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Research dossier · History & Society

1999 Lichfield District Council election

1999 UK local government election

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 13, 2025
Entity authorityQ16996277 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1999 Lichfield District Council election took place on 6 May 1999 to elect members of Lichfield District Council in Staffordshire, England. The whole council was up for election and the Conservative party gained overall control of the council from the Labour party.

Campaign

56 Labour, 47 Conservative, 16 Liberal Democrats, 5 Independent and 1 Independent Labour candidates stood in the election. Each ward elected from one to three members of the council depending on the size of the ward. Five Labour candidates in Chase Terrace and Summerfield wards were elected unopposed.

One significant issue in the election campaign was a new traffic system the Labour council had just introduced on 1 April. This had banned vehicles from the centre of the city during the daytime and led to complaints from shopkeepers about loss of business. Other election issues raised in the campaign included rises in council taxes, plans to replace Burntwood Leisure Centre, the sale of 5,000 rented houses to a housing association, a proposed new housing development and anti-pollution measures.

During the campaign Lichfield was one of the councils visited by Conservative leader William Hague, on 29 April, with the overall local elections seen by commentators as crucial to his leadership of the party. Hague accused the Labour council of wasting money.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1999 Lichfield District Council election” as 1999 UK local government election. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lichfield, District and Council.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1999—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Lichfield, District and Council providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “1999 Lichfield District Council election”, the useful work is to connect “1999 UK local government election” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16996277. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1999.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

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  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1999 Lichfield District Council election”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1999 Lichfield District Council election primary sources, 1999 Lichfield District Council election archive and Lichfield research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1999 Lichfield District Council election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.