Independents for Wessex – Local Elections 2025

On the 13th of April, Wessex Regionalists sent an email out to independent and minor party candidates for 2025’s upcoming local elections and by-elections. The email included a link to a Google Forms survey, inviting candidates to answer questions about Wessex, regionalism, devolution, and politics. We will, in due course, lay out the overall findings of our polling – but first, having been in contact with some of the respondents, we are delighted to offer our support and endorsement to the following candidates:

• Alan Charles Spencer (Independent), standing in the Ivybridge division of Devon County Council;
• Jon Hubbard (Independent), standing in the Melksham South division of Wiltshire Council; and,
• Matthew Jonathan Anthony Dean (Independent), standing in the Westbury West division of Wiltshire Council.

These independents are all in favour of more devolution for Wessex and for their local areas, and their values also align significantly with WR on other policy matters. Here’s an introduction to our 2025 local election endorsees…

Alan Charles Spencer (Independent) – Ivybridge, Devon County Council

Alan Spencer is a pro-subsidiarity independent standing in Ivybridge, Devon. He is favourable to regional government for Wessex, this having struck him as “sensible.” Describing himself sooner as a “regionalist” than a ‘federalist,’ he describes the possibility of devolved regional government for the regions of England as “a really good idea, for everyone to fight for their corner.”

Alan’s beliefs extend to his localism, and to his response to Labour’s recent mayoral authority plans. He sees Devon’s issues as somewhat unique, owing to its rural character. Like many of the Wessex Regionalists, he believes that the creation of “an all-Devon authority” is the best possible response to central government’s recent push for strategic mayoral authorities.

In 2024, he stood as an independent to become Member of Parliament for the South West Devon constituency. Alan works as a postman and has also been Mayor for Ivybridge Town Council since 2023. WR wish him the best of luck in his campaign to represent the electors of Ivybridge at the County level.

Details of his campaign are available to view here.

Jon Hubbard (Independent) – Melksham South, Wiltshire Council

Jon is an active and committed Wiltshire councillor seeking re-election in the division of Melksham South this May.

Much like WR, Jon is in favour of a devolved Wessex region, and, more generally, of regional government across the U.K. Likewise, he is skeptical of the government’s current approach to devolution and wants to ensure that democratic oversight will be maintained in any local government restructuring.

Involved with the Local Government Association, which represents local government at the national level, Jon is an excellent choice for WR supporters in Melksham in the absence of any official Party candidates.

To find out more about Jon’s work, you can visit jonhubbard.org. For his campaign, you can visit its Facebook page.

Matthew Jonathan Anthony Dean (Independent) – Westbury West, Wiltshire

Standing in Westbury West, Matthew Dean is seeking re-election as a Wiltshire councillor, a localist independent whose aims align with those of the Wessex Regionalists.

In particular, Matthew is a supporter of regional government as an addition to strong local government. He is not in favour of the government’s current approach to devolution and, like WR, doesn’t want to see Labour’s local government ‘reorganisation’ effectively centralise powers to mayors.

He would want to see regional powers devolved down from Westminster sooner than up from local government, a vision which largely aligns with proposals made in The Statute of Wessex, and WR’s principle of subsidiarity.

Matthew’s contact details can be found here (whocanivotefor.co.uk).