Hampshire local elections, 2026
Winchester Eastgate needs a councillor who will speak up for the city’s character, push back against top-down decisions, and press Hampshire County Council (HCC) to do the basics properly.
I will use my role to promote needed changes for my fellow residents in areas of HCC control – roads, transport, school access, visible local services, the infrastructure consequences of development – and stand up for our interests against local government reorganisation from above. Simultaneously, I will use the privilege afforded to me to campaign for a wider Wessex-based alternative: where at regional, county and city-level, power is rooted in place, with proper consultation of residents, and is held accountable to communities.
Action before agendas
A county council needs to get the basics right: decent roads, proper maintenance of pavements and drainage, practical transport links, fair access to school transport, and protection for local services.
I will press HCC for:
- proper road repairs, not continual patching;
- transport that serves local communities, surgeries and schools;
- stronger defence of everyday services from neglect or decline.
County politics impacts many things affecting you in your daily life. Winchester Eastgate deserves a councillor who will keep pressing on those practical, local issues first, instead of being treated as an afterthought to the London-based parties’ wider national agendas.
Community before development – scrutinise Bushfield Camp proposals
Too often, local development is hastily pushed forward, where the wider community impact – congestion, surgeries, drainage, nature – is treated as an afterthought. Residents have rightly raised concerns about the proposed development on Bushfield Camp, with the city centre currently housing many vacant lots that are better suited for redevelopment.
As HCC is responsible for the county consequences of growth, traffic, biodiversity, and water drainage, I will scrutinise such developments on their wider impact, pushing for HCC to put in objections where an application fails to meet standards and the needs of the community.
Winchester before Whitehall – against Labour’s top-down approach
Labour’s current plan for “Hampshire and the Solent Combined Authority” may well be an attempt at ‘devolution’, but it nonetheless vests power in a single metro-mayor, who will absorb many powers from local government. Furthermore, they want to group Winchester with other areas, such as parts of the New Forest, into larger local government areas.
Wessex Regionalists, by contrast, stand for real devolution, keeping political power as close as possible to those it affects, our communities. In negotiations with Whitehall we must fight as hard as possible to keep Winchester residents having as much of a say as possible in how the future of our city is governed.
A vote for James Crabb for Winchester Eastgate is a vote for an independent-minded Winchester resident, committed to taking pride in our local area’s character and biodiversity, free from national party directives: it’s a vote in favour of better county services, for stronger local and environmental stewardship, and for a voice for Winchester in Hampshire.