High WycombeA Town Council for our town
High Wycombe deserves a say

60% of us voted for a Town Council. They said no anyway.

In 2024, residents were asked. We answered clearly. Then Buckinghamshire Council overruled us. It doesn’t have to stay that way.

Add your name →What happened
In 1884 the town built an arch of over 400 chairs across the High Street to welcome a king. High Wycombe has always known how to make a seat.
The result, in the council’s own numbers

The town didn’t just lean one way. It said yes — across age, background and neighbourhood.

Every figure here is from Buckinghamshire Council’s own published analysis of the 2024 consultation. We didn’t run this survey. They did.

60%

backed a Town Council; 35% to keep things as they are.

75%

support in Booker, Cressex & Castlefield — the strongest ward.

69%

of under-35s backed it — but support held across every age band under 75.

2,532

verified residents responded — every one a real, checked name on the electoral roll.

Source: Buckinghamshire Council Business Intelligence Team, Wycombe Community Governance Review — Consultation Analysis Report (v4, May 2024).

What happened

Asked, answered, overruled.

The council ran the consultation, got a clear answer, and then decided not to act on it.

Feb–Apr 2024

Buckinghamshire Council asks the town

A formal Community Governance Review consultation goes to the unparished area of High Wycombe — 55,125 electors — asking whether to create a Town Council.

Spring 2024

The town answers: yes

Of 2,532 verified responses, 60% back a Town Council and 35% prefer the status quo. Weighted to the area’s age profile, the council’s own analysis puts support at 64%.

18 Sep 2024

The council says no

Buckinghamshire Council votes against creating a Town Council, pointing to the consultation’s 4.6% response rate rather than its 60% result, and opts to “strengthen existing arrangements” instead. High Wycombe stays the only major town in Buckinghamshire without its own council.

Now

Residents have a stronger card to play

A consultation is advisory. A petition is not. Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, a petition signed by 7.5% of local electors compels the council to hold a fresh review — whatever it decided last time.

“It is clearly unfair that High Wycombe is the only major town in Buckinghamshire not to benefit from a town council.”
Emma Reynolds MP for Wycombe, reported September 2024
A town that knows how to run itself

The town that made Britain’s chairs deserves a seat of its own.

This is no new idea. High Wycombe has governed itself since its charter was confirmed in 1237, and chose its first mayor by 1285. For two centuries it was the chair-making capital of England — bodgers turning legs in the Chiltern beechwoods, the Chairboys named for the trade that built the town.

Then in 1974 the old borough was abolished. Today the mayoralty survives only as ceremony, kept alive by Charter Trustees with no budget and no powers. A Town Council wouldn’t invent something new — it would give back a voice this town has held for the best part of 800 years.

1237

A free borough. Henry III confirms Wycombe’s right to run its own affairs.

1285

Its first mayor. The town has chosen a mayor, in one form or another, ever since.

1877

4,700 chairs a day. The furniture trade makes Wycombe a town known across the world.

1974

The borough is abolished. The mayor becomes ceremonial; the town loses a council of its own.

2024

The town votes to bring one back — and is overruled.

Each year High Wycombe weighs its mayor in public — and if they’ve grown fat in office, the cry goes up: “and some more.”

A custom recorded here since the 1670s. A town that holds its leaders to account this literally ought to have leaders it actually elects to run things.

What a Town Council would do

A real budget, real powers, and people elected to use them for the town.

A voice on planning

Heard on what gets built

Town councils are statutory consultees on planning applications — a formal seat at the table when decisions are made about High Wycombe’s streets, shops and green spaces.

Local control

Looking after the things we use

Parks, open spaces, allotments, markets, public toilets, street furniture, events — town councils across the country run exactly these, close to the people who use them.

Power to act

The general power of competence

Eligible councils can do almost anything an individual can do within the law — fund local projects, back community groups, and respond to what the town actually needs.

Why residents backed it

Decisions made here, not elsewhere

The reasons residents gave most often in 2024: local decision-making and representation, improving the town, stronger community engagement, and protecting High Wycombe’s identity.

The honest bit: what it costs

Yes, it’s funded by your council tax. Here’s the straight version.

A Town Council is paid for by a precept — an amount added to your council tax bill. How much depends entirely on what the new council, elected by residents, chooses to take on. Anyone quoting you a precise figure today is guessing.

