The 2002 Maidstone Council election took place on 2 May 2002 to elect members of Maidstone

Maidstone (borough)

Maidstone is a local government district with borough status in Kent, England. Its administrative centre is Maidstone which is also the County town of Kent...

 Borough

Borough status in the United Kingdom

Borough status in the United Kingdom is granted by royal charter to local government districts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The status is purely honorary, and does not give any additional powers to the council or inhabitants of the district...

 Council in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The whole council was up for election with boundary changes since the last election in 2000

Maidstone Council election, 2000

The 2000 Maidstone Council election took place on 4 May 2000 to elect members of Maidstone Borough Council in Kent, England. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control....

. The council stayed under no overall control

No overall control

Within the context of local councils of the United Kingdom, the term No Overall Control refers to a situation in which no single party achieves a majority of seats and is analogous to a hung parliament...

.

Background

All 55 seats were being contested in the election after boundary changes were implemented. The boundary changes kept the number of seats the same at 55, but reduced the wards

Wards of the United Kingdom

A ward in the United Kingdom is an electoral district at sub-national level represented by one or more councillors. It is the primary unit of British administrative and electoral geography .-England:...

 from 28 to 26.

139 candidates stood in the election, made up of 45 Conservatives

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

, 42 Liberal Democrats, 29 Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

, 10 Green

Green Party of England and Wales

The Green Party of England and Wales is a political party in England and Wales which follows the traditions of Green politics and maintains a strong commitment to social progressivism. It is the largest Green party in the United Kingdom, containing within it various regional divisions including...

, 8 United Kingdom Independence Party

United Kingdom Independence Party

The United Kingdom Independence Party is a eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. Whilst its primary goal is the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the party has expanded beyond its single-issue image to develop a more comprehensive party platform.UKIP...

 and 5 independents

Independent (politician)

In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...

.

Election result

Overall turnout

Voter turnout

Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...

in the election was 31.7%.

Ward results