Today's Hertfordshire County Council elections will take place in what a top political expert has described as "an era of five-party politics."

As voters prepare to head to the polls, here's a look at how the election could play out, some areas to watch, and the parties' views on the key issues.

Sir John Curtice has said elections across the country on Thursday (1 May) will be "the biggest challenge to the political conventions of British politics" in 100 years, with five parties – the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Greens and Reform UK – standing candidates in every, or almost every, seat up for election on Hertfordshire County Council.

With a smattering of independents and smaller parties on ballot papers, voters will decide who will run the county's roads, education, and social care services for the next four years.

Some local authorities have postponed elections because of the expected changes to local government in the coming years, with unitary councils replacing the current two-tier system of county and borough councils. However, Hertfordshire's will be going ahead.

There is much at stake, and much uncertainty about how the county's political map will look once all the results are in.

For the Conservative leader of the county council, Richard Roberts, winning 40 of the 78 seats would be "a good result" if his party retained control over the authority it has run since 1999.

When these seats were last fought in May 2021, the Conservatives won a majority with 46 seats.

However, today's national political picture is very different from that of 2021.

Back then, the Conservatives were flying high, with over forty per cent in the polls, Labour on around 37 per cent, and no other party getting into double figures.

Fast forward to the present, and we are in what pollster Sir John Curtice has described as "an era of five-party politics". Electoral Calculus' national poll-of-polls puts Labour on 25 per cent, Reform UK on 24 per cent, and the Conservatives on 23 per cent. The Liberal Democrats have gained ground on 13 per cent, while the Greens are almost into double figures, sitting on nine per cent.

But what does it all mean for Hertfordshire?

Speaking to people across all five parties, the answer is that no one knows for sure. Most are predicting that Thursday's election will be closely fought in many seats, with the potential for three-, four—and even five-way splits in certain areas.

As voters head to the polls, the county council's record of running services such as education, highways, and social care over the last four years will be scrutinised.

In Mr Roberts' view, the Conservatives have provided "stability, competence, and effective leadership". He claims that provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) "is as good as anywhere in the country".

As he looks to protect his party's majority, Mr Roberts says it would be "foolish" not to be worried about the electoral threat from Reform. 

Still, he added: "It's unclear to me how the rhetoric we're hearing from their candidates translates into caring about people, caring about place or caring about education, all of which at the moment is functioning really, really well in Hertfordshire."

But his glowing assessment of the county council's record is not one shared by the other parties.

Steve Jarvis, the leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition at County Hall and perhaps the man in pole position to replace Mr Roberts as council chief, took aim at the authority's record on road maintenance.

"People I talk to don't say the council is doing a magnificent job at mending the roads. They say it's doing badly," Mr Jarvis says.

Alistair Willoughby, chair of North East Herts Labour Party, described Mr Roberts' stance as "a complete denial of the facts".

He said "people don't feel listened to" on issues such as special educational needs and road maintenance, and pledged that Labour would "work with parents and children on SEND … it's about doing things with people, rather than to people".

And Mr Willoughby said residents "understand that this is a local election … national concerns do come up on the doorstep but, for the most part, people know what can be changed locally".

Away from the Conservatives and Labour, parties are seeking to position themselves as outsiders, suggesting that they can provide a fresh alternative to the two parties that have made up the national government in the last ten years.

They believe that voters have grown disillusioned with both of the country's major parties, and canvassers across parties have said it's a phenomenon they see on the doorstep, with voters wanting to change things up but unsure of how to do so, pondering whether to vote for Reform or Liberal Democrat.

Mr Jarvis said: "People have not forgotten the way the Conservatives ran the country, and many of them have been disappointed by what Labour have done since July". 

His words are echoed by Ben Crystall, currently the sole Green county councillor, who says "there is an anger and frustration among residents at a previous government that put us through years and years of austerity, and there is a lot of anger that a new government has come in and not changed things".

Mr Crystall's views on this are not too far off those held by Dave Holland, Reform UK's regional director for the East of England. 

He said "people are realising in greater and greater numbers that the status quo isn't working for them".

"I can understand people's reticence at voting for an unknown quantity, but once you've looked at all the known quantities and seen what they've done for you, then … an unknown quantity is worth the roll of the dice."

One of the big unknowns ahead of tomorrow's vote is how many people will want to roll the dice by voting for a party seen as 'outsiders' – and how many who do decide to take their chances away from the status quo will plump for Reform UK. 

It is anybody's guess how their polling figures, which nationally are in line with Labour and the Conservatives, translate into seats on the ground. Under the first-past-the-post electoral system, it's possible they could gain a significant share of the vote without it translating into many seats.

While most parts of Hertfordshire won't be declaring their results until Friday afternoon, results from Broxbourne—one of the areas where Reform hopes to do especially well—will come in during the hours after polls close and will give an early indication of how Reform is doing.

One of Reform's central promises is that it will cut down on "wasteful" council spending.

Dave Holland says his party's candidates include "an awful lot of very successful businesspeople who understand finances, how money works, how business works".

"The county obviously isn't a business, but there are many aspects – such as buying and procurement – where you can stop wasting money if you understand how it works.

"People can see the waste. They can see their council is spending more and more money, and they are getting less and less for it."

Darren Selkus, chair of the party's Hertsmere branch, is also chair of a public limited company and has said he would volunteer to serve as the council's chief executive officer for free if Reform win a majority.

Mr Selkus said: "The chief executive earns £244,000. It's too much and we're not getting value for money.

"The amount of waste that we'll be able to find in Hertfordshire will be incredible."

