Vikki Slade

Slade was the leader of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council from 2023 until her resignation in July 2024.^[3][4] She previously served as leader from the 2019 election to September 2020.^[5] She was head of the "Three Towns Alliance" coalition.^[6]

She has represented Broadstone ward as a local councillor since 2011,^[7] including when the ward was part of Poole Borough Council prior to 2019.^[8]

In the 2015 general election, her campaign to succeed Annette Brooke was supported by Lord Oakeshott.^[9]

In the 2024 general election, she unseated Conservative Michael Tomlinson, who had been the Minister of State for Countering Illegal Migration.^[10] After being elected she said she wouldn't have stood for a fifth time had she lost.^[11]

In Parliament, Slade is a member of the frontbench Team of Ed Davey as the party's local government spokeswoman shadowing Steve Reed.^[12] Slade opposed the government's cut to the Winter Fuel Payment.^[13] In her first year in parliament, she has worked on issues such as the closure of Wareham Crossing and shoplifting in Wimborne.^[14]

Following the Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth in September 2025, Slade departed the frontbench in a reshuffle and was replaced as Local Government spokeswoman by Zöe Franklin.^[15]

Slade was educated at Tonbridge Grammar School.^[16] She is married to Paul Slade, who is a councillor for Creekmoor ward,^[17] and they have four children.^[18] They have also fostered children, including unaccompanied asylum seekers, and have hosted a refugee from the War in Ukraine under the British government's Ukraine Family Scheme.^[19]