Welsh local elections, 2017

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Welsh local elections, 2017
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All 1,271 seats to 22 Welsh councils

 First partySecond party
  Carwyn Jones 2011 (cropped).jpg Leanne Wood 2011 (cropped).tif
Leader Carwyn Jones Leanne Wood
Party Labour Plaid Cymru
Leader since10 December 200916 March 2012
Last election580 seats, 34.9% [1] 170 seats, 16.1%
Seats won468208
Seat changeDecrease2.svg112Increase2.svg38
Popular vote294,989160,519
Percentage30.4%16.5%
SwingDecrease2.svg4.5%Increase2.svg0.5%
 Third partyFourth party
  Andrew R. T. Davies 2011 (cropped).jpg Mark Williams MP 2009.JPG
Leader Andrew R. T. Davies Mark Williams
Party Conservative Liberal Democrats
Leader since14 July 20118 May 2016
Last election105 seats, 12.5%73 seats, 8.0%
Seats won18463
Seat changeIncrease2.svg79Decrease2.svg10
Popular vote182,52066,022
Percentage18.8%6.8%
SwingIncrease2.svg6.3%Decrease2.svg1.2%
2017 Welsh Local Elections - Ward and Council Control.svg
Colours denote the winning party with outright control (left), and the largest party by ward (right)
Key:

Local elections were held in Wales on Thursday 4 May 2017 to elect members of all 22 local authorities, including the Isle of Anglesey, which was last up for election in 2013 due to having its elections delayed for a year. These local elections were held alongside local elections in Scotland and parts of England.

Wales Country in northwest Europe, part of the United Kingdom

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,680 miles (2,700 km) of coastline and is largely mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon, its highest summit. The country lies within the north temperate zone and has a changeable, maritime climate.

Since 1 April 1996, Wales has been divided into 22 single-tier principal areas for local government purposes. The elected councils of these areas are responsible for the provision of all local government services, including education, social work, environmental protection, and most highways. Below these there are also elected community councils to which responsibility for specific aspects of the application of local policy may be devolved.

Contents

The last elections were in 2012. Normally these elections take place every four years, but the 2017 elections were postponed for a year in order to avoid clashing with the 2016 Welsh Assembly election, which itself was postponed by a year to avoid clashing with the previous year's general election.

The Labour Party had a net loss of 112 council seats, and also lost control of the Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr Tydfil and Bridgend councils. Labour did, however, retain control of Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, and five other councils. The Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru had a net gain of 38 seats and won control of the Gwynedd Council (the council had shifted to Plaid control in June 2012, and is thus counted in this article as a 'gain'); it also fell just short of controlling the Carmarthenshire County Council. The Conservatives had a net gain of 79 seats, and won control of one council, Monmouthshire; the Conservatives also became the largest party in Vale of Glamorgan and Denbighshire. In ten of the 22 councils, no party had overall control of the council. [2]

The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The party's platform emphasises greater state intervention, social justice and strengthening workers' rights.

Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council is the governing body for Blaenau Gwent, one of the Principal Areas of Wales.

Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council

Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council is the governing body for Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, one of the Principal Areas of Wales.

Overview and background

In the last local elections in Wales in 2012 (including a delayed election for the Isle of Anglesey County Council in 2013), the 1,265 local seats in Wales were won by the following: 580 Labour; 307 independents; 170 Plaid Cymru; 105 Conservatives, 73 Liberal Democrats, 2 UKIP and 28 others. [3]

Isle of Anglesey County Council British administrative body

The Isle of Anglesey County Council is the governing body for the county of Anglesey, one of the unitary authority areas of Wales. The council has 30 councillors who represent 11 multi-member electoral wards.

Plaid Cymru is a social-democratic political party in Wales advocating Welsh independence from the United Kingdom within the European Union.

Liberal Democrats (UK) Political party in the United Kingdom

The Liberal Democrats are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently led by Vince Cable. They have 11 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 96 members of the House of Lords, one member of the European Parliament, five Members of the Scottish Parliament and one member in the Welsh Assembly and London Assembly. At the height of its influence, the party formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2015 with its leader Nick Clegg serving as Deputy Prime Minister.

Ahead of the 2017 elections, Labour were defending 536 seats and control of ten of the 22 Welsh local authorities; [4] Plaid Cymru was defending 177 seats, and the Conservatives was defending 103 seats. [5] The Liberal Democrats were defending 75 seats, [6] [7] having "made a net gain of three council seats as a result of by-elections and defections" since 2012. [6] The Wales Green Party was defending a single seat. [7]

The Wales Green Party is a semi-autonomous political party within the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW). It covers Wales, and is the only regional party with semi-autonomous status within the GPEW. The WGP contests elections for the National Assembly for Wales.

