Epping Forest’s council leader says the Conservatives ‘good local record’ and focus on comparatively low council tax rates convinced voters to back the party.

On May 6 Epping Forest’s district elections saw the Tories defend 11 seats comfortably and pick up three vacant seats.

Not much changed on the day, with the Loughton Residents Association reaffirming their dominance in Loughton town, defending all the seven of the ward seats up for election while council stalwarts Jon Whitehouse (Lb Dem) and Simon Heap (Green) also defended their seats.

However, it was the county council elections where the Tories really excelled, picking up six of the district’s seats.

Cllr Chris Whitbread said he was “really pleased” with the “great” results and added he was delighted with voter turnout after 34.6 per cent of the electorate voted.

The council leader added: “We have had a really good record locally, on the district council level, of having the lowest council tax in Essex whilst protecting frontline services and investing in leisure and making sure that we deliver on local peoples’ priorities.”

Cllr Holly Whitbread was one of the party’s best performers, opening up a 500 vote margin the Epping and Theydon Bois county council seat ¬– heavily contested in years prior by the Liberal Democrats.

Cllr Holly Whitbread, who also held her Epping Lindsey and Thornwood Common district seat, said the Tories are already planning to push forward with their local agenda.

She said: “We are going to continue working really hard for local people to make sure we provide the best possible value whilst protecting frontline services.”

And while locally the Tories main political rivals are the Loughton Residents Association, Green Party and Liberal Democrats, both councillors had their eyes on Labour’s poor national performance, including losing control of nearby Harlow for the first time in nine years.

“I think Labour have been out of touch for a long time and they misread people”, said Cllr Chris Whitbread. “We saw that in the November 2019 election, they didn’t understand Brexit and they don’t understand what the peoples’ priorities are for today.

Cllr Holly Whitbread added: “If you look at their local election campaign they didn’t talk about the issues they were too busy talking about curtains and wallpaper to actually talk about the policies people cared about. We have had an extraordinarily hard year and actually people want to build back better and look to the future rather talk about small and petty issues.”

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