Labour lost 50% of the seats it held in Exeter (4 out of 8) but lost 80% of the seats in Plymouth, holding only 2 out of 11.

Both cities have a four yearly electoral cycle. For the first three years, one third of the seats are contested each year on rotatiion. The fourth year is a “pause” year. In neither city is 2027 a “pause” year. 

So 2027 will likely find Cllr. Phil Bialyk in Exeter  and Cllr Tudor Evans in Plymouth staring into the abyss.

Their claims to represent local views looks like a busted flush.

Psst – a word in your ear

Owl has always wondered to what extent these two Leaders have been whispering in ministerial ears on the subject of local government reorganisation, aka “Devon Disintegration”, especially regarding their expansionary plans to bring neighbouring communities within their grasp.

If so, the government would do well, in the light of these election results, to disregard any such whispers.

Exeter and Plymouth election analysis ‘tale of two Labour cities’

This year’s local elections in the South West were a tale of two Labour cities.

ByMartyn Oates www.bbc.co.uk

In Plymouth’s case the size of Labour’s majority and the fact that only a third of the seats were up for election made it a forgone conclusion that the party would still be running the city on 8 May.

Exeter too was only electing a third, but Labour’s small majority there made it obviously vulnerable to just a few seats changing hands.

In the event Exeter did slip into No Overall Control with the Greens taking three of Labour’s seats and Reform UK a fourth, while Labour managed to hang onto half the seats it was defending.

‘Established strongholds’

The council’s Labour leader was quick to say the results were much better than some had been predicting.

And he has a point.

Last year’s Devon County Council elections saw all of Labour’s Exeter seats snapped up by a combination of the Greens and Reform UK – the two insurgent parties which have been making much of the running in British politics ever since.

And what happens to Labour in Exeter arguably matters far beyond the city’s boundaries.

Labour has few established strongholds in the South West but Exeter has been its absolute bedrock over the last few decades through all the party’s up and downs.

So if Labour is in trouble in Exeter what does that say about its prospects in other parts of the region where its relationship to power has always been more tenuous?

Like Plymouth, for instance.

There is a strong and longstanding Labour tradition in Plymouth but it waxes and wanes.

This set of results – with Labour losing a great swathe of seats to Reform UK – suggests it’s now in the latter phase.

The implications of this for Labour’s future in the city are perhaps more significant than the headline loss of its majority in Exeter.

‘Impressively high figure’

Another eye-catching feature of the night was the turn-out figures.

Local elections often fail to enthuse voters but turn-out in some of the Exeter wards was nudging 50% – an impressively high figure.

At one point during the Exeter count there was audible astonishment in the hall when the turnout was announced.

So whatever you think of the results there’s no doubt a lot of people were very keen to shape the democratic process.

A correspondent has pointed out that St Loye’s lies in David Reed’s Exmouth and Exeter East constituency. 

LIBDEM gain but only NINE votes separate the LibDem, Reform and Conservative candidate. Here are both the voting numbers and the party swings.

• Joan Collacott CON 808 (25.34%) -23.23%
• Laila Jhaveri LAB 342 (10.72%) -25.67%
• Chris Owen REFUK 812 (25.46%) +25.46%
• Paul Richards LIBDEM 817 (25.62%) +18.97%
• Chloe Whipple GREEN 410 (12.86%) +4.46%

Turnout: 46.04% = 3,192 ballots among an electorate of 6,933.

4 ballots were rejected.

2026 Exeter City Council St. Loye’s election results – votes cast

2025 Exeter City Council St. Loye’s election results – party vote share change since 2024 elections

Labour has lost overall control of Exeter City Council after 14 years in power.

Likely form a coalition with the Greens? – Owl

Martyn Oates, George Thorpe www.bbc.co.uk

While the party remains the largest group at the authority, it lost five councillors from the previous time the seats were up for election in 2022, taking its overall number down to 18 – two below the majority mark.

The Green Party gained three seats to move to 10 seats overall and remains the second largest group at the authority while the Liberal Democrats gained a seat – taking their total to five.

Reform UK ended the night with three seats – a gain of two compared to 2022 – while the Conservatives lost a seat to have one councillor at the authority. Independents had no change to remain at two councillors.

