Bromyard West by-election 10 March

We are heading to Herefordshire for this week's local by-election and the ward of Bromyard West.

The vacancy has arisen as a result of the resignation of the previous councillor who had been elected under the banner of "It's Our County", part of the Independents for Herefordshire group who hold a plurality of seats on the county council. He had taken 60% of the vote against the Tories in a two runner race when the ward was last contested at the 2019 local elections.

There's no official candidate for the Independents for Herefordshire this time (at least not according to the descriptions on the ballot paper), but two independents are standing and the outgoing councillor has endorsed Nick Ferguson.

Quite a tricky one to predict. All three candidates have previous experience on the Bromyard town council, with Clare Davies having previously served as Mayor. If the Tory vote share remained unchanged at 40%, I guess they would stand a pretty good chance of winning unless one of the two indies can consolidate the rest of the vote very efficiently. The early money has been for a Conservative gain and their vote has held up quite well in some recent local by-elections such as last week's feature in Sevenoaks.