Conservative ex-Gerrards Cross mayor standing as Independent in Bucks 2025 elections

The Conservative former mayor of Gerrards Cross has announced he is standing as an Independent in this year’s local elections.

Andrew Wood was not selected by the Tories to stand as a candidate for the May 1 vote, in which residents will choose the new members of Buckinghamshire Council.

The unitary councillor said he would therefore not be representing any political party when he seeks re-election in less than 90 days’ time.

Cllr Wood said he has not renewed his Conservative membership and that he had been approached by the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, but that he would not stand for any party.

“I am standing as an Independent because I genuinely believe that there is a mixed message about who people should vote for and I want to work for the town, not a political party,” he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Cllr Wood is the current Conservative unitary councillor for Gerrards Cross, Hedgerley and South Beaconsfield, having been elected last time around in 2021.

But he is now among a ‘record’ number of more than two dozen Independent candidates standing in the May elections in Bucks.

They include other former Conservatives, as well as candidates from the Labour and Green parties and returning Independents seeking re-election

Cllr Wood said he was ‘totally and absolutely elated’ to be joining the group and said Cllr Stuart Wilson, who leads the Independents at Bucks Council, was an ‘incredible opposition leader’.

He added: “I believe in the candidates. I think the strength of the candidates that are standing as Independents is as good as if not better than any political party candidates standing.

“Because we are not whipped, we can actually do what we want to do, which is represent our constituents without any fear of retribution.”

Cllr Wood served as councillor on Gerrards Cross Town Council for five years and was elected mayor in 2021.

However, he dramatically resigned from the post in September 2023 after a negative response to his relationship with the town clerk Jiya Jilani.

Cllr Wood told the LDRS he was proud of his achievements while mayor, such as delivering the ‘phenomenally successful’ Christmas event, moving it from Station Road to Packhorse Road.

He said: “I raised the entire amount of money to fund the lights and the cost of the implementation.”

The former mayor said he was also the ‘driving force’ behind two ‘Picnic in the Park’ events on West Common and had ‘championed pothole repairs’, saying he spent four hours a week identifying road defects in and around Gerrards Cross.

Meanwhile, as a unitary councillor, Cllr Wood says he has developed ‘great relationships’ with officers at Bucks Council and that he ‘gets things done’.

The councillor is currently the deputy chair of the council’s licensing committee and also sits on the South Bucks planning committee and transport, environment and climate change select committee, however he does not yet know what will happen to these appointments.

At these elections, the number of councillors on Bucks Council will reduce 147 to 97, following an external review by the Boundary Commission.