Elections to Suffolk County Council were held on 4 June 2009 on the same day as the elections to the European Parliament.
Labour and the Conservatives were the only parties with candidates standing in all sixty-three electoral divisions. The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party were the only other parties which fielded enough candidates to achieve a majority.[1].
The Conservatives won the election, being returned to power with 54 seats, a net gain of eleven, while the Liberal Democrats won eleven (a gain of two) and thus replaced Labour as the main opposition party, Labour losing seventeen seats overall and ending with only four. Two Independents were elected, while the Green Party also won two seats and the UK Independence Party won one.[2][3]
The Conservatives became more representative of the county's urban areas, particularly in Waveney and Ipswich, where they took seats from Labour. This contrasted with their performance in 2005 being mainly down to piling up votes in rural divisions. That said, the party lost seats in Bury St Edmunds and also in Mid Suffolk. Despite mounting strong challenges in the divisions lost to the Liberal Democrats in subsequent by-elections, they failed to regain them. The party was heartened by taking a comfortable majority of thirty nine seats in comparison to the one of twelve in 2005.
The Liberal Democrats had fought a strong campaign and held all of their divisions and added a further two Councillors to their tally.
The smaller parties benefitted from the Expenses Scandal hitting the main parties, which saw the Greens and an Independent gain three divisions from the Conservatives, and the UK Independence party taking a seat from Labour.
Labour itself was left with a severely reduced tally, and returned to Endeavour House with just four Councillors. Of these, two were from the Co-Operative Party.
In 2005 the Conservatives had won 42 seats, Labour 22, the Liberal Democrats 7, and one Independent was elected. Subsequent by-elections after this saw the Conservatives gain a seat from Labour, but lose two to the Liberal Democrats.
| Suffolk County Council election, 2009 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Seats | Gains | Losses | Net gain/loss | Seats % | Votes % | Votes | +/- | ||
| Conservative | 55 | 15 | 4 | +11 | 73.0 | 43.8 | 111,828 | +4.9 | ||
| Liberal Democrat | 11 | 2 | 0 | +2 | 14.7 | 24.8 | 63,241 | -1.7 | ||
| Labour | 4 | 0 | 17 | -17 | 5.3 | 15.2 | 38,835 | -12.7 | ||
| Green | 2 | 2 | 0 | +2 | 2.7 | 8.1 | 20,684 | +5.8 | ||
| Independent | 2 | 1 | 0 | +1 | 2.7 | 2.6 | 6,531 | -0.4 | ||
| UKIP | 1 | 1 | 0 | +1 | 1.4 | 4.2 | 10,615 | +2.8 | ||
| Suffolk Together | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0 | 1.0 | 2,583 | - | ||
| BNP | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0 | 0.4 | 942 | - | ||
| Preceded by 2005 |
Suffolk local elections | Succeeded by 2013 |
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