Local elections 2025: Leader of Bucks Independents calls for more cross party collaboration

The Local Democracy Reporting Service is interviewing representatives of all the main political parties standing candidates in the elections.

Councillor Stuart Wilson said the Independents he leads in Bucks are a ‘political group’ rather than a political party, and that they could not be ‘put in a box’.

“There are bits of Conservative policy that I absolutely agree with and there are bits of Labour that I might agree with and there are bits of Green that I might agree with,” he explained.

The 60-year-old, who represents Wooburns, Bourne End and Hedsor, criticised what he called the ‘pantomime’ of Buckinghamshire Council meetings, arguing there should be more cooperation and less political bickering.

“I would rather see working where you are having the best of everybody,” said the Independent, who works as a councillor full-time.

Councillor Wilson praised the ‘really good’ examples of collaborative working by Conservative cabinet members for transport, Steve Broadbent and homelessness and regulatory services, Mark Winn, who he said had consulted other councillors on work within their portfolios.

But he said the council’s ruling group could improve the way it consults members about decision making, pointing to the authority’s quiet recent removal of public comments on planning applications as one as example.

One criticism levelled at Independents is that voters do not know what they stand for, but Councillor Wilson said that although candidates may not be affiliated to a particular party, they all have a point of view on the major issues.

He said: “Independents stand for standing up for the community. If we feel there is a local issue of local importance, you have to be there to speak up for it.”

There are currently 18 Independents on the council, plus two Wycombe Independents, but around 40 Independents are standing across Bucks on May 1.

But would any elected Independents enter an alliance or coalition with the Greens and Labour, or even the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives or Reform UK?

Councillor Wilson said: “I don’t know that any of us could answer that question right now. You can’t rule anything out at this stage. You have to be open-minded about it.”

The councillor said Bucks needed a ‘workable council’ and ‘diversity of opinion and collaboration’, claiming he had good relationships with members across the council chamber.

He also praised a number of the council’s decisions, including its investment in setting up 10 new children’s homes, which he said was a ‘really good idea’ that could be replicated in other departments as opposed to ‘crazy investments we don’t understand’.

He said the council’s former social worker academy was also a good idea, as was the council’s recent decision to apply for a lane rental scheme to speed up roadworks, which are a nuisance for residents.

But despite the progress on some issues, Councillor Wilson said the ‘rising costs’ of providing services is one of the biggest issues facing the council.

The unitary authority is on course to have made overall savings of more than £230 million from when it came into being in 2020 through to the end of the current budget period in 2028.

“My concern in all of that is we have more staff now than we had at the beginning,” Councillor Wilson said, as he called for the council to further embrace efficiency and its use of artificial intelligence.

The Independent said he was ‘deeply concerned’ by some recent decisions, including the council’s plans to close some day and overnight respite centres.

No decision has been made on these plans, and the council has pledged to further invest in other day centres.

But Councillor Wilson argued that the council ‘knows how to run’ the centres, and that it risked ‘exposing itself’ and the vulnerable disabled adults who use the sites if it did proceed with the plans.

The candidate also said the council was ‘dismissive’ of some key partners such as the NHS, which he said was a crucial stakeholder in the provision of new housing due to the impact of developments on local services.

Councillor Wilson said he was ‘very concerned’ about the Labour government’s new annual housing targets for Bucks, which have increased 42 per cent on the previous housing need formula.

He said Labour’s policy was ‘fundamentally flawed’ and added: “I am very worried in terms of where the extra housing will be expected to go, if we won’t have the infrastructure to support it – roads, healthcare, hospitals et cetera.”

On roads, the candidate criticised the Tories’ release of reserves cash to fix potholes as ‘stunts’, adding that the ‘appalling’ state of the county’s roads was a problem he would ‘like to get underneath’.

Another issue the Independent spoke about was the council’s backlog of education health and care plan (EHCP) assessments for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), which has in part been caused by a national shortage of educational psychologists.

He said: “The system seems to be that you have to fight the system to get what you want, and my understanding is that you have to have the wherewithal to go to tribunal, and if you go to tribunal, you are likely to win.

“I think it is wrong that we have an approach or a mindset that says, ‘let’s force people to go to tribunal’, because not everybody either has the means or the knowhow to do that.

“There is something fundamentally wrong in the system, so something has to be overhauled there.”