defense following the by-election in 2023!
Scott Henderson stood for the party in Newport Pagnell North and Hanslope, and came second again. We're hoping to make more progreess in future elections, thank you to Scott for representing our party again.
Saleena Raja was successfully elected in Shenley Brook End, making a gain from the Conservatives here. The majority of 366 votes was much wider than last year where we only won by 4 votes!
Following the elections in 2024, Milton Keynes City Council now has the following councillors for each party:
Elections to Milton Keynes council usually happen 'by thirds', which means in a cycle of four years, in three of those years there are elections for a seperate councillor, with one of the three councillors up each year, the fourth year being a 'fallow' year without an election.
Thank you to everyone who represented our party in other wards. We had candidates in every part of Milton Keynes and the towns/villages within the borough, so people could vote for our party wherever they are.
Please back our campaign for proportional representation! While people living in the areas above will have known we were campaigning hard, the current First Past the Post electoral system punishes parties which campaign everywhere, by forcing them to target a smaller number of winnable seats. As a result in many elections there are a number of 'safe seats' which unfortuantly get ignored much of the time. We support proportional representation for elections so that the number of seats earned much more closely matches the number of people who voted for that party. This would then reward parties for campaignign everywhere, rather than just in a small number of marginal seats.