Labour suffered several defections among its Welsh councilors prior to the 2017 elections. In September 2014, ten Labour councillors on the Wrexham County Borough Council left the Labour Party and quit the Labour council group. [8] In August 2016, the councilor for Splott, Cardiff left Labour. [9] In November 2016, Labour lost two of its Cardiff councillors in two days, with the Llandaff North councillor resigning from the council because of a "culture of bullying" and the Adamsdown councillor leaving the Labour group to sit as an independent after he was not re-selected to run in 2017. [10]

Wrexham County Borough Council

Wrexham County Borough Council is the governing body for Wrexham, one of the administrative subdivisions of Wales.

Splott

Splott is a district and community in the south of the city of Cardiff, capital of Wales, just east of the city centre. It was built up in the late 19th century on the land of two farms of the same name: Upper Splott and Lower Splott Farms. Splott is characterised by its once vast steelworks and rows of tightly knit terraced houses. The suburb of Splott falls into the Splott electoral ward.

Cardiff Capital and largest city of Wales

Cardiff is the capital of Wales, and its largest city. The eleventh-largest city in the United Kingdom, it is Wales's chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural institutions and Welsh media, and the seat of the National Assembly for Wales. At the 2011 census, the unitary authority area population was estimated to be 346,090, and the wider urban area 479,000. Cardiff is a significant tourist centre and the most popular visitor destination in Wales with 21.3 million visitors in 2017. In 2011, Cardiff was ranked sixth in the world in National Geographic's alternative tourist destinations.

A total of 1,159 seats were up for election in the 2017 Welsh local elections. [4] Labour fielded 910 candidates, [5] the Conservatives 621 candidates, [5] Plaid Cymru 549 candidates, [5] the Liberal Democrats 280 candidates, [7] UKIP 80 candidates, [7] and the Greens 78 candidates. [7] Additionally, more than 870 people ran as independent or candidates for other parties. [7] Almost a hundred candidates ran unopposed. [4] In one ward, Yscir in Powys, no candidate filed to run, [4] [11] [12] the election was deffered until the 21 June 2017, when it was won by the Conservative Party. [13]

Elections in the wards in Cyfarthfa, Merthyr Tydfil and Llandyfriog, Ceredigion were postponed after the deaths of local candidates. [4]

Eligibility to vote

All registered electors (British, Irish, Commonwealth and European Union citizens) who are aged 18 or over on polling day are entitled to vote in the local elections. [14] A person who has two homes (such as a university student who has a term-time address and lives at home during holidays) can register to vote at both addresses as long as they are not in the same electoral area, and can vote in the local elections for the two different local councils. [15]

Individuals must be registered to vote by midnight twelve working days before polling day (13 April 2017). [16] Anyone who qualifies as an anonymous elector has until midnight on 25 April 2017 to register. [17]

Wales-Wide Results

PartyVotes [18] %+/-Councils+/-Seats+/-
Labour 294,98930.4%Decrease2.svg4.5%7Decrease2.svg3468Decrease2.svg112
Independent 218,81722.5%Decrease2.svg1.3%3Increase2.svg1309Increase2.svg2
Conservative 182,52018.8%Increase2.svg6.3%1Increase2.svg1184Increase2.svg79
Plaid Cymru 160,51916.5%Increase2.svg0.5%1Increase2.svg1208Increase2.svg38
Liberal Democrat 66,0226.8%Decrease2.svg1.2%0Steady2.svg63Decrease2.svg10
Green 12,4411.3%Increase2.svg0.2%0Steady2.svg1Increase2.svg1
UKIP 11,0061.1%Increase2.svg0.3%0Steady2.svg0Decrease2.svg2
Other24,5942.5%Decrease2.svg0.3%0Steady2.svg21Decrease2.svg7
No overall control n/an/an/a10Increase2.svg1n/an/a

For comparative purposes, the table above shows changes since 2012 including Anglesey's council, which was last elected in 2013.

