Labour remain in control of Wakefield Council after 2018 local election result

Labour remain in control of Wakefield Council.
Tory candidate Nic Stansby makes her winning speech.Tory candidate Nic Stansby makes her winning speech.
Tory candidate Nic Stansby makes her winning speech.

Local Election 2018: Full results from Wakefield

Labour remain in control of Wakefield Council.

In a fairly predictable night of results the Conservatives made gains by winning seats in Horbury and South Ossett ward, Ossett, Wakefield Rural and Wrenthorpe.

Tory councillor Nick Farmer, who was previously a UKIP and Independent councillor held his seat in Ossett.

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And in the Horbury South Ossett Ward conservative Gillian Cruise took the seat which had previously belonged to Labour.

UKIP's last remaining candidate in Wakefield, David Dews, lost his Wrenthorpe and Outwood seat to the Conservatives.

Tory candidate Nic Stansby beat Labour to the seat by just 161 votes, in one of the night's narrowest victories.

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Ms Stansby said: "I'm absolutely over the moon. I think it's been a really, really good night for us (Conservatives). Wakefield's been a Labour-run council for a very long time and we've made some inroads tonight. I'm filled with optimism for our future prospects.

One of the Conservatives' target seats before polling day was Wakefield Rural, which was duly taken by their candidate Samantha Harvey. She defeated the current mayor of Wakefield, Labour's Kevin Barker.

And Wakefield's Conservative leader Nadeem Ahmed held on to his Wakefield South seat and issued a warning to the Labour Party

He said: "This is a clear message to the Labour Party we are going to take your MP in the next general election."

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Wakefield Council's deputy leader Denise Jeffery held onto her Castleford Central and Glass Houghton seat.

Council leader Coun Peter Box said: "It's been a mixed night.

It's clear that the UKIP vote has gone to the Conservatives.

"I've been in this job a long time and I've never seen such a negative campaign from our opponents. I regret that. We've not done that ourselves.

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"I think it's clear that national politics, as always with local elections, has played a huge part.

"There's no doubt Brexit is still affecting how people vote.

"The turnout is very, very disappointing I have to say. I think people have got election fatigue and I think also there is a slight disenfranchment with politicians generally

And Labour also managed to win the South Elmsall and South Kirkby with Lynne Whitehouse winning the seat from independent Wilf Benson.

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Coun Whitehouse,: "I'm absolutely delighted to win. I want to do something for the youth of Wakefield. We've got a bad reputation for ASBOs here and I want to provide a solution to that.

"I think tonight's result is big backing for Jeremy Corbyn. "

The overall turnout was 26.86 per cent. The turnout in the last local elections in 2016 was 30.23 per cent. Labour held 15 of the 17 seats they were defending. They lost one seat to the Conservatives and gained one seat from an Independent. The Conservatives held the one seat they were defending and have gained two seats from Labour, one seat from UKIP and one seat from an Independent. There was one UKIP member up for election and he lost his seat.There were two Independent seats being contested, one was lost to Labour and the other was a conservative gain. The make-up of the council is as follows: Labour 52 seats Conservative 11 seats UKIP 0 seats Independent 0 seats