2022 Plymouth City Council election

Plymouth City Council held local elections as part of the 2022 local elections. The council elects its councillors in thirds, with a third of seats being up for election every year for three years, and no election each fourth year, to correspond with councillors' four-year terms.^[1][2] Councillors defending their seats in this election were previously elected in 2018. In that election, eleven Labour candidates and eight Conservative candidates were elected.

Elections in Plymouth are usually competitive between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party.^[3] The council was controlled by the Labour Party from the 2018 Plymouth City Council election until the 2021 Plymouth City Council election, when the council entered no overall control, with no party holding a majority of seats. One Labour councillor elected in 2018—Kevin Neil—was suspended from his party in the same year.^[4] Another Labour councillor, Chaz Singh, left his party in 2019.^[5] Several Conservative councillors left their group to sit as independents, including the former council leader Ian Bowyer, after two of them were suspended by the group leader Nick Kelly for publishing a press release supporting a reduction in the speed limit on the A38 road through the city.^[6]

The Conservatives made gains in the 2021 Plymouth City Council election and Nick Kelly was voted in as council leader with a minority of seats.^[7] In October 2021, the Conservative councillor Shannon Burden left the Conservative group to sit as an independent.^[8] In November 2021, the Conservative councillor Nigel Churchill left his party to sit as an independent councillor after he said complaints about breaches of the code of conduct were not being properly investigated.^[9] In the same month, Kelly was suspended from the Conservative Party over an interview about the murder of Bobbi-Anne McLeod in which he had said "everybody has a responsibility not to try to put themselves in a compromising position", which was characterised as victim blaming by women politicians in the city.^[10][11] In January 2022, another Conservative councillor, Stephen Hulme, left the Conservative group to sit as an independent.^[12] Kelly's suspension was lifted in the same month.^[13] In February 2022, another Conservative councillor, David Downie, was suspended from the group, leading to the Conservatives and Labour each having the same number of seats on the council.^[14]

Kelly's budget failed to pass in February, with a Labour amendment passing instead that froze council tax. Labour called a vote of no confidence in Kelly.^[15] A Conservative councillor told the Plymouth Herald that some group members might abstain in the vote.^[16] Kelly lost the vote, with 29 councillors voting no confidence, 23 voting confidence and one abstaining.^[17] Independent councillors were split, with Singh supporting Kelly in the debate.^[18] Two Conservative candidates were nominated to replace him: Vivien Pengelly, a former council leader, and Richard Bingley. Bingley was elected council leader with 26 votes to Pengelly's 12, with the remaining councillors abstaining.^[18] Bingley had previously been in the Labour Party and the UK Independence Party.^[19]

Later in March, the lord mayor of Plymouth, the Conservative councillor Terri Beer, resigned from the Conservative group and the Conservative Party to sit as an independent councillor in response to Bingley's election, calling his new cabinet "lacking in experience and ability" and that her party locally had "been run into the ground by unelected chairpersons not from South West Devon".^[20] She accused the new leadership of bullying. Her resignation meant that the Labour group had more councillors than the Conservatives.^[21]

The Conservative councillor David Downie was blocked from seeking selection by his local party in early 2022. He was suspended from the Conservative Party after questioning the decision, and later resigned his party membership after Richard Bingley became council leader. He said that the new cabinet had too many new councillors and he was "very concerned for the city, for the lack of experience and knowledge". In March 2022, he announced that he would run in Budshead as an independent candidate.^[22]

Plymouth Labour published their manifesto on 30 March 2022. They pledged to cancel plans to remove bus shelters, invest money in roads and pavements, build more homes and buy empty properties.^[23]

In April, recordings were published of a conversation between Bingley and the independent candidate Danny Bamping that had taken place in February. Bingley was recorded saying the then council leader Nick Kelly was a "weak, two-faced git" who had "been caught crossing me big time", and predicting that he would shortly no longer be council leader. He compared the Conservative councillor Maddi Bridgman to Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who served as vice president to Saddam Hussein, and said that the independent councillor Chaz Singh, who had supported Kelly, "needs to quickly shift his alliance". Kelly said he was "disappointed, appalled, and shocked".^[24] Bridgeman said she was "devastated by the vitriolic attack", and called for Bingley to resign, as well as asking their Conservative Association to suspend his membership.^[24][25] Margaret Boadella, the Conservative Association chair, said that people upset at Bingley's remarks should "do what I did when Downie was ranting at me, shut up and grow up".^[26]

Plymouth Live reported that Bingley had appeared in a YouTube video in June 2020 in which he said people shouldn't "worry too much about climate change in itself", that people should cycle less, and that the COVID-19 pandemic was a "mildly severe flu pandemic".^[27][28] In response to the report, he said that he had taken action against climate change since becoming council leader, and that his comments about COVID had been made early in the pandemic.^[29] Six councillors who had left the Conservative group to sit as independents during Kelly's leadership defended Bingley, saying that he had been smeared by "a small collective of disgruntled councillors".^[30]

Statements of persons nominated were published on 6 April listing all validly nominated candidates. In order to control a majority of seats on the council, the Conservatives would need to win twelve of the nineteen seats up for election, and Labour would need to win sixteen.^[31]

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  Council composition following the 2021 council election
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  Council composition ahead of the 2022 council election
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  Council composition following the 2022 council election