Braintree - Electoral History 1973 - 2023

The new new Braintree District Council created by the 1972 Act, combined three Urban Districts - Braintree and Bocking, Witham and Halstead, together with the two surrounding Rural Districts of Braintree and Halstead. It created an Urban-Rural balance of 53% to 47%, with Urban Councils with politically based elections with a Rural area where the tradition was for Independent councillors, often returned unopposed.

The new district had parts of two Parliamentary constituencies within its boundaries, with the North of the district within the Saffron Walden constituency, with the rest within Maldon.

 Fig. 1 - Constituencies 1955 - 1970

Between 1955 and 1970, the Saffron Walden seat had been a safe Conservative constituency with R.A.B. Butler as MP until his death in 1965. 

The Maldon seat was also in Conservative hands  throughout the period, although it had been a gain from Labour in 1955. Even in 1966 the Tories held the seat with a majority of 500. The presence of both Braintree and Bocking, and Witham in the seat provided most of the Labour vote.

                                          Fig. 2 - General Elections 1955 - 1970 in Braintree

  

1973

County Council Elections

The District was allotted 7 councillors on the new County Council, with two wards for Braintree and Bocking one for Witham, and the remaining four based on electoral divisions on the previous County Council. 

 

                                             Figure 3 County Electoral Divisions 1973 and 1977

 The electoral divisions, hurriedly created, before wards had been decided, used parish and urban wards to create the divisions splitting Bardfield north and south of Braintree, and Coggeshall east and west of Witham. The election on 12 April 1973, gave the Conservatives four seats, with three to Labour, who took all the urban seats.  

Figure 4 County Council Election votes 1973

 

Figure 5 1973 County Council Results Map

 

 

District Council Elections 

Figure 6 - The First Ward Pattern 1973 and 1976

This map shows each of the original wards created for the first elections in 1973. The ward names were limited to numbers 1 - 32. Added are the names of the old local authority in which they were situated, together with a parish/old ward name. In wards with a number of parishes I have chosen the largest parish, or where it remained unaltered after the first rewarding, the new name. Thus Stour Valley Central for example is shown as the name of Ward No. 26 because the ward survived re-warding.

 Two months after the County Council elections,  the District Councils were elected on 7 June 1973. The next day the Press Association reported that the Council was hung with 21 Independents, 19 Labour, 14 Conservatives, 3 Liberals and 1 Residents Assocation. Further research when compiling the results slightly changes the figures with 22 Labour, 15 Conservatives, 15 Independents, 3 Liberals

The reason for the difference is due to a variety of reasons. The law had only recently changed to allow candidates to give their political party on the ballot paper. Some candidates were unaware of the right, others clearly felt that as they had no history of political affiliation it might be better to stay that way, 

 Prior to 1973, Rural District Councils were overwhelmingly political party free zones, and all the rural parishes in the District were represented by local councillors who, because of the small electorate were well known to their fellow parishoners. Whilst their colleagues in urban areas fought a political battle for seats, many rural candidates did not give their political party in their nomination papers either because they genuinely believed that party politics were not needed in local elections or that they were better off as Independents. The way in which the rural voters cast their ballots for the local candidate they liked best is perhaps best exampled by the fact that a Communist candidate secured 208 votes and second place in Yeldham.

8 Independents were elected without Conservative opposition and a two further Independent Conservatives were returned without Conservative opponents suggesting that the label was more to emphasise their independence than to suggest they had fallen out with the party and left.  

                                                            Figure 7 - The 1973 Results Map

 There were wards in which candidates from various groups were successful. The distribution of winning candidates was as follows:

 

The full results for each ward can be found by downloading the Elections Centre Handbook at https://www.electionscentre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Braintree-1973-2011.pdf

 

There follows a spreadsheet setting out the votes and shares for each ward, again based on the top vote principle.

 

The Labour party contested all but two of the rural wards but only pulled in 32% of the vote compared with 43% in the County Council elections two months previously. The Tories vote reduced as well by 16% largely because of the increase in the Independent vote. 

 

1974

 

General Elections 

 

The two General Elections of 1974 were contested on new constituency boundaries which had been drawn by the Boundary Commission before the 1970 General Election but not implemented because it had been blocked by Labour.

 

  Fig. 8 - Constituencies 1974 - 1983

 

The new constituencies made small changes to Saffron Walden by moving the two eastern Bardfield parishes to join the rest of the new Braintree constituency. Braintree was created largely from the existing constituency of Maldon. The northern part of the Rural District of Chelmsford was transferred from Chelmsford and a small part of the Rural District of Braintree was previously in Saffron Walden.

 

The new constituency of Braintree appears to have been slightly weaker for the Conservatives, and better for the Liberals compared with national performance.

 

 

 

1976

 

District Elections