Yesterday morning I was at the Sub Rooms for the count. In short Greens held their 4 seats in Stroud District, missed Nailsworth by 12 votes and came a close second in Central ward and were only some 70 votes behind in Rodborough.Photo: Sarah Lunnon returned to Valley ward
Infact at one point we were told unofficially we had won Nailsworth by 15 votes then another ballot box was found! A great shame indeed. A swing to Tories meant Lib Dems lost a seat and so we are now third largest group on Council with 5 seats out of 51, Labour have 9, Lib Dems 4 and Independents 2.Photo: Nailsworth recount
On Stroud Town Council Greens gained 11 out of 18 seats- all the names we put forward plus we gained several Parish seats. Read report here.
Elsewhere in Gloucestershire results in Gloucester City and Tewkesbury Borough were somewhat disappointing - best result being 9.8% - but first time we have ever stood in Tewkesbury - plus our first Parish councillor in Gloucester.
In contrast the Forest of Dean District saw spectacular results but no wins. The party has only been running a few months there and a huge amount of work bought them to within 35 votes in one ward and also close in others - plus 2 Town seats.
See more here Glos results here.
Nationally it looks like we've grown from 93 Principal Authority councillors to 111. There are also now 8 new Green councillors in Scotland, in spite of the tragic losses in the Scottish Parliament. Incredibly a huge campaign was mounted by Catholic schools to stop parents voting Green - it is now admitted this breached guidelines - read Herald story here.
Given the increase in the size of a number of Green Groups more Green councillors will find themselves in balance of power situations on hung councils. Also some spectacular results including Lancaster where Greens are now the largest party in the City and in Brighton where Greens double their number of seats to 12. Elsewhere I hear Greens with Independents hold the balance in Morecombe - infact lots of good news coming in. In Norwich South, one of our target constituencies, we have now become the highest scoring party in these elections - with 31 per cent of the vote. This places us in pole position to fight for the Westminster seat - as the main challengers to Charles Clarke. Another great example is after 28 years of Green Party workers pounding the streets of Leicester, we have not one but two Green councillors elected for the first time.
Molly Scott Cato in her speech at the count made the point that our electoral system stinks - except she put it more politely. Just a quick look at the thousands who voted Green like in the Forest who have no representation on their Council. More of this in another post - see also Mollys letter to press here.Photo: Molly talking to BBC afterwards
Overall it is very disappointing to see such a swing to Conservatives - part of it is about wanting to punish Blair - but more of that for another blog.
