Labour lose "safe" council seat to Greens...

Both Labour and the Conservatives lost a council seat and one was held by just 35 votes



Coventry's first ever Green councillor was elected this morning. Stephen Gray, 44, won the ward of Holbrook with 51% of the vote after coming a close second last year.

He beat Labour candidate Raj Dhaliwal for the seat held by former party leader Ann Lucas since 1995 until she declined to run again this year.

He said that while national politics may have made more people willing to switch, it was "very much a campaign fought on local issues - who's doing most for the local area."

Council Leader and Labour councillor George Duggins said it was "a night of mixed emotions. We have lost Holbrook for the first time in many years," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service; "Clearly [we] have work to do to ensure we get the confidence back of the people in Holbrook."

But while Labour lost one of its seats, it gained another. Seven-time Labour candidate Abdul Jobbar was elected to Westwood ward with a majority of just 102 votes.

The seat has been held by the Conservatives since 2006 and like Holbrook, switched after a long-standing councillor declined to run. "Seventh time lucky," Abdul commented as he took the stage in what was the final result of the night.

Aside from those two seats, the other 16 were held by their respective parties, with Labour winning 12 and the Conservatives four. Results were notably close in two wards. Sherbourne saw Labour's Seamus Walsh re-elected with just 35 more votes than Conservative candidate Jackie Gardiner.

And in Foleshill, Independent candidate Zia Khan came second to Labour's Tariq Khan by only 60 votes. Leader of the Coventry Conservatives, councillor Gary Ridley, cited a tricky two months for the national party and 12 years of the Conservatives in government as factors affecting the result.

"I think this was always going to be difficult," he said. But, he added, "it is too early to say what the main causes were." "[We] need to go away and take a look at that;" He noted that voters he'd met were more concerned about the cost of living than 'partygate.'

"I think the election of a Green councillor shows [the] frustration with Labour and across the spectrum," he added.