Three Green party gains from Conservative just days apart represent a notable success.
To put that into context, between 1983 and 2020 the Green Party and its antecedent, the Ecology Party, made a net gain of just nine seats against the Conservatives.
Two of these gains were in a double vacancy in Broadland District Council’s Brundall ward. One of the winners in this contest, Jan Davis, had been placed fourth in the May 2019 election with a gap of 300 votes between her and the Conservatives.
Both the Greens and Liberal Democrats squeezed the main two-party vote here.
Two days later, the Greens took another Conservative seat, this time East Hampshire District Council’s Horndean Downs ward.
This was a much closer affair with Blossom Gottlieb winning by just 29 votes.
The vacancy arose following the resignation of Tony Denton after he was elected to Havant Borough Council last May. This background and the absence of a Liberal Democrat candidate may have swung the result in the Greens’ favour.
The Conservatives suffered two further losses.
Lesley Bruton, the town clerk for Tenbury, standing as an Independent, took the ward of that name in Malvern Hills District Council.
It was always going to be a difficult defence for the Conservatives in Eden District Council’s Penrith West ward.
In May 2019, the two-member ward returned a Liberal Democrat and a Conservative, and it was unusual that each party only fielded one candidate. This is the ward’s third by-election since 2000 and each time the seat has changed hands.
East Cambridgeshire’s Soham North saw the Conservatives gain from the Liberal Democrats. Just 30 votes separated the parties in May 2019 but a swing towards the Conservatives here does not diminish the party’s slide across the county witnessed in last May’s shire contests.
Labour is currently unable to capitalise on Conservative discomfort; indeed it faces problems of its own.
The death of Cllr June Goodchild caused the by-election in Middlesbrough Council’s Ladgate ward. Elected for Labour in 2019, she quit the party the following year, joining the Independent group.
Labour failed to re-capture the seat, however, with Independent Tony Grainge winning by 47 votes.
Elsewhere, Labour’s urban base is less than solid in some parts. The Liberal Democrats had near successes in Sheffield’s Firth Park and Sunderland’s Hetton, while Labour’s vote in Nottingham’s Sherwood ward slipped under pressure from the city’s Independents.
Finally, on a sad note, the Residents Association of Cuddington retained their seat on Epsom and Ewell following the death of councillor and former mayor, Rob Foote, killed while a volunteer marshal at a race meeting at the Brands Hatch circuit last July.
| local by-elections |
|---|
| Broadland, Brundall 2 GREEN GAIN FROM CON 6.9% over Con Turnout 32.2% |
| Broadland, Old Catton & Sprowston West CON HELD 27% over Lab Turnout 21.9% |
| Charnwood, Shepshed West CON HELD 16.6% over Lab Turnout 19.4% |
| Ealing, Hobbayne LAB HELD 24.3% over Con Turnout 29.9% |
| East Cambridgeshire, Soham North CON GAIN FROM LIB DEM 12.1% over Lib Dem Turnout 19.2% |
| East Devon, Exe Valley LIB DEM HELD 5% over Con Turnout 26.2% |
| East Hampshire, Horndean Downs GREEN GAIN FROM CON 4.5% over Con Turnout 26.8% |
| East Staffordshire, Tutbury and Outwoods CON HELD 6.9% over Ind Turnout 22.3% |
| Eden, Penrith West LIB DEM GAIN FROM CON 21.6% over Con Turnout 17.2% |
| Epsom and Ewell, Cuddington RES HELD 36.2% over Lab Turnout 23.3% |
| Flintshire, Penyffordd LAB GAIN FROM IND 12.9% over Ind Turnout 21.2% |
| Hammersmith and Fulham, Wormholt and White City LAB HELD 49.4% over Con Turnout 22.6% |
| Malvern Hills, Tenbury IND GAIN FROM CON 24.7% over Con Turnout 28.3% |
| Middlesbrough, Ladgate MIG GAIN FROM LAB 4.5% over Con Turnout 25.8% |
| Nottingham, Sherwood LAB HELD 22.2% over Nott Ind Turnout 22.3% |
| Nottingham, St Ann’s LAB HELD 52.7% over Nott In Turnout 14.2% |
| Rushcliffe, Musters LIB DEM HELD 16.6% over Lab Turnout 35.6% |
| Sheffield, Firth Park LAB HELD 1.5% over LIB DEM Turnout 19.1% |
| Somerset West and Taunton, Wilton and Sherford LIB DEM HELD 20.3% over Con Turnout 39.9% |
| Somerset, Comeytrowe and Trull LIB DEM HELD 29.8% over Con Turnout 33.7% |
| South Lakeland, Kendal North LIB DEM HELD 7.2% over Green Turnout 39.5% |
| Sunderland, Hetton LAB HELD 1.3% over Lib Dem Turnout 22.5% |
| Swale, Priory LIB DEM HELD 7.4% over Con Turnout 25.8% |
| Waverley, Cranleigh East LIB DEM HELD 13.7% over Con Turnout 31% |
| West Suffolk, The Rows CON GAIN FROM IND 46% over Lab Turnout 19.8% |