Labour continue to gain seats in Council by-elections

Labour had another excellent night of by-election results yesterday as they gained two seats in top-tier Council polls and another on a District Council. They took seats off the Greens, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats as the latter are starting to see their low polling figures translate into poor by-election results. In Wales, Plaid Cymru failed to gain a seat on the Gwynedd County Council by just four votes and the Conservatives managed to hold a number of seats across England.

Bloxwich West provided the shock of the night a Labour easily gained a seat in what was considered solid Conservative territory. The by-election was called because of the death of Cllr. Melvin Pitt who secured a large majority when he won the seat in 2008. On those figures Labour needed a 18.3% swing to gain the seat, however they had faired much better in this years election to the ward. The Tories won the by just over 300 votes from Labour's Fred Westley, who was selected to contest this by-election. Despite losing the perceived advantage Labour enjoy with the higher General Election turnout, Cllr. Westley won the seat yesterday by a comfortable margin. It seems cuts to local services by the Conservative led Council and a poor campaign by the defending party helped Labour to a convincing victory.

Across the Midlands Labour were also celebrating in Leicester. For the second time in this Council's term the Greens were forced to defend the Castle ward against Labour and, again, they failed. Labour won one of the three seats in this ward in the 2007 full Council election and last September they gained another on a 6.9% swing. This time an 8% swing was more than enough to elect Cllr. Neil Clayton and Labour now have all three seats in the Castle ward to defend in next May's full Council election. There was also some bad news for the Liberal Democrats here as their vote dropped by 10% to leave them a distant fourth.

In Wales there was an interesting by-election in Diffwys & Maenofferen, Gwynedd as the sitting Councillor resigned following his arrest for attacking his wife. The defending party was Llais Gwynedd (The Voice of Gwynedd) and, despite the circumstances, they held off the challenge from Plaid Cymru. The Welsh Nationalists needed a swing of just over 4% to gain the seat and they fell four votes short as Cllr. Richard Lloyd Jones squeaked home. Plaid still run the Council as a minority administration with 35 of the 75 seats.

The Conservatives were defending Worplesdon on the Surrey County Council and they successfully held the seat. The Lib Dems were the nearest challengers but they failed to really trouble the newly elected Cllr. Nigel Sutcliffe as he won by 550 votes. The Tories enjoy a massive majority on the Council which isn't due for a full election until 2013.

In District by-elections Labour managed to gain a seat in the Riversway ward on the Preston City Council (Lancashire) from the Liberal Democrats. This was hardly a surprise as the Lib Dem who gained the seat in May didn't think he'd win then, which was part of the reason why he almost immediately resigned. In a more usual situation the Liberal Democrats comfortably held Corfe Mullen South on the East Dorset District Council. The Conservatives were defending three seats on District Councils and they easily held them all. They were Pirbright for the Guildford Borough Council (Surrey), Wheatley for the Rochford District Council (Essex) and Greater Marlow for the Wycombe District Council (Buckinghamshire).

There were two seats up for grabs on the Barnstaple Town Council (Devon) and the Liberal Democrats managed to take them both, holding one and gaining the other from an Independent. However, they lost a seat to the Conservatives on the Knaresborough Town Council (North Yorkshire) and two seats on the Bradfield Parish Council (South Yorkshire); one to an Independent and one to the Conservatives.

Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council															Leicester City Council
CON		LAB		LD		IND				DLP					LAB		CON		LD		IND			GRN
33	-1	18	+1	6	-	2			-	1			-		39	+1	8	-	6	-	1		-	0		-1
Candidate					Votes			Vote %			+/-%				Candidate					Votes		Vote %			+/-%
Fred Westley (E)					1142			53.6%			+36.1*				Neil Clayton (E)					766		38.2%			+11.7
Teresa Smith					800			37.5%			-16.6				Mo Taylor					625		31.1%			-4.4
Paul Valdmanis (UKIP)					91			4.3%			-6.5				Owen Jones					411		20.5%			+5.1
Christine Cockayne					71			3.3%			-0.5				Troy Lavers					150		7.5%			-10.7
Zoe Henderson					28			1.3%			+1.3				Roy Rudham (ED)					33		1.6%			+1.6
															Gareth Henry					11		0.5%			-1.2
															David Bowley					11		0.5%			+0.5

 

Gwynedd County Council													Surrey County Council
PC		IND		LG		LD			LAB				CON		LD		RA			IND			LAB
35	-	18	-	13	-	5		-	4		-		54	-	13	-	10	-		2		-	1		-
Candidate					Votes		Vote %			+/-%			Candidate						Votes		Vote %			+/-%
Richard Lloyd Jones (E)					185		50.5%			+1.2			Nigel Sutcliffe (E)						1844		53.6%			+5.1
Paul Thomas					181		49.5%			+8.4			Paul Cragg						1286		37.4%			+2.3
													Mazhar Manzoor (UKIP)						193		5.6%			-6.6
													Martin Phillips						78		2.3%			-1.9
													John Morris (Peace Party)						39		1.1%			+1.1

* %Changes for the Bloxwich West by-election are from the 2008 results.