Chatham & Aylesford.

Chatham and Aylesford is a predominantly urban seat in western Kent, anchored on the Medway towns. Chatham accounts for roughly two-thirds of the population at almost 71,000, with Snodland, Larkfield and a slice of Rochester as secondary settlements and a thin rural fringe beyond. This is a one-town seat with smaller places clustered around it. Local services are split between Medway, a unitary council covering five of the seat's wards, and Tonbridge and Malling, a district council covering the other four -- an unusual division that leaves the two sides answering to different town halls.

Recent ward contests point in no single direction. Across the seventeen most recent results the Conservatives took eight, Labour six and the Liberal Democrats three, with Lib Dem strength concentrated in Larkfield. Medway has sat under no overall control since early 2025, run as a minority Labour administration. At Westminster the seat changed hands in 2024, when Labour's Tristan Osborne won on 33.5 per cent against a Conservative runner-up on 28.6 -- a margin of under five points, and a reversal from the party's commanding lead five years earlier.

The direction of travel is one of a seat in flux rather than safe for either main party. Recent local reporting has had a largely administrative tenor, dominated by council-tax setting under tightening funding, housing and town-centre regeneration. Anti-social behaviour appears to run around half above the local average, and has drawn a visible council response on the Tonbridge and Malling side. With a narrow 2024 result, a hung unitary authority and a mixed ward picture, the recent shift toward Labour reads as provisional.