Update: City council’s deputy leader Laura Wright was the highest-profile casualty of the night.

Just before parliament prorogued a week ago Richard Foord led a Westminster Hall debate on the question of Government support, or lack of it, for agriculture under the chair of independent MP, Karl Turner.

This followed his meeting the previous Friday with members of the  National Farmers’ Union in his constituency.

Westminster Hall debates only last 30 minutes but are an opportunity to put arguments and questions directly to the appropriate minister. In this case Angela Eagle, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The debates can be confusing to follow because MPs often make short interjections designed to make a quick point on behalf of their constituents, sometimes in collusion with the lead speaker. Two interjections are highlighted in Owl’s summary below.

Despite the topic being on “home ground”, not a single Conservative MP spoke. The full transcript can be found here.

Richard Foord started by saying that food security is fundamental to our national resilience. At a time of global instability, farming underpins the rural economy, although we tend to take the produce for granted.

Immediately, Sarah Gibson, Lib Dem, Chippenham interjected that Labour is compounding the damage left by the Conservatives, with an underspend of millions in the farming budget. Shockingly, the Government’s own statistics say that in 2023-24, between 17% and 29% of farming families did not turn a profit. 

Richard Foord continued: my Hon. Friend rightly mentioned farming profitability. Minette Batters, the former president of the NFU, conducted a review of farming profitability in December and came up with more than 50 recommendations. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister the Government’s reflections and progress on fulfilling some of those.

He focussed his subsequent remarks on three topics: international trade, tax and planning, drawing on his conversation with Devon farmers.

On trade he said that at a time when uncertainty on the international stage continues, food and farming policy should be about resilience. Instead, the Government preside over continued dependence on imports, higher costs and a system of support that is unpredictable and bureaucratic. Farmers are being asked to bear the brunt of shocks at a time when many of them are struggling to make ends meet.

On the balance of tax and incentives for the farming industry, he pointed out that Government policy is undermining the viability of many of our family farms. Farmers are not seeking to get rich; they dedicate their lives to the intense labour required to manage their farms, and ask for some stability in return—predictable costs, fair taxes and support systems that reward their productivity.

Lastly he talked about planning concerns. “As I understand it, there are delays in the planning systems across local authorities that are preventing farmers from doing the right thing. Last week, I talked to one who had applied for a cover on a slurry store and was still waiting, eight months later, for a verdict on whether he could go ahead and make the modification.”

In summary, at the end of his speech he said:

From what I understand, there is a national shortage of planning officers, and many of them are stretched across a number of things; they might be looking at applications for big housing developments. Sometimes, farm improvements that are geared towards improving environmental practices are quite low down the list for some of those planning officers. I question whether we might have dedicated planning officers who specifically look at some of the applications from farms. That would make a huge difference by improving the contribution of farmers to the environment.

To recap, we are calling on the Government to reduce exposure to volatile global inputs by supporting domestic fertiliser production. We are calling for a tax policy that recognises that family farms need stability, rather than the Government adding to global shocks with one or two of their own. We need farm support schemes that are predictable, accessible and fair, alongside systems for planning developments that work towards following clear timetables, rather than deadlines that continue to slip.

Farmers are doing their best in very trying circumstances. They are adapting and innovating, and trying to produce food for all of us while under immense economic pressure. They do not need warm words from the Government—they do not need “monitoring”. What they need now is a Government that are prepared to take action to match their rhetoric. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Here are some extracts from Angela Eagle’s reply for you to judge to what extent the points were answered.

Minister: I also want to talk about the Batters review and its 57 recommendations. We have already announced that we will take forward a number of the review’s recommendations, including the formation of a Farming and Food Partnership Board. Indeed, that board has already met and decided that horticulture will be the first agricultural sector to have a sector growth plan, which will be developed as part of the board’s work. I agree with the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth that we need to consider what we can do make the growing of fruit and vegetables more resilient; he pointed out that that is the sector where we have the most difficulty in generating resilience. The Farming and Food Partnership Board is also looking at the poultry sector.

