Congrats Sarah Lunnon on re-election

Green Leader and Sarah in Stroud - see new film of highlights

Well done to Sarah for winning Stroud Central - with a bigger majority - but disappoiniting to come second in Tory strongholds of Painswick and Minch - had hoped for a breakthrough there - also hugely concerned by rise of UKIP - one Twitter comment on the national reporting says alot: "Dear @BBC, congratulations on the recent success of your pro-UKIP campaign. Yours, license fee payers."

See my 5 min film of the 11 results being announced for Stroud area plus links to the figures: http://stroudcommunity.tv/election-results-stroud-2nd-may-2013/

Turnout for the election was 31.8%, down from 40% - and we should not forget that boundaries have changed since the last election in 2009 and the total number of seats on the council has decreased from 63 to 53. Locally we are in third place about the Lib Dems...here are the rough calculations:

		Party Totals & %ages
	seats
Party	contested	10 divs 10 GP cand'ss
Con	10	10466	32.65
Lab	10	9106	28.41
Lib Dem	10	2994	9.34
Green	10	6340	19.78
UKIP	5	2839	8.86
Other	2	311	0.97

Chris Brierley, the BBC's Political reporter for Gloucestershire catches the picture well about where we are in the County: "After eight years in power on their own, the Conservatives will now have to consider trying to form partnerships to run this authority. The blue electoral map has turned to grey, but the Tories are by far the largest party. The chances of a similar coalition to that of Cameron and Clegg is unlikely in the county due to the personalities of the leaders. But the Tories are still in the driving seat. Will they offer the olive branch to the newly elected UKIP councillors? Then again, there are the three Independents who might also help the Tories get to that magic figure of 27. Or could it be that the Tories try to run the council as a minority administration and appeal to different councillors on a vote by vote basis? What is clear is that from a true blue council where votes were passed without much discussion, we now have an authority where every single vote will count."

So where does that leave the incinerator and other big issues? We will have to wait and see.....