Independent candidates aim for change in elections

Catherine Bunting, Stuart Wilson and Anne-Marie Vladar will stand for Buckinghamshire Council in May

Three independent politicians said they hoped to be part of a "massive change" in a county when they stand in their local government elections later this year.

Catherine Bunting, Anne-Marie Vladar and Stuart Wilson are among 25 unaffiliated contenders who plan to stand for Buckinghamshire Council on 1 May.

Ms Vladar said "independents are the way forward" and were "sensible heads that have a bit of courage and will stand up for their areas".

Martin Tett, the Conservative leader of the authority, said that "anyone who puts themselves forward for election deserves to be commended", but added "the term 'independent' can be very misleading".

Mr Wilson said he was "quite shocked" by what he saw when he was briefly a member of the Conservative Party

A Boundary Commission review has reduced the number of councillors on the authority in the next election from 147 to 97.

Mr Wilson, who the leader of the Impact Alliance group (which includes Labour, independents and a Green Party member) on the Conservative-led council, said "too many of our meetings are dominated by political posturing and ideology".

He said he joined the Conservative Party to vote in the 2019 leadership contest and was later selected as a council candidate, but left when his MP, Dominic Grieve, was ejected from the party.

Mr Wilson said he was "quite shocked" by "what went on inside a political party" and vowed to "remain an independent".

He hoped by putting up a good number of "excellent independent candidates", they could have "a significant impact" on Buckinghamshire's political balance.

Catherine Bunting stood as a Green Party MP in last year's general election, but has since left the party

Ms Bunting stood for the Green Party in Wycombe in the general election last year, but she has since left the party because she believed it was "bringing in more national policies" and was "pro-HS2", when many people where she lives in Great Missenden were not.

She said people told her that they were "fed up with politics" and "just want to vote for the person who is going to speak up for them".

If elected, she said, she would be looking to form a group with other independents "to support each other", but they would remain independent and "speak up for our individual communities, because they all have slightly different challenges".

Anne-Marie Vlader said her work as a parish councillor has given her an insight into how local government works

Anne-Marie Vladar is an independent parish councillor in Chalfont St Peter and said that the experience had given her an "insight into how [local government] operates".

She felt that councillors should ask "more questions and look at reports and read emails, and not just put their hand up when they are told to".

Tett, the leader of Buckinghamshire Council, said his Conservative group were "a team of residents focused on making Buckinghamshire a great place to live, work and bring up a family".

He suggested that people who choose to vote independent may not be comfortable "with the fact that in so many cases they are actually voting to support policies with which they would fundamentally disagree".