We will continue to develop our farming road map, which will be published later this year alongside our formal response to the rest of the recommendations of the Batters review. This road map will set the course for farming in England up to 2050, setting out how farming will evolve in response to changing markets, technologies and environmental pressures. In developing the road map, we have held workshops, meetings and listening sessions across the country, to ensure that it reflects what farmers need on the ground to plan for the future.

I think that this is the first time since the second world war that a Government have tried to set more of a Government direction for agriculture, so that we can work with the farming sector to ensure that we can increase resilience and give food security the proper priority it deserves. By definition, some of that work means that we have to look through the near-term pressures and problems that the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth has raised today. However, it is important strategically that we are able to do that……..

I recognise the pressures many farm businesses face. Input costs can rise quickly and global markets, as we have seen recently, can shift overnight. That uncertainty makes it harder to plan, invest and employ, which is why the approach of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is both long term and practical: stable funding, and simpler, fairer schemes designed to make farming more resilient and sustainable in the future—sustainable both environmentally and financially.

I will first address fertiliser, because I appreciate it is the major input in an arable setting. It is a cost that is a real worry for farmers. Recent market volatility has seen a 40% increase in prices for some fertiliser products and DEFRA is monitoring the impact on agricultural supply chains. We have direct lines open with domestic fertiliser suppliers, commodity traders and farming stakeholders, including the National Farmers’ Union—in fact, I have just been in a meeting with Tom Bradshaw. We all do our bit to meet as many of our farmers and their representatives as possible to know exactly what is going on where, so that it can inform our decision making.

Better information helps farmers make decisions that are up to date with the current situation, which is obviously in great flux. That is why we asked the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board to increase the frequency of fertiliser price reporting, and welcome its move to publish price data weekly, giving farmers more timely and transparent information. We also recently ran a survey to understand how the rise in fertiliser prices and supply issues are impacting our farmers and land managers on the ground. Responses are being reviewed alongside other industry intelligence to guide how we shape future support.

DEFRA’s new nutrient management planning tool is supporting farmers by matching nutrients to crop and soil needs, enabling them to make the most of nutrient sources, reducing their reliance on artificial fertilisers. Over 500 farms have used this since it was launched. We are also consulting and gathering evidence to modernise fertiliser product regulations, improving future supply options and resilience.

The pressures imposed by events in the middle east only underline the importance of increasing the efficiency of fertiliser use. Whether through more effective use of technology or adoption of more sustainable farming practices, we can better equip our farmers and growers to produce food in a more resilient way. The Government stand ready to help farmers do just that, whether through our innovation funds and equipment grants, or our continued shift from area-based subsidy to environmental land management schemes……

Fuel is another issue that was raised in the debate. Price spikes can feed straight into farm costs, particularly for those who rely on red diesel. Red diesel continues to benefit from an 80% discount, saving farmers almost £300 million a year. There is also a 5p fuel duty cut in place from March until September. Where concerns have been raised about price transparency, we have raised them with the Competition and Markets Authority, which is monitoring petrol and supply prices closely. Industry bodies have been clear with us that fuel production and imports are continuing across the UK as usual. The Government continue to monitor sales, deliveries and stock levels, and well-established contingency plans exist should they ever be required.

The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth raised farming schemes and grants. I understand the pressure that the uncertainty we are now facing in the world because of what is happening in the middle east applies to farmers, coming as it does after the impacts of climate change-related extreme weather in recent years, which have damaged harvests. This Government will work with farmers to deliver long-term solutions to the risks of extreme wet and dry weather, and to increase profitability, because when farmers can run profitable businesses, it is good for the whole economy and vital for our food security.

Now to the second intervention that caught Owl’s eye – a swipe at council reorganisation.

Caroline Voaden, Lib Dem South Devon: I just wanted to make a brief Intervention on the issue of entry into farming. Devon county council has several farms and it is very keen to use them as a way to get young people into farming, especially those who do not have a family farm of their own. It is quite worrying what might happen to those county farms if Devon county council is divided up in the local government reorganisation process. Is there any way that they could be protected through the decimation of Devon, which might happen over the next year through LGR?

Angela Eagle replied: I will not get into the decimation of Devon; I will leave that to the hon. Lady. I have clocked the existence of county farms. I think they are a good thing and I have sought some advice on what we can do to support them sensibly, because they are a way for people to get into farming that we should cherish.

