What's at stake in Oxford local elections this May?

The majority Labour administration secured control of the council in 2022 after winning 32 seats at the elections but since then 10 councillors have resigned from the party over Sir Keir Starmer's position on Gaza, leaving the party with no overall control.

The council leader is Susan Brown and the composition of the authority is 22 Labour, 11 Independent, nine Liberal Democrat and six Green.

Town hall. (Image: Ed Nix.)

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Labour will be trying to win back some of the seats it lost at the end of last year but since November there has also been a surge in the efforts of Independent candidates hoping to take advantage of the current political situation.

The Independent Oxford Alliance has put up candidates in many of the Oxford wards with the party saying it hopes to "bring a return of democracy" to the city, hammering scepticism of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) as a main point of electoral contention.

City council leader Susan Brown. (Image: Oxford City Council.)

Oxford City Council elects 24 of its 48 members every two years.

Half of the 48 seats of the council are up for election which translates to one councillor for each of the wards, with the exception of Blackbird Leys which has two seats available for the taking.

This is after the long-serving Labour councillor Rae Humberstone resigned his seat last month approaching his 75th birthday, saying he wished to open up the seat to a "younger person".

Below is a graph which indicates what the likely swing seats are for the upcoming elections:

We have calculated swing seats by areas where there was a 20 per cent difference in vote between the top two parties in the last local election.

The 2022 local election results were seen to reflect polling for the mainstream parties nationally which factored in public opinion of Boris Johnson and the 'Partygate' scandal.

We have previously done an article outlining the full list of Oxford candidates which you can read here.

Below is also an infographic to show you what the current political makeup of the council looks like:

There are no Conservative councillors in the city at the moment and it is uncertain whether the party's fortunes in Oxford are likely to change any time soon given its current polling nationally and eyebrows raised over the ravings of senior members such as former prime minister Liz Truss.

The last time the Conservative party had control in Oxford was 1976-1980.

A few seats were won by the Green Party from Labour at the 2022 election such as in Marston and Osney & St Thomas so it will be interesting to see whether Green seats are retained.

Some of the key issues that will be on the radar for Oxford elections this year are likely to be transport, air quality and the cost of living.

The Liberal Democrats previously said they were "ready to lead" after the resignations of 10 Labour city councillors last year but time will tell whether they manage to make any election gains on Thursday.