On 17 May 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that Anthony Steen, MP for Totnes, had claimed over £87,000 on a country house with 500 trees[2] On 20 May he announced that he would retire from Westminster at the next election - the day after this announcement, he told BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime program The World at One that the Labour Government's Freedom of Information Act was to blame for making his expenses public.

On 10 July it was announced that the Association would organise a constituency-wide postal ballot in which registered voters, regardless of their political affiliation, could select the Conservative PPC.

[3] Sarah Wollaston capitalised on the fact that she was the only candidate to not have had a political career and, at the public hustings, avoided taking a partisan approach, which proved favourable among voters.

Some Totnes Conservatives thought that Liberal Democrats had encouraged members to vote for Bye; if true the party raiding did not work, as he came in last.

[6] Wollaston later said "I have no doubt that I was selected because I had no track record in politics but instead had experience in the NHS, education and as a police surgeon treating victims of domestic and sexual violence",[7] but one Conservative member told The Guardian of his fear that without a political background, she was the candidate Liberal Democrats could most easily defeat.