On 25 May 1999 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced the appointment of Eddisbury's Member of Parliament (MP), the Rt.

This created a vacancy in the seat which Sir Alastair had retained as the Conservative candidate in the 1997 general election.

Goodlad resigned from the House of Commons by accepting the office of Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern on 28 June 1999 to formally vacate his seat.

[1] The Conservatives selected Stephen O'Brien, a former SDP member who lived in Chichester, to defend the seat.

Labour had been only just over 1,000 votes behind the Conservatives in 1997 and ran an energetic campaign, raising the issue of fox hunting which she pledged to ban.