The Conservatives have held on in the Patcham by-election with a victory for Anne Meadows who was previously elected for Labour in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean.
Councillor Meadows, who switched from Labour to the Conservatives before the last local elections, held on despite a vigorous by-election challenge from the Greens.
The Conservatives have 13 of the 54 seats on Brighton and Hove City Council.
The votes cast were …
Anne Christine Meadows (Conservative) 2,011 – elected
Eliza Wyatt (Green) 1,733
Bruno De Oliveira (Labour) 879
Madeleine Joanna Primrose Hunter-Taylor (Liberal Democrat) 174
Charles Daniel Goodhand (UK Independence Party) 50
There were 23 rejected ballot papers.
The turnout was 43.84 per cent of an electorate of 11,106 – or 4,870 voters.
The seat became vacant with the resignation of Conservative councillor Lee Wares.
The Patcham ward has three seats. The other two are held by Conservative councillors Carol Theobald and Alistair McNair.
Humiliation for Labour, losing the seat in Hollingdean and dropping to third place, (by quite a distance), in Patcham. If your going to have a coalition with the Greens and support their policies then you reap what you so. This coalition with the Greens appears to behaving the same affect as the one Lib Dems suffered when they ended up with the Tories. The new leader, whomever replaces Nancy has to totally look at the party locally and start representing ALL Labour supporters not just those a very small niche. Any sort of action on the Old Shoreham Cycle lane would be a start otherwise the four councilors in the West are an easy target.
The Greens and the Tories have a clear identity. Labour don’t.
Labour need to adopt a properly progressive, green, social equitable agenda or they’ll lose more councillors – and possibly another MP – to the Greens.
Whatever won an election in 1997 will not win it now.
I suspect that the candidate Mr. Goodhand will be hearing jokes about his playing a bad hand!
Meanwhile, it all means that Patcham will be a hot spot in two years’ time.