Voters hoping for 'just a little love' in local elections

Voters in South and West Yorkshire will head to the ballot box on Thursday to elect more than 400 councilors across seven local authorities. As some councils prepare for all-out elections and the possibility of wholesale changes what can we expect to see when the votes are in and what do people want from their incoming councillors?

You get bombarded with stuff at election time.

Colourful bits of paper piling up on your doormat before ending up in the recycling. People knocking on and preparing to smile on your doorbell camera.

Interviews, so many interviews. More people, this time in suits, telling you what the others got wrong and what they'll get right,

And, people like me, trying to make sense of it all.

Yes. Here we are, another election campaign.

As I've travelled around over the past few weeks, amongst all the usual noise, one thing I've heard has really stuck with me. A sort of offhand comment that just kind of casually sums everything up.

When I bump into Dawn Milner at Halifax Market - and when I say bump into I mean stick a microphone in her face and ask her to chat - she's overseeing some embroidering for a christening at the baby clothes stall she's been running here for ten years.

The things she'd like improving in the town are parking and public transport. But as she finishes her thoughts she sighs and tells me, "I don't know, it just needs a little bit more love I suppose".

And that gets right to the point. People want to feel like they matter to politicians and that politicians really care about the places the represent.

But how much love is there to go around?

If by "love" you mean money, then the answer is not as much as there was before.

Grants from government fell by 40% last decade. They're rising again now, but they haven't kept pace with, well, anything really.

The amount of money coming in in real terms has fallen, and the amount that has to be spent has gone up.

Councils absolutely have to pay for social care for children and adults, it's one of their statutory services. But, the extra demand for those services means the average council is now spending 78% of its main budget on social care.

That leaves the 22% rest for absolutely everything else.

Roads, bins, parks, planning and all the other things that people expect from their councils.

The three main ways councils get their money are grants from government, council tax and business rates.

Bu if once source of funding has been falling and there is only so far you can raise the other two, you can begin to see where the problems start when demand increases.

There is a lot at stake in these elections. That's partly down to how many seats are up for grabs.

Places like Barnsley, Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees have "all out" elections.

Most of the time only a third of council seats are decided at any one election.

But this time, because of some boundary changes, they all are.

It's the electoral equivalent of throwing everything up in the air and seeing where it lands.

In Calderdale, for instance, it's the first time 22 years that every seat has been up for grabs at the same time.

As a result political parties can see their support rise or fall in a dramatic fashion.

Barnsley has been Labour for 50 years, but there are doubts whether it still will be by Friday.

We saw just how fast and dramatically things can change in Doncaster last year, where 37 out of 55 seats on the council were won by Reform UK.

An incredible tally considering they hadn't held any going in to the election, although they have lost three in the last year over resignations and suspensions.

They may have lost the Mayoral election, and with it control of the council, but despite not being in charge they might be on the brink of stopping a council loan which would reopen Doncaster Sheffield Airport.

If they get those sorts of numbers in Barnsley, Wakefield or Kirklees they'd run the town hall.

While Reform UK have got their eyes on taking plenty of seats in those places, Labour will be concentrating on their local records rather than making reference to the what's going on in Westminster.

In fact at least one Labour Council leader in Yorkshire told me of their not so polite "frustration" with the Labour leadership. Some local leaders don't want a campaign visit from Sir Keir Starmer.

Their wish has come true, as it stands we've not been invited to any visits by any party leader apart from Nigel Farage.

It's unusual. The Liberal Democrats and Greens will be hopeful of picking up meaningful gains in places like Sheffield and Leeds, but we've not had much of a peep from their leaders in our patch.

The same with the Conservatives. There are no elections in their stronghold of North Yorkshire this time and we've seen a low profile from Kemi Badenoch when it comes to West and South Yorkshire.

We've had chats to party leaders on BBC Radio Leeds – notably apart from Sir Keir Starmer - but it's felt like an arm's-length campaign from the central parties, leaving it to local campaigners to pound the pavements and knocking on doors.

And that brings us back to those knocks, those faces smiling into your doorbell cams and the "love" that Dawn from Halifax wants.

These elections might be about to turn what Yorkshire's politics on its head. But will that change how much love there is to go around?

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