Green Essex 2013

In the county council elections held in early May, the Green Party captured its first seats on Essex County Council. There was no great secret as to why James Abbott and Michael Hoy were successful in taking seats in Witham and Rochford, the answer was consistent hard graft over a number of years.

The final make-up of Essex County Council is as follows:Conservative 42 seats

• Liberal Democrat 9 seats
• Labour 9 seats
• UKIP 9 seats
• Green Party 2 seats
• Tendring First 1 seat
• Independent 1 seat
• Independent Loughton Residents Association 1 seat
• Canvey Independent Party 1 seat.

The "targetting to win" strategy worked in that the party now has representatives in County Hall.  The advantage of county council elections is that there is no deposit to find, unlike in general elections, and this enable the party to field candidates in the vast majority of districts in Essex.

In Brentwood we had to field candidates who had little contact with the borough, and finance and targetting meant that no leafletting or canvassing was possible. Across the whole of the borough the party collected 500 votes (the overall turnout , 27.6%,was disappointing across the county). The 500 were fairly evenly spread across the four districts :

Brentwood Hutton 152
Brentwood North 116
Brentwood Rural 126
Brentwood South 106

It leaves us to decide what areas to focus on in preparation for the Euro-Elections and Borough elections scheduled for May 2014