Election: Lib Dems Win in Guildford and Take Control of New West Surrey Council

Published on: 8 May, 2026
Updated on: 13 May, 2026

George Potter, elected in Guildford East, and Guildford MP Zöe Franklin celebrating the Lib Dems’ capture of 12 of the 20 Guildford seats in the West Surrey Council election.

Voters went to the polls yesterday (Thursday) to decide the make-up of the new West Surrey Council, due to come into effect next year. The Guildford Dragon team was at the count today (Friday) bringing you a running report of the developments and providing the full results for the Guildford area.

May 9: This article has been updated with a video of candidates celebrating and pie-charts for every ward show vote share by party. Note Labour had only one candidate standing per ward.

The Dragon NEWS team at the count: From left to right, Esme Campbell, Hugh Coakley, Martin Giles and David Reading. Not included in the photo is our roving reporter Crisitina Trujillo.

May 9 Watch some of the candidates celebrating their elections yesterday.

Following times relate to the date of the count May 8

10.09pm

West Surrey count has finished – confirmed Lib Dem majority with 56 seats and 36 per cent of the vote share.

7.09pm

With the Lib Dems taking 12 seats in the Guildford area, the overall results for the new West Surrey Council just after 7pm showed:

Lib Dems with 31 seats and a vote share of 34 per cent.

Conservatives with 17 seats and a vote share of 27 per cent.

Reform UK with four seats and a vote share of 19 per cent.

Farnham Residents with two seats and a vote share of three per cent.

R4GV with one seat and a vote share of one per cent.

Runnymead Independents Residents Group, one seat with a share of one per cent.

So far, Labour and the Greens have won no seats.

6.40pm

The Conservatives have won Shere ward. The successful candidates are Bob Hughes and Victoria Sena.

6.34pm

The Conservatives have won Worplesdon ward. The successful candidates are Bilal Akhtar and Jonathan Lord.

6.29pm

The Lib Dems have won Guildford South West. The winning candidates are Angela Goodwin and Steve Hives.

6.26pm

Catherine Young (Residents for Guildford and Villages) and David Evans (Conservative) have been elected in the Horsleys ward.

6.05pm

The overall results so far for the new West Surrey Council show the Lib Dems with 21 seats, Conservatives ten, Reform UK four, and residents’ groups three. Twenty-eight seats out of 90 have been declared.

5.49pm

The Lib Dems have won Guildford East. The winning candidates are George Potter, whose vote of 2,818 is the highest so far, and Joanne Shaw.

5.45pm

The Lib Dems have won Guildford West. The successful candidates are Julia McShane and James Steel.

5.25pm

With Farnham Central and Farnham South reportedly declaring for the Lib Dems, the party must be more confident of taking overall control of the new West Surrey Council.

5.10pm

Big win for the Lib Dems in Guildford South East. The successful candidates are Vanessa King and James Thornton, securing 47 per cent of the vote.

4.53pm

The Lib Dems have won Ash ward. The winning candidates are Carla Morson and Phil Bellamy.

4.36pm

The Conservatives have won Shalford ward. The successful candidates are Matt Furniss and Sallie Barker.

4.20pm

The Lib Dems have won Guildford North. The successful candidates are Masuk Miah and Katie Steel.

4.14pm 

The first result, for Guildford North, is to be announced imminently.

3.55pm

Very little activity by the tellers at the counting tables is probably a sign that the results will soon be announced.

3.45pm

Claire Whitehouse and Matt Fray, Green Party candidates for Guildford South West, told a Dragon reporter that their door knocking showed serious concerns about local issues.

They cited matters like the debt that  West Surrey will be saddled with and the potential consequences for public services including education, special needs, housing, the general quality of local  roads and environmental issues.

3.20pm

Reform UK members are resigned to not winning any seats in the Guildford area, but are expecting a substantial percentage of the popular vote.

