Another win and a close miss in this weeks by-elections

In Kent, the Liberal Democrats secured an extraordinary gain in the Cranbrook, Sissinghurst & Frittenden ward of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council. This seat is actually in the constituency of high-profile Conservative MP Katie Lam.

 When this three-member ward was run on new boundaries in 2024, the Conservatives took two seats and the localist Tunbridge Wells Alliance won the third. In the local elections earlier in May 2026, the Conservatives held their seat while our candidate finished third behind Reform UK.

This by-election saw a dramatic turnaround. Supported by an energetic campaign team, Harry Wormington achieved a huge +22.9% surge in vote share to leapfrog both Reform UK and the Conservatives, winning the seat outright with 37.4% of the vote.

Huge congratulations to Cllr Harry Wormington and the team on a phenomenal win against both the Tories and Reform UK!

Lib Dem (Harry Wormington): 697 (37.4%, +22.9%)

Conservative: 590 (31.6%, -14.6%)

Reform UK: 392 (21.0%, -4.4%)

Green Party: 188 (10.0%, -3.9%)

We also  came within a whisper of another major gain in Bray, Berkshire  boosting our vote share by +20.1% to fall just 26 votes short of the Conservatives on a council we flipped in 2023.

There was a really interesting article in the Guardian written by Simon Jenkins ( see here) which argued the Lib Dems should more actively campaign for greater devolution of powers to local government given our strong belief in localism. He points out that we now have 76 leaders of local councils ( including our own Lee Parker here in Babergh) more than the historically high number of 71 MPs. 

The steady stream of Lib Dem wins in council by-elections tends to support his argument