UKIP take six seats in Thurrock as Labour support crumbles

Experts have predicted Labour is on course to lose 170 council seats nationally in the elections today (Thursday, May 5).

The turnout for the district elections was 16,007.

Labour leader Cllr Pete Marland said the result was disastrous for the Conservatives who were hoping to take overall control.

Although the council remained comfortably Labour, in the strongly Jewish area of Prestwich one ward went Tory, a second Lib Dem and a third only remained Labour by 19 votes.

Cllr Okonkowski, who said UKIP might form a council group alongside the three Liberal Party councillors, is now focusing on June’s European Union.

Cllr Sangster added: “Labour have three councillors”.

Nonetheless, in the wards with the highest student populations, Labour achieved swings in their favour, most dramatically a 10.7 per cent swing in Castle, although they were unable to wrest the seat from Independent incumbent John Hipkin. The Green Party got 401 votes with the Conservatives well behind on 125.

The Liberal Democrats and independent candidates are also represented.

THE Tories have maintained their grip on the majority of council seats in Winchester district – despite the Lib Dems putting up a convincing fight. While they used to step aside to give the Liberal Democrats more chance of defeating the Conservatives, now they want people’s votes and have campaigned hard.

Also back is Ian Lewis, who lost his seat in Leasowe two years ago and was elected Conservative councillor for Wallasey tonight. But we will be looking to continuing the coalition, though we have increase leverage and we are looking for more influence and positions as the Liberal Democrats are only four seats ahead of us.

“But it’s not good news that we’ve lost two really good councillors in Sedgley and Holyrood because they did not deserve to lose after all the work that they’ve done in the wards”.

UKIP have won six seats on Thurrock Council, missing out on being the largest party by a single vote.

“We were finding on the doorstep that people were not thinking about local issues”.

‘Local government rarely attracts party loyalty, so we have seen some interesting variations.