The 2006 Colchester Borough Council election took place on 4 May 2006 to elect members of

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

Borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

Council in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control. After the election, the composition of the council was * Conservative 30 * Liberal Democrats 21 *

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

7 *

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Background

Before the election the Conservatives had run the council since the 2004 election and had 28 of the 60 seats on the council. The Liberal Democrats had 22 seats,

had 7 seats and there were 3 independents. 20 seats were contested at the election, with the

councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

s who were defending seats including the Conservative leader of the council, John Jowers, the

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

Terry Sutton and the Liberal Democrat group leader, Colin Sykes. However the Conservatives did not have a candidate in New Town ward due to an error on their candidate's nomination papers. As well as the parties who were defending seats on the council, the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

contested every seat for the first time and particularly targeted Castle ward. Independents who stood included Gerard Oxford in Highwoods ward, who was defending a seat he had won as a Liberal Democrat before leaving the party.

Issues

A major issue at the election was the relocation of the

bus station A bus station or a bus interchange is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. While the term bus depot can also be used to refer to a bus station, it generally refers to a bus garage. A bus station is l ...

to a temporary site, while a new bus station was being built at a new

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

. Meanwhile, a Visual Arts Facility (VAF) was being built on the old bus station site. 6 independents stood at the election as part of a Save Our Bus Station Campaign opposing the move, with the Labour party also opposing the building of the VAF on the old bus station site. However the Conservatives said the temporary bus station site would be better than the old site. Both the Liberal Democrats and Greens called for more

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...

, while the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties called for action on street cleaning. The Conservatives meanwhile defending their record in power, pointing to a number of new projects being started including a planned new community stadium.

Election result

The Conservatives made a net gain of 2 seats to have half of the seats on the council with 30 councillors, just falling short of winning a majority. Conservative gains included defeating the Liberal Democrat group leader Colin Sykes, with the Liberal Democrats falling to 21 seats. Labour remained on 7 seats after holding the only seat they had been defending, but polled less than the Greens in a number of wards. Overall turnout at the election was 36.4%.

Ward results

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colchester Council Election, 2006 2006 English local elections

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

2000s in Essex