He pointed to "DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] costs" and "net zero vanity projects", but continued: "There's loads of it going on. We don't know about it because we're not on the inside. When we're on the inside, we'll find it and we'll clear it up."

Asif Khan, deputy leader of the council's Labour group, said this election is "about the council's budget and how it's best used".

He said: "We've got problems with our SEND services that need to improve. On our roads, potholes are not being fixed."

Leader of the Labour group, Nigel Bell, said Labour would "prioritise proper investment and maintenance to make our roads safer and more reliable" rather than "temporary pothole patching that falls apart weeks later".

Liberal Democrat Mr Jarvis also thinks money is being wasted.

He said: "Hertfordshire is not a deprived place in general, and yet the council has done a pretty poor job.

"People think the Conservatives are complacent about that, and they're looking for a change.

"Money needs to be concentrated on the things that actually impact people."

He claims the council "spends a lot of money on things that people don't think are worthwhile", suggesting they should prioritise filling potholes over erecting additional road signs that are, in his view, unnecessary.

"There won't be enough resources to do everything we'd like to do, but we should do a lot better with the resources we do have."

On Thursday, Mr Jarvis "expects to win a lot of extra seats", building on the 22 they currently hold as the official opposition party.

Most expect the Conservatives to lose some seats, and the Liberal Democrats to gain some.

One area that could buck that trend, though, is Harpenden, where the Conservatives will be hopeful of retaining their existing seat – and gaining up to two more – following a decision by the Liberal Democrat-run district council to introduce High Street parking charges.

The council said the charges would help parking services pay for themselves, but Conservative candidate Matt Cowley says they have become the "number one defining issue" on the doorstep.

He argues that the charges are "a litmus test for who is on your side," contrasting Conservative opposition to them at district council level with the Liberal Democrats' implementation.

But one of his opponents, Liberal Democrat Edgar Hill, clarified that Thursday's election should be about the county council's record.

He said their management had left "our potholed roads a national embarrassment", and pointed the finger at the last Conservative government for funding cuts that, he said, "leave it to local people to foot the bill from fixing burst tyres to parking charges".

There are a number of contests across the county that have their own distinctive characteristics.

In Abbots Langley, for example, independent Sara Bedford will hope to retain the seat that she won as a Liberal Democrat in 2021. However, the Lib Dem leader of Three Rivers District Council, Stephen Giles-Medhurst, and Conservative candidate Vicky Edwards are expected to offer tough competition.

Other independents to watch include Michelle Vince in Borehamwood North—she won the seat in 2021 as a Labour candidate but will now face her old party and other opponents to retain it—and Jan Maddern, elected as an independent in 2021, who is seeking re-election in Hemel Hempstead South East.

More unusually, Liberal Democrats held Colney Heath and Marshalswick, where the Conservative candidate Frances Leonard will face her daughter, Sally Leonard, who is standing for the Greens.

Over in Central Watford and Oxhey, the Liberal Democrat elected mayor of Watford, Peter Taylor, is seeking to join the county council, perhaps to gain a seat at the table ahead of local government reorganisation.

Stevenage, meanwhile, currently has mostly Conservative representatives despite being a Labour stronghold at the borough council level. Labour will aim to turn blue into red this time around, but the town is also an area, like Hemel Hempstead, where Reform could put up a strong showing.

Another party hoping to build on its current presence is the Greens, which currently only has one county councillor. They're looking to gain seats in East Herts, Three Rivers, and St Albans to increase their representation at County Hall.

One of their candidates, Matt Fisher, formerly flew helicopters for the Navy and now hopes to be part of a Green team at County Hall that could bring "creative, alternative thinking" and add to the "accountability, challenge, and debate that can come from having a different voice."

He believes the Greens, who now have four MPs in Westminster, are showing they are "a credible, rounded [and] wholesome party" and an increased presence on the county council would "reflect … that we're in a climate emergency".

For Ben Crystall, the county council's almost £25m overspend is a worry, and he says – perhaps surprisingly for a Green – that the council's "mindset" should be changed "to make it much more commercially focused, to make it look for every opportunity to improve the financial standing of the council and use every asset to generate income".

"This isn't about making profits. It's about having a financially viable authority that can provide services for people.

"To make sure people get the proper level of provision and support they need, we have a duty to be open-minded to considering every opportunity."

He said the council should be "looking at things from advertising opportunities, sponsorship opportunities, using open spaces to hold events that generate income, solar power farms .."

Whether there is room for the Greens to grow their number of seats will depend on whether they can avoid spreading their vote too thinly across the county, and ensure it is concentrated enough in particular divisions to translate into County Hall representatives.

Sam Mandi-Ghomi, who works for cross-party campaign organisation Compass, says Hertfordshire's 2021 result was a "progressive tragedy" because the electoral system meant that although the combined Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green vote exceeded the Conservative vote, the result was a majority for the latter party.

He suggested that this time around, "the split in the progressive vote could pave the way for Reform to win the council – despite the majority of voters not wanting them".

Yet it is also likely that the right-of-centre vote will itself be split between the Conservatives and Reform.

Ralph Muncer, leader of the Conservatives on North Herts Council, said his party will be defending a "proud record" on road maintenance and providing education. At the same time, Alexander Curtis, deputy chairman of Hertfordshire Conservatives, has framed it as an election where voters can choose to keep a "well-run council".

For Mr Muncer, the election is about "trust" and who voters believe will "deliver for them and their families".

By Friday evening, it will be clear whether voters will trust the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Greens, or Reform UK.

Polls will be open across the county between 7am and 10pm. A photo ID is required to cast your vote.