IsleVote21: Find out which 2021 Isle of Wight council election candidates took part (updated)

Last updated:14, April 2024

Stephen Cockett – as Spokesperson for IsleVote21 – shares this latest news in connection to the upcoming Isle of Wight council elections. In his own words. Ed

The grassroots democracy project IsleVote21 have just concluded hosting meetings for each of the 39 seats that are being contested in this year’s county council election.

Over four days our six volunteers asked pertinent questions of would-be councillors to learn more about their experience, aspirations and personality.

One third of candidates attended
In total 46 of the 138 invitees attended (exactly one third – breakdown listed below) sadly the Conservative Party declined to partake, and in eight of the seats no candidates took part in this resident led grassroots project.

Those who did partake found our hosts to be friendly and completely unbiased in their approach, as is well reflected in the final output, we also moved six of our meetings when requested to try and accommodate as many candidates as possible.

Door remains open for late entries
The candidates themselves were extremely impressive and it’s been a pleasure to get to know them through this process.

We apologise most sincerely to those who wished to partake and for one reason or another were unable to do so – the door does remain open for late entries.

A great start
We have learnt some lessons that will be applied in four years’ time for IsleVote25, but it wasn’t a bad start for a national first exercise in local democracy.

Thanks once more to all those who were willing to come before the camera to take questions from us and the public.

Here’s the breakdown of how many people took part