South East Water’s chair, Chris Train, resigns with immediate effect.

Is that enough? – Owl

committees.parliament.uk

The EFRA Committee has today [Friday 1 May] declared it has no confidence in the Chief Executive or Board of South East Water (SEW) to address the company’s multiple and ongoing failures and protect residents from disruption, highlighted by the major recent water outage in Tunbridge Wells.

• Read the report [HTML]
• Read the report [PDF]
• Inquiry: Reforming the water sector

In a new report the cross-party Committee finds SEW’s leadership’s incompetence has accompanied a culture of unaccountability that has perpetuated the company’s poor performance. Its wholly inadequate governance framework has also failed to hold its senior employees to account.  

The report comes after two Committee hearings into the major water outage in Tunbridge Wells in late 2025, in which tens of thousands of customers, many of them in care settings or vulnerable, were left without drinking water for two weeks. The Committee recalled SEW’s leadership after concerns about the accuracy of evidence it initially gave during a Committee hearing in January. 

The report states: “South East Water presents as a company devoid of proper leadership, riddled with cultural problems that raise serious concerns about the ability of the executive team, led by the CEO David Hinton, to bring the company back into compliance and deliver the services their customers deserve. Leadership teams play a major role in how company culture develops; culture change at this scale requires South East Water’s leadership to change.” 

The Committee is also calling on shareholders in SEW – Utilities Trust of Australia, NatWest Group Pension Fund and Desjardins Group and associated holding companies – to hold the company to account. 

A summary of the report’s conclusions and a timeline of major incidents are included below. 

Chair comment

EFRA Committee Chair Alistair Carmichael [LibDem] said: 

“We have taken the unusual but necessary step of declaring no confidence in SEW’s CEO and Board because we feel obliged to highlight the gravity of this extraordinarily poor situation. This is an exceptional failure of management and of corporate governance. The refusal of anyone in the company to be accountable for this failure cannot, in our view, be overlooked. 

“One cannot overstate the dangers of so many communities losing water supply for extended periods, including schools, GP surgeries and care homes. The Committee heard that many South East Water customers have so little confidence in the security of their supply that they are stockpiling bottled water because they fear the inevitable will happen again. In twenty-first century Britain that is an almost incredible state of affairs. 

“Someone in this company needs to take a grip, be accountable for its failings and to put them right. That should be for the executive leadership of the company and, failing that, it should then be the non-executive directors. That would normally be the end of the road, but when that fails, shareholders have a duty to act. We urge them to read this report and to take action. They can no longer be allowed to ignore the consequences for the consumers that they are licensed to serve.” 

Summary of the report’s conclusions

Failure to monitor critical risks 

SEW lacked the processes and oversight to identify mitigate risks at Pembury Treatment Works, where various asset failures led to a two-week outage in Tunbridge Wells last year. Among the most significant errors, SEW failed to carry out the jar tests that the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) had directly advised them to do which would have allowed SEW to understand why their remedial interventions were failing. Having failed to action DWI’s recommendations, SEW was “flying blind” at the time of last year’s Pembury incident. This was a fundamental failure. 

Failure to maintain assets 

One of the most fundamental and basic responsibilities of a water company is to plan for and have the staff available to maintain assets, particularly assets that are most vulnerable. 

At the time of writing, Ofwat is consulting on issuing a fine of up to 8% of SEW’s annual turnover (£22.46 million). 

The DWI said that routine maintenance and cleaning were not undertaken at Pembury before the Tunbridge Wells incident. Ofwat’s investigation, between 2020 and 2023, flagged issues with the maintenance of reservoirs, bore holes and trunk mains. Not enough resourcing and planning to tackle these problems had been put in since the 2019 Price Review, despite in many cases being costed for. 

Failure to invest 

Regulators told South East Water repeatedly over four years that it needed to invest in new infrastructure to be resilient to potential shocks. Single points of failure (such as at Pembury), supply shortfalls and a lack of regional connectivity should have been improved. 

Spending allowances in previous price reviews, determined by Ofwat, likely made for difficult spending decisions, but ultimately these decisions are the company’s responsibility. Worse still, through successive price reviews, SEW has either not attempted or failed to make the necessary investment case. This suggests shareholders also deserve a share of the blame. 

