The Liberal Democrats had an excellent set of by-election results last night. The main contest was in St Albans where the death of Cllr Mike Ellis left vacancies on both the Hertfordshire County Council and the St Albans District Council. The Lib Dems held on to St Albans South by a margin of over 232 votes, increasing their vote share in the process. Martin Frearson comfortably saw off the Conservative challenge from Salih Gaygusuz, who also increased his party's vote percentage from the 2009 county wide election. The Greens were the big losers as their vote was squeezed down to just 7% and Labour managed to poll roughly the same as last year. Frearson's victory doesn't alter the makeup of the Hertfordshire Council as the Conservatives have such a large majority but the Lib Dems should be quite pleased with the result after the David Laws scandal from last weekend.
On top of the County Council result the Lib Dems also held onto Ellis' District Council seat and gained seats on South Oxfordshire District Council and the Newquay Town Council (in Cornwall). All four victories were at the Tories' expense, which would suggest the national coalition doesn't seem to be affecting their local election performance.
Here's the full result from St Albans South:
Candidate | Votes | Vote % | +/-% |
Martin Frearson (E) | 1482 | 42.1% | +2.6 |
Salih Gaygusuz | 1250 | 35.5% | +4.1 |
Iain Grant | 540 | 15.3% | -0.1 |
Kate Metcalf | 259 | 7.1% | -6.7% |
Hertfordshire County Council | |||||||||
CON | LD | LAB | GRN | BNP | |||||
55 | - | 17 | - | 3 | - | 1 | - | 1 | - |
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