More than a fifth of places on Herefordshire’s parish and town councils have no candidates ahead of local elections on May 4, while the vast majority of those who are standing will get in unopposed.

Official nomination statements published for the county’s 212 parishes, as well as for the 30 “parish wards” which make up the town and city councils, show hardly any have enough candidates to force an election.

Taken together, Ledbury, Bromyard and Leominster with have barely 70 per cent of the town councillors they should have. Worst off is Ledbury, with just 10 candidates standing for 18 town council places.

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Ledbury councillor Stephen Chowns said: “As in the 2019 election, these people will become councillors unopposed, and will be seeking others to co-opt.”

Uniquely among the market towns, Ross-on-Wye will see two town council wards contested, although it too is one candidate short in a third ward.

Meanwhile a majority of village and rural parishes also face a shortfall, with 112 parish councils for which candidate lists have been published showing fewer candidates than vacancies.

In a further 13 mostly smaller parishes within larger “group parish councils”, no candidate lists have been published at all, indicating no candidates have come forward.

These are shown in purple on the zoomable map below. Parishes in red have an inadequate number of canditates, those in yellow have the same number of candidates as vacancies, and those in green will be contested.

This means more than one in five parish places will have to be filled later, if at all.

“If the parish council is not quorate then another election will be re-run again within 35 days,” a Herefordshire Council spokesperson confirmed.

Electoral law states that parish councils need at least one-third of 
member places to be present for meetings to be valid, “but in no case less than three”.

Worst off are Cradley and Kingstone, both short of seven candidates, while The Lea by the Gloucestershire border has just one candidate for seven parish council places.

A further 92 parishes have the same number of vacancies as candidates, and only eight – Almeley, Eardisland, Garway, Goodrich, Lugwardine, Staunton-on-Wye, Walford and Westhide – have more candidates than places, necessitating an election, the council spokesperson confirmed.

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The exception is Hereford, where nine of the 16 “parish wards”, which supply 28 members to the city council, will need to have elections, and no parish ward will be short of a city councillor.

Registration of parish, town, city and county council candidates closed on April 4. All 53 county council wards are being contested.

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