Happy New Year to all members and supporters of Havant Conservative Association, and indeed to any readers of our website.

New Year is a traditional time to take stock, and despite what the Jeremiahs would have you believe about the Conservative party,  2018 finds our association in rude health. Last year we won a clean sweep of Hampshire county council seats in May and won a shade under 60% of the vote in the general election the next month - our highest share of the vote ever, I think. We currently hold 22 of the 29 seats on Havant borough council that are in our constituency. So electorally we are in very good position,  which is because of the large number of loyal Conservative voters in the constituency.

This year we have elections to 11 seats of Havant council, of which we are defending 7 and hoping to win the other 4, and I am very pleased to report that we already have more candidates than we need to fight all of these seats. Having chaired the panel that approved our candidates I can report that we have a good selection and many of them are of very high quality. They are all keen to get stuck into fighting their seats so I look forward to an energetic and successful campaign. We are about to select the candidate for each seat from this list of approved candidates and I am very keen for as many members as possible to be involved in that, so look out for a message from your branch chairmen in the next week. 

We have increased our funds and our membership over the last year, continued with our successful social events and had a good first year of debates in the policy forum - if anyone would like to be involved in these (you don't have to be a member) please get in touch,  the next one is about how we improve the skills of our workforce, and I can't think of a more important subject just at the moment (you might disagree - in which case do come along and make your views known!).

Best wishes for the year ahead. 

Mike Fairhurst

Chairman