Local elections 2023: Labour targets North Warwickshire seats

At the River and Roads cafe just outside the market town of Atherstone, Amy Adams and Lucy Ford are busy serving up cooked breakfasts to customers.

Neither are gripped by local-election fever, but they know the issues that matter to them. For Lucy, a single parent who works seven days a week, rising prices are one of the things at the forefront of her mind.

"The cost of living is increasing and minimum wage doesn't really help with the cost increases," she said. "I have to work enough to earn enough to be able to provide the best for my child, send him to the best nurseries, the best schools, where he's going to get the best education.

"I worry about that in the future, definitely."

The rising cost of living is one of the issues the Labour party has put at the forefront of its local election campaign, along with the NHS and tackling crime. These are largely national challenges which local councils have little control over, but for Lucy they resonate, which is exactly Labour's hope.

"I agree with those," she said. "The NHS is overworked, understaffed, underpaid. The cost of living is increasing."

Amy, whose partner built and owns the cafe, agrees.

"There are small businesses that are struggling, there are people that are struggling, there are children that are struggling. Energy bills have increased - everything's increased.

"There's a lot that could be done - helping small businesses is one thing, the cost of living, things for children to do. The list is endless."

The cafe Amy and Lucy work at is in North Warwickshire, a largely rural area dotted with towns and villages.

The borough council has been controlled by the Conservatives since 2015 and elects all of its councillors once every four years, with 35 seats up for grabs - so 18 is the number needed to take control.

The last time all the seats were contested was in 2019 - when Theresa May led the Conservative party and Jeremy Corbyn the Labour party. Locally, the Tories won 21 and Labour won 14 back then and while there have been some by-elections since, the Conservatives have retained control of the council.

But it's one Labour has controlled in the past and the party is hoping to gain ground.

In the same business park as the cafe, Abigail Grant-Williams is the director of the Tots' Clubhouse nursery, where children toddle about chasing bubbles in the sensory garden.

Abigail's family owns the business park and, for her, national messages matter less than local issues.

"I am, and our business is, very much focused on local needs," she said. "So we are thinking about leisure facilities, we're thinking about health, we're thinking about very localised services.

"We're not particularly interested at this point in what's going on in the rest of the country."

Nursery teacher Natalie Wardall has a similar view. She is clear on the local issues she cares about, but less sure who might address them.

"I'm a swimming teacher as well, so pools are a big thing to me," she said. "Swimming lessons for the children I think are really important, and more outdoor experiences for them.

"Learning is a massive thing but I think there's nothing more important than chucking them outside and letting them learn in the environment around them. It's not all about sitting them down and doing maths activities all the time, it's about local facilities in the area offering them a wider range of activities."

Asked what she thought about Labour and the Conservatives, Natalie said: "I wouldn't have a clue….. no idea."

These elections are about who runs local services but they will also be seen as a measure of the national mood. For Labour, they are an important staging post as the party attempts to regain power; a test of whether the party's pitch and poll ratings can translate into votes.

In most areas of North Warwickshire, it's a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives, with a handful of independent candidates standing in some wards, as well as the Green Party and the Heritage Party.

In the centre of Atherstone, people cite a range of local issues they want addressed, from traffic and parking to a struggling town centres.

Terry and Susan Bradford have lived in the area for more than 70 years and feel there's been a real change from the town's "heyday of industry".

"Atherstone was a big employer," said Terry. "Everybody's feeling the pinch, and a lot of places are closing down. In a small town like this there's a lot of 'for sale' signs up everywhere."

In an sweet shop on the high street, it's a sentiment Sue Mears shares as she serves customers from behind a counter surrounded by shelves full of old-fashioned sweet jars.

"Atherstone is nothing compared to what it used to be. You have to go out of town to get an awful lot of things. Litter is quite a problem… and parking."

Labour is hoping to tap into a sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Dean Prince, out running errands in Coleshill - another local town - feels like it's time for a change at a local and national level but isn't convinced Labour offers enough of an alternative to the Conservatives.

"They all pretty much cut-and-paste the same things," he said. "Name a politician that doesn't."

In his view, there's too much focus on campaign messages geared towards elections.

"Everything is short-sighted and short term," he said. "There's no planning for the things that need to be done. I want to try and go for a complete change."

In places like North Warwickshire, Labour's hope is that it convince voters it offers a credible - and desirable - alternative to the Conservatives. Whether it succeeds in key areas in these local elections will be read as a marker of where it sits on the path to power.

This is the latest in a series of articles looking at the local elections. You can read Helen Catt's analysis pieces here on the Green party's campaign in Suffolk and the Liberal Democrats' in Newbury. We will be covering the Conservatives in the coming days.