Two things we won’t gloss over. First, town and parish precepts are not capped by the referendum limits that apply to bigger councils — so a new council must commit to transparency about every pound. Second, cost was the single most common objection in 2024, and it deserves a real answer, not spin.

Here’s the balance from the consultation itself: among the residents who backed a Town Council, 69% said they would be willing to pay a precept to fund it. People weren’t voting for something free. They were voting for something worth it.

Source: Buckinghamshire Council Business Intelligence Team, Wycombe Community Governance Review — Consultation Analysis Report (v4, May 2024).

Take action

Two minutes now is how this gets back on the agenda.

Add your name, then send one short message to the people who represent you. Numbers and noise are exactly what changes a council’s mind.

— / 4,135
names needed to trigger a fresh review

7.5% of the area’s 55,125 electors can compel Buckinghamshire Council to hold a new Community Governance Review.

Add your name

A public show of support — and your place in the queue to sign the formal petition when it launches.

We’ll only contact you about this campaign. Your details are never sold or shared. See our privacy notice.

Write to your councillor or MP

We’ve drafted a starting point. Add a line of your own — personal messages carry the most weight.

Add a sentence of your own — personal messages carry far more weight than identical copies, and tools like WriteToThem ignore mass-sent duplicates.

Dear Councillor,

I am a resident in your ward writing about a Town Council for High Wycombe.

In the council's 2024 Community Governance Review, 60% of verified respondents backed creating a Town Council — 64% once weighted to the town's age profile. Yet in September 2024 the council voted against it, citing the consultation's response rate rather than its result. High Wycombe remains the only major town in Buckinghamshire without an elected council of its own.

Please tell me how you voted, and whether you will support residents in securing a fresh Community Governance Review so the town can decide its own future.

Yours sincerely,
Open in emailFind who represents me →

Don’t know your councillor? Enter your postcode at WriteToThem to find and message everyone who represents you.

Spread the word

Most residents never heard the result. Send this to two neighbours.

Questions, answered straight

What people actually ask.

In a sense, yes — and we won. In Buckinghamshire Council’s 2024 consultation, 60% of the 2,532 verified residents who responded backed a Town Council. But it wasn’t a binding vote, and the council chose to reject the result. The good news: residents have a stronger card to play — a formal petition signed by 7.5% of local electors legally compels the council to hold a fresh review. That’s the route this campaign is building toward.

Town councils are funded by a “precept” — a charge added to your council tax. The exact figure would be set by the new council and depends on what residents ask it to take on, so we won’t pretend to a precise number. Two honest points: precepts are not capped by the national referendum limits that apply to larger councils, so transparency matters; and in the 2024 consultation, 69% of Town Council supporters said they would be willing to pay a precept to fund it. Any campaign that hides the cost question isn’t being straight with you.

Right now the unparished area of High Wycombe has no elected body of its own. The Charter Trustees keep the town’s mayoral and ceremonial traditions alive, but they don’t run services or set local priorities. Every other major town in Buckinghamshire — Aylesbury, Chesham, Marlow and others — has a town or parish council with real powers and a budget. A Town Council would give High Wycombe a directly elected voice and the legal tools to act on local issues.

Not yet. Adding your name here is a public pledge of support — it shows momentum, lets us keep you posted, and helps us reach the point where a formal petition can succeed. The statutory petition has strict legal requirements (electors’ names and addresses, submitted to Buckinghamshire Council). When it launches, everyone who has pledged here will be the first to be asked to sign it.

Because the evidence is fresh, the public verdict is on the record, and the legal route is open. A valid petition obliges the council to act regardless of its earlier decision. The longer the 2024 result sits un-acted-upon, the easier it is for it to be forgotten. Momentum is the whole game.

Who’s behind this

Residents, putting the town’s own verdict back in front of it.

This is a residents’ campaign. It exists to make sure High Wycombe’s clearly expressed wish — recorded in Buckinghamshire Council’s own 2024 consultation — is not quietly shelved. The case for a Town Council here is long-running: former mayors and community groups have pressed for one for years, and thousands of residents have backed it.

We don’t spin the numbers, because we don’t need to. Every figure on this page comes straight from the council’s published analysis. Our only aim is to turn a majority that was ignored into a result that sticks.

Add your name — 2 minutes →