Failure to plan 

SEW has regularly used increasing water demands, and extreme weather to explain its failings. Ofwat and the DWI have shown that the company failed to model upcoming peaks and troughs and take the necessary steps to boost resilience. Its leadership’s approach to incident response planning is pitiful; there are signs that incident response plans either do not exist or are of poor quality, having little or no stress-testing to improve them. 

Failure to respond, communicate and deliver for vulnerable customers 

There has been widespread criticism of SEW’s provision of bottled water stations and home deliveries for vulnerable residents. During the Tunbridge Wells incident last year, some preselected sites for water stations were quickly abandoned after realising they weren’t suitable, and only three stayed open. Provision was too reliant on residents having access to cars and SEW relied on local authorities to distribute bottled water and provide toilets in some areas. GP surgeries, schools, nurseries and the Tunbridge Wells Kidney Treatment Centre had gaps in support. Deliveries were left outside some vulnerable residents’ homes overnight without telling them, or in packages too heavy for some to lift. 

There were failings in its communications, with incorrect information issued about bottled water stations and wrong postcodes provided. Communications were said to contain poor choices of language and lacked empathy. Given the number of outages SEW has overseen, it is remarkable that the company failed to learn and apply lessons. 

Group-think and obfuscation 

SEW’s leadership team has demonstrated a clear pattern of blaming factors outside of their control, even despite clear evidence to the contrary. A lack of data-analysis skills might be partially to blame, but there is also a clear culture of obfuscating responsibility that is seriously inhibiting their ability to analyse problems and learn lessons. The company’s investigations, as well as that of the DWI, have identified potential issues with a lack of challenge or groupthink within the company. 

The company even attempted to secure an injunction to block Ofwat from publishing a report that contained pertinent information to credit agencies. 

Timeline of major incidents 

Ofwat stated in a report in March 2026 that, for a decade, SEW has had one of the worst water supply interruptions performance in the industry. 

• In February/March 2018, a freeze-thaw event saw three areas in SEW’s Eastern region experience supply interruptions for more than 12 hours. 26,705 customers lost tap water supply throughout the company’s patch, with up to 6,000 of those customers having no water for more than 48 hours.
• In August 2020, tens of thousands of SEW customers experienced low or no water pressure due to a “high demand” event as temperatures reached highs of 34C, in combination with a new trend of people working from home.
• In February 2022 Storm Eunice led to nearly 86,000 customers losing supply, with Sussex the hardest hit. The storm downed power networks which impacted “over 100 assets” belonging to SEW.
• In December 2022 a freeze-thaw event saw 85,000 customers affected. SEW paid out £3,723,545 in compensation to 24,763 household customers. Supply was lost as leaks resulted from burst water mains. SEW said it carried out 316 repairs.
• In June 2023 several schools were forced to close due to supply interruption when reservoirs ran low after low levels of rainfall. Ofwat said it opened an investigation following this event, as SEW’s response had been unsatisfactory.
• In January 2025, a power cut shut down a water treatment works that supplied 5,000 properties in Kent. Water supplies were restored after six days.  
• In March 2025, a burst pipe flooded a treatment station in west Kent, which affected 7,000 customers, some of whom were cut off for five days.
• In July 2025, 3,000 properties around Herne Bay, Kent, lost supply, some for six days. SEW said a heatwave at the time was to blame.
• November to December 2025: a failure at Pembury Treatment Works left 24,000 properties – including business, schools, health and care settings without clean drinking water across 14 days.
• January 2026: a freeze-thaw event and Storm Goretti left up to 30,000 customers without water for varying lengths of time between 10th and 19th January. 6,500 customers in Tunbridge Wells lost supply, having already been affected in the previous month. 

Hmm? – (Brings back memories from 45 years ago and a famous quote from David Steel) – Owl

It has been an election buildup dominated by the rise of Reform UK and the Greens, and the contrasting woes of Labour and the Tories. But there is a chance that on 8 May the Liberal Democrats, largely ignored in recent weeks, could wake up as the biggest party in English local government.

Peter Walker www.theguardian.com

This is just one of several paradoxes for the party’s leader, Ed Davey, and his team. They are fifth in many national polls, with a rating barely changed from 2024. But Lib Dem bosses are sanguine, convinced that UK politics is now so different, so atomised, to make headline polling almost irrelevant.

