{"id":573086,"date":"2026-05-08T14:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573086\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T14:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:38:13","slug":"local-election-2026-results-reform-take-control-of-essex-county-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573086\/","title":{"rendered":"Local election 2026 results: Reform take control of Essex County Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Big-name Essex councillors who&#8217;ve lost their seatspublished at 11:42 BST<\/p>\n<p>11:42 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-qs9kpv-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/f11a8471-90ae-4649-a7f0-df51be90ac91.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Ian Puckey<br \/>BBC Essex Senior Producer<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A number of senior Conservative councillors have lost their seats in the local elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">John Spence (pictured below), cabinet member for health and adult social care and county councillor for Chelmer Division of Essex County Council since 2013, lost out to Reform UK\u2019s Paul Clark in Danbury and the Hanningfields. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Another cabinet member, Peter Schwier, who&#8217;s known as the climate tsar, lost in Hedingham to 19-year-old Nathan Robbins of Reform. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mark Durham, the arts and culture cabinet member, lost in Maldon Rural North to Reform. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tom Cunningham, another cabinet member, was ousted in the Three Fields and Great Notley division. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Labour&#8217;s Ivan Henderson, the former MP for Harwich, also lost his county council seat, as did Dave Blackwell, an Independent on Canvey. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Southend-on-Sea City Council, long-serving Independent councillor Martin Terry &#8211; who served as cabinet member for community safety &#8211; was also ousted.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A man wearing a checked jacket and checked shirt looks at the camera. He is standing in front of some steps.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5004fd4e-5083-4c33-bb81-7500ca447fe8.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"627\" height=\"353\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Essex County Council<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big-name Essex councillors who&#8217;ve lost their seatspublished at 11:42 BST 11:42 BST Ian PuckeyBBC Essex Senior Producer A&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-573086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}