Candidates for Cryfield, Heronbank, and Lakeside announced for May local elections

Candidates standing to be councillor for an area encompassing Heronbank, Lakeside, and Cryfield have been announced ahead of local elections this May.

Warwickshire County Council is set to vote on 1 May to elect a new set of councillors, alongside dozens of other local authorities across the country.

Four Warwick accommodations south of Gibbet Hill Road – Heronbank, Lakeside, and the two Cryfield Village residences – will be included in this contest, electing a councillor for the seat of Lapworth and West Kenilworth.

There are five candidates standing for the division.

The Tories’ main challenger for the seat is likely to be the Greens, who came second in 2021

Incumbent Councillor John Cooke, who was re-elected in 2021 for the Conservatives with 1,450 votes, is standing down. Richard Hales, currently Chair of the Audit and Standards Committee on the smaller Warwick District Council, will attempt to succeed him as Tory candidate.

The Tories’ main challenger for the seat is likely to be the Greens, who came second in 2021 with 606 votes, and who have tried to target student voters at the University to help them defeat the Tories this time around.

Mark Stevens, a town councillor in Kenilworth, has appeared frequently on the Warwick Green Society Instagram, and is working with the newly-minted society to attract Warwick’s potential supporters.

Two other parties’ candidates boast similar ties to the University, and will likely be hoping to attract students to their political cause.

John Dubber, standing for the Liberal Democrats, was President of Warwick Students’ Union from 2001–02, and is now an SU trustee. Having attended both Birmingham and Harvard University since leaving Warwick, he now holds the post of CEO for University College London’s SU.

Labour came last in the seat in 2021, winning just 283 votes. The party’s candidate this year, Dr Kevin Purdy, is an Associate Professor at Warwick in the School of Life Sciences. A Doctor in Microbial Biology, he has authored over 45 research papers.

New to the seat this election cycle, Reform UK is mounting a serious challenge across Warwickshire, standing candidates in all 57 seats. Its candidate for Lapworth and West Kenilworth, Stiliyan Petrov, drew headlines with his candidacy for being the son of Stiliyan “Stan” Petrov, the former Celtic midfielder and Aston Villa captain.

In a video on the party’s X/Twitter, Petrov, whose father earned £57k a week at Aston Villa, argued the need for working-class voters to elect a voice that “actually represents them”.

He also suggested his ambition to one day stand as a Member of Parliament.

Students can find out the candidates standing in their own ward by entering their postcode into the Who Can I Vote For? tool

Beyond Lapworth and West Kenilworth, residents of Leamington Spa, Warwick, and Kenilworth will also be able to vote for their own councillors. This will include a large part of Warwick’s off-campus student population.

Students can find out the candidates standing in their own ward by entering their postcode into the Who Can I Vote For? tool. Those living in Coventry, which held elections last year, will not be due for a new ballot until 2026.

Nationally, the May local elections represent a challenge for both the governing Labour Party and the Opposition Conservatives.

While Labour contends with widespread unhappiness towards cuts to public services and stagnant living standards, it has a relatively low base from which to improve this year, having performed badly at the last election cycle in 2021.

Inversely, the Conservatives last contested the seats now up for election at the height of the so-called ‘Vaccine bounce’ under Boris Johnson, and have since lost three Prime Ministers and a general election.

In Warwickshire, where the Conservatives won a huge County Council majority in 2021, the Local Government Information Unit has downplayed the chances of the council outright changing hands

Smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats and the Greens will be hoping to make further gains, having secured historic results in the general election last year. But it is Reform UK for whom the local elections represent the largest opportunity.

With the party currently polling neck-and-neck with Labour, but boasting just four MPs, pundits have described the coming ballot as a key moment for Nigel Farage’s populist movement to prove itself as a coherent political force.

In Warwickshire, where the Conservatives won a huge County Council majority in 2021, the Local Government Information Unit has downplayed the chances of the council outright changing hands.

It suggested however that breakthroughs by the Liberal Democrats in Stratford-on-Avon would represent an opportunity for the party.

Labour, meanwhile, won control of four out of six constituencies in the county at the general election, and will similarly see an opportunity to advance.

Elections will be held on 1 May 2025, with polls due to be open from 7am to 10pm. You must be registered to vote.