WINTERBOURNE Parish Council has an independent majority after May’s elections.
All six candidates running for seats in the 12-member Winterbourne ward under the banner ‘Winterbourne Independent Voices – Working For You’ were elected.
The council has two wards – Winterbourne, with 12 seats, and Frenchay, with four.
The battle for the Winterbourne ward involved the Conservatives, who fielded candidates for all 12 seats, the six Winterbourne Independent Voices candidates and Labour candidate John Lloyd.
After the votes were counted the six independents topped the poll.
Peter Bruce – who stood as a Liberal Democrat candidate in the South Gloucestershire Council elections – came first with 1,019 votes, followed by Fergus Arkley with 987, Laura Fogg-Rogers (915), Penny Sykes (875), Sharon Hancock (859) and David Eldridge (835), who also stood as a Lib Dem for South Gloucestershire in the Frenchay & Downend ward.
South Gloucestershire Winterbourne ward councillor Nic Labuschagne was the leading Conservative in the election, with 799 votes, but his colleague Trevor Jones missed out on a parish council seat, polling 651 votes.
The other Tories elected were Nicole Beebee (748 votes), Jon Amos (747), Mike Goodman (727) and Diane Marriott (702).
Labour’s John Lloyd won a seat, with 720 votes.
As well as Trevor Jones, Conservative candidates Lawrence Ward, Mary Newport, David Roughley, Venish Bansal, Carla Attwood and Theresa Van Der Merwe all missed out.
No election for Frenchay ward
With the four Frenchay seats taken by members of the Frenchay Preservation Society standing under an independent label, who were elected unopposed, the council now has 10 councillors sitting as independents, with one Labour and five Tory members.
Iron Acton Parsh Council result
The only other parish ward in the area where an election took place is the Iron Acton ward of Iron Acton Parish Council, where five candidates, all of whom stood without party labels, contested the four seats.
John Wright topped the poll with 182 votes, followed by Paul Chapman (157), Denise Smith (154), David Barker (145) and Catherine Spedding (113). Adrian Edmonds was the candidate who missed out, with 67 votes.
As reported in May’s Voice, elections did not take place in the other Iron Acton ward, East, or any of the wards on Frampton Cotterell or Coalpit Heath & Westerleigh parish councils, as not enough candidates came forward to make a vote necessary.
Where seats are unfilled, nominations are reopened and new councillors can be co-opted if not enough candidates have come forward to make another election necessary.