North West Cambridgeshire MP Sam Carling to stand down as Cambridge City Councillor after election win

The new North West Cambridgeshire MP Sam Carling has confirmed he will step down as a Cambridge City Councillor following his election triumph last week.

Labour’s Sam Carling won his seat – which includes large parts of the south of Peterborough and surrounding rural areas – by just 39 votes following a dramatic recount in the early hours of Friday last week.

Mr Carling was elected as a councillor for the West Chesterton on Cambridge City Council in 2022 – and was re-elected in the ward in May this year. He is also currently the cabinet member for Open Spaces and City Services on the authority.

Today he has confirmed he will step down from his council roles to concentrate on his new MP position. He will step down from his cabinet role next week, and stop taking allowances councillors are entitles to from that date, and then step down as councillor in the months after that.

Mr Carling has also been serving as member of the Skills Committee of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.

"I will be stepping down from my cabinet position on July 18”

Mr Carling said: “I am incredibly grateful to North West Cambridgeshire residents for electing me as their Member of Parliament. The newly elected Labour government has hit the ground running to deliver the change we promised, and I look forward to playing my part in that over the coming years.

“I was not widely expected to win the election in North West Cambridgeshire – and the fact that I did so speaks volumes about the huge desire in our country to see change.

"I will be stepping down from my cabinet position at Cambridge City Council following the upcoming Full Council meeting on July 18, and I will also decline to take up the allowance to which councillors are entitled from that date.

“Over the past two years, I have balanced serving my community as a councillor with another full-time role. My intention now is to step down from Cambridge City Council at some point in the next nine months, following discussion with colleagues and an assessment of how long it will take to wrap up key projects and pieces of casework for residents.

“This challenge comes up almost every general election, and this approach to solving it is very common among MPs who are serving councillors at the time of election, in order to do the right thing for everyone that has elected them as a representative at both levels.

“I will announce when exactly I will step down in due course. Until I step down, I will continue to carry out casework on behalf of the residents in my ward along with my two fellow ward councillors, and I remain grateful to West Chesterton residents for the privilege of having served as their councillor for the last two years.”