2003 New Forest District Council election

← 1999 1 May 2003 2007 →
All 60 seats toNew Forest District Council 31 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Party Conservative Liberal Democrats Independent Seats before 29 26 3 Seats won 32 27 1 Seat change 3 1 2 Popular vote 23,803 18,712 2,723
Results by Ward
Council control before election Conservative Council control after election Conservative

The2003 New Forest District Council election took place on 1 May 2003 to elect members to theNew Forest District Council, on the same day asother local elections. The 2003 election saw new ward boundaries used which increased the number of seats by 2 to 60.^[1][2] The election saw the Conservatives win 32 seats out of the 31 required for a majority, with the Liberal Democrats winning 27 seats and one independent win.^[3][4][5]

New ward boundaries came into effect for the election, which increased the number of seats by two. Prior to the election,a by-election took place in Pennington, which saw the Liberal Democrats gaining the seat from the Conservatives, meaning that prior to the election the Conservatives held 29 seats (50.00%), the Liberal Democrats held 36 seats (44.82%) and three independents held seats (5.17%). After the election, the Conservatives held 32 seats (53.33%) and the Liberal Democrats held 27 (45.00%), with only one independent hold (1.66%)

The Liberal Democrats performed best in the East of the district, as well as the North West, taking eight out of ten Totton seats, all six Hythe and Dibden seats, and all four seats in the Fawley, Blackfield and Holbury area.^[4] The Conservatives meanwhile performed well across the rest of the district.

The table below only tallies the votes of thehighest polling candidate for each party within each ward. This is known as the top candidate methodand is often used for multi-member plurality elections.

New Forest local election result 2003

Party		Seats	Gains	Losses	Net gain/loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/−
	Conservative	32	17	1	3	53.33	51.49	23,803
	Liberal Democrats	27	22	0	1	45.00	40.48	18,712
	Independent	1	0	2	2	1.66	5.89	2,723
	Labour	0	0	0		0	1.61	745
	Green	0	0	0		0	0.26	124
	UKIP	0	0	0		0	0.25	117

• 2003 English local elections
• New Forest District Council elections
• 2000s in Hampshire

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2022