One senior Lib Dem said: “A lot of people seem to be misreading the way things are going. We think we have some of the answers.”

In one sense, the ambitions are familiar. Barring an unexpected change of fortunes, the Lib Dems will increase their total number of councillors for an unprecedented eighth set of local elections in a row.

A particularly good night for the party, plus heavy losses for the Conservatives, could result in the Lib Dems overtaking Kemi Badenoch’s party. If Labour fared very badly, there is an outside chance this second place could become first.

One party strategist said: “It’s not something we’re necessarily expecting this time – it’s more likely in a year or two. But for all the fuss about Reform, year after year we are quietly making gains. It’s the tortoise and the hare.”

Beyond the raw metrics there will be two main gauges of success for the Lib Dems. The first is consolidation or progress in “blue wall” areas where they took dozens of parliamentary seats from the Conservatives in 2024. “In places like Surrey we want to show we can finish the job on the Tories,” as one Lib Dem MP put it.

“I call it electoral bamboo,” another MP said. “I’m still surrounded by Conservatives, but we are spreading out quickly.”

The other gauge, which feels less certain, would be gains on councils which, in recent years, have been less promising ground for the Lib Dems, such as Birmingham and Preston.

It is the latter category where Lib Dem strategists hope to test out a campaigning model based on a mixture of rigorous voter targeting and being able to, as one planner put it, “cut through the noise” of an increasingly fragmented political system.

For the local elections, this is based around occasionally Reform-adjacent retail policies, such as a demand to cut fuel duty by 10p to help with costs from the Iran war, coupled with relentless attacks on Nigel Farage, particularly his closeness to Donald Trump.

The party is now running its biggest-ever programme of digital adverts, most targeting Farage, contrasting his support for Trump with Davey’s repeated willingness to criticise the US president.

“Iran has had real cut-through,” one Lib Dem MP said. “It’s not uncommon to have someone complain about potholes and then switch directly to the war and their worries about Trump.

“It is also really notable the number of doors you knock on where people say they are desperate for anyone except Reform to win. Farage is really polarising.”

This phenomenon is central to a strategy aimed mainly at the next general election but getting an initial try-out on 7 May. Based on huge amounts of internal polling, the Lib Dems are working on the basis that about half of voters will do whatever is necessary to block Reform in their local area.

One senior Lib Dem said: “We are seeing huge, huge, levels of tactical voting, in a way we haven’t seen before.” It is this context that makes the party relaxed about polling about who will definitely vote for them, and to focus more on those who would consider it, perhaps tactically.

With about a quarter of voters seen as strongly pro-Reform – the “burn everything down and start again” sector, as one Lib Dem official put it – another quarter are frustrated with the government and flatlining incomes, but uncertain where to go.

This is where campaigning is aimed, based on a mixture of retail policies centred on the cost of living and presenting the Lib Dems, particularly Davey, as able to understand their worries but without the baggage or discord that comes with Reform.

One senior Lib Dem said: “We don’t need to chase the 50% who are already anti-Reform. They will vote tactically regardless of almost anything else. In 2019 we tried to win just with these people and got hammered. It’s easy to boost polling numbers and lose seats.”

This will, however, at most be a partial test. Local elections are not general elections: turnout is lower, and many voters are less worried about a Reform-run council collecting their bins than the idea of Farage in Downing Street.

But there will be lessons to uncover, including whether the Lib Dems’ electoral ground game still works in a five-party battle, and if Davey, whose performance has prompted some grumblings among MPs, has the ambition and charisma to expand the party’s brand outside its strongholds.

Thus far, the mood feels hopeful. “There is more work to do, but we are getting towards being on the right track,” one MP said. “Some of the movement on economy is positive.”

But with the two-party system seemingly smashed and voter loyalty a memory, all predications come with caveats. This is new ground for everyone.

“I knocked on a door and a man said he wanted to vote for Restore Britain,” one MP said, referring to the Rupert Lowe-led start-up party that sits even further to the right than Reform. “When I told him they aren’t standing here he said: ‘Well, it’s probably you then.’ That was a first.”