3.15pm

While many candidates have been talking to us throughout the count in normal fashion, a Guildford Dragon reporter has been told that no Lib Dem candidate will be available for interview until after all the results have been announced, “if at all”.

3.12pm

Different media sources including the BBC are reporting that the Liberal Democrat Party is “already claiming victory in West Surrey”. However, the counts in West Surrey are not due to finish until 6pm today and in Guildford we are still waiting for the first result to be announced.

2.45pm

Announcement of the first result is still awaited. In the meantime one Conservative candidate has observed that the high number of split votes could partly be due to there being only one Labour candidate in each ward. Labour voters, therefore, have the choice of using only one vote or choosing a candidate from another party for their second vote.

1.55pm

The latest observation for Worplesdon is that it is too close to call between the incumbent Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

1.44pm

Announcements have been made for agents and candidates in several wards to peruse the doubtful votes where it is not clear who, if anyone, a voter has selected. The intention is to see if it can be decided whether a definite vote has been cast.

1.28pm

As well as the favourable position for the Lib Dems in the wards reported below, it also looks good for them in Guildford South West and Guildford West. Indeed the Labour candidate for Guildford West, Howard Smith, left the count early on, disappointed.

However in the Horsleys, R4GV appeared to be in pole position. But there is a particularly large pile of split votes, where voters have opted for a candidate for one party and a second candidate from another. This will affect the result.

The contest in Shalford appears to be close – between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. Again there is a large number of split votes, showing that some voters appeared to be selecting candidates for reasons other than party membership.

One result of which the Conservative candidate, Bob Hughes, is confident is Shere, where he believes the Conservatives will win both seats.

The situation in Worplesdon could not be determined because the bundles of ballot papers have gone into the next part of the process.

1.19pm

A quick look at the bundles of ballot papers for Guildford South East, Guildford North East and Ash indicates that the Lib Dems are probably in the strongest position so far. It is noticeable that there are quite a large number of split votes.

12.58pm

Now the reconciliation has been completed, it has been announced that the count of the number of votes cast for each party has commenced for all wards.

A big question remains: regardless of the results in Guildford, will any party have overall control of the new West Surrey Council and what will they be able to do about the huge legacy debt of more than £4 billion.

12.54pm

12.42pm

It is clear that the voter turnout for a local election in the Guildford area is up, estimated at around 45 per cent. The turnout for 2021 was 39.1 per cent. Of course this still means that fewer than 50 per cent of voters exercised their right to vote.

12.37pm

A member of the Labour team said that from his experience of talking with voters on the doorstep, more people were voting against a party rather than for a party. Some were against Reform, some were against the Greens, others were against the Labour Government in particular.

Bob Hughes, Conservative candidate in Shere, said he was confident of his party’s victory in that ward.

12.22pm

Observers believe the voter turnout was higher than at previous local elections. It has been suggested that many were motivated by national issues and not just purely local ones.

However, Catherine Young (R4GV) said local issues were important for many. Voters in Ripley mentioned the Wisley development, citing their concerns about speculative development and lack of infrastructure and highways.

Graham Drage, chair of Reform UK Guildford, said his party found that national issues were raised by voters on the doorstep. He said voters were motivated by subjects such as immigration, national debt and a business friendly environment. Local issues were also raised in equal measure.

11.58am

Graham Drage

Graham Drage has told the Dragon that his estimate of six seat gains in Guildford might have been optimistic but he has been encouraged by his party’s results nationwide and believed the political dial is shifting.

Lib Dems are being tight-lipped despite the favourable position they appear to be in. We suspect they have been briefed not to speak to the press for some reason, which reflects behaviour seen in the past.

The count underway

11.35am
As local government is being radically changed today the count is underway at Spectrum Leisure Centre, Guildford.

The large hall, in the lower level, is crowded with tellers already counting ballot papers to reconcile numbers of votes cast and party representatives scrutinising the count. All will be watching as the bundles for each party grow.

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