The Labour Party had a net loss of 112 council seats, and also lost control of the Blaenau Gwent and Bridgend councils. Labour did, however, retain control of Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, and five other councils. The Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru had a net gain of 38 seats and won control of the Gwynedd Council (the council had shifted to Plaid control in June 2012, and is counted in the table above as a 'gain'); it also fell just short of controlling the Carmarthenshire County Council. The Conservatives had a net gain of 79 seats, and won control of one council, Monmouthshire; the Conservatives also became the largest party in Vale of Glamorgan and Denbighshire. In ten of the 22 councils, no party had overall control of the council. [2]

Individual councils

CouncilPrevious controlResultDetails
Isle of Anglesey No overall control No overall control Details
Blaenau Gwent Labour Independent Details
Bridgend Labour No overall control (Labour minority) [19] Details
Caerphilly Labour Labour Details
Cardiff Labour Labour Details
Carmarthenshire No overall control No overall control (Plaid/Independent coalition) [20] Details
Ceredigion No overall control No overall control (Plaid/Independent coalition) [21] Details
Conwy No overall control
(Plaid Cymru/Labour/LibDem/Independent coalition) †		 No overall control (Independent/Conservative coalition with LibDem support) [22] [23] [24] Details
Denbighshire No overall control
(Plaid Cymru/Independent/Conservative coalition) ‡		 No overall control
(Independent/Conservative coalition)		 Details
Flintshire No overall control No overall control (Labour minority) [25] Details
Gwynedd Plaid Cymru†† Plaid Cymru Details
Merthyr Tydfil Labour Independent Details
Monmouthshire No overall control Conservative Details
Neath Port Talbot Labour Labour Details
Newport Labour Labour Details
Pembrokeshire Independent Independent Details
Powys Independent No overall control (Independent/Conservative coalition) [26] Details
Rhondda Cynon Taff Labour Labour Details
Swansea Labour Labour Details
Torfaen Labour Labour Details
Vale of Glamorgan No overall control (Labour/Llantwit coalition) No overall control (Conservative/Independent coalition) [27] [28] Details
Wrexham No overall control No overall control (Independent/Conservative coalition) [29] [30] Details

† In 2014, the only Welsh Liberal Democrat cabinet member defected to Welsh Labour, therefore the Liberal Democrats are no longer part of the coalition. [31] In 2015, several Independent councillors created their own group within the council called Conwy First. This group later on went to support the council instead of the remaining five independent councillors, meaning the current coalition is made up of Plaid Cymru, Welsh Labour and Conwy First. [32]

‡ The Welsh Liberal Democrats have since lost its only seat on the Council, therefore leaving the coalition. [33] [34]

†† Plaid Cymru at the original election won exactly half the seats available, they took control of the council by winning the final seat in a delayed election in June 2012. [35]

Opinion polling

Date(s)
conducted		Polling organisation/clientSample size Lab PC Con LDem UKIP Others Lead
4 May 20172017 Election Results970,90830.4%16.5%18.8%6.8%1.1%26.3%11.6%
19-21 Apr 2017 YouGov 1,02928%19%26%7%8%12%2%
3 May 2012 2012 Election Results 853,59334.9%16.1%12.5%8.0%0.8%27.7%20.2%

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References

  1. ↑ Note that these results also include results from the Isle of Anglesey County Council election, 2013, and so will not match up precisely with the results of the Welsh local elections, 2012
  2. 1 2 Wales' local elections 2017 results, BBC News (May 4, 2017).
  3. ↑ http://www.electionscentre.co.uk/?page_id=3755
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Wales' Local elections: Labour leader ousted in Merthyr, BBC News (May 4, 2017).
  5. 1 2 3 4 'Theresa May candidates' in Wales (11:10pm): Live Local elections 2017 results: Labour braced for heavy losses as Conservatives sweep up Ukip seats, Telegraph (May 4, 2017).
  6. 1 2 Lib Dems attack 'arrogance and laziness' of councils, BBC News (April 12, 2017).
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Last local election campaigning before polling day, BBC News (May 3, 2017).
  8. ↑ Ten Wrexham Labour councillors quit group and party, BBC News (September 3, 2014).
  9. ↑ Ruth Mosalski, A Cardiff councillor has defected from Labour saying the party has a 'culture of bullying and harassment', Wales Online (August 2, 2016).
  10. ↑ Two Cardiff councillors quit Labour group in two days, BBC News (November 30, 2016).
  11. ↑ Twm Owen, No candidate for seat on Powys council, ITV News (April 5, 2017).
  12. ↑ The council seat no-one wants to represent, Brecon & Radnor Express (April 5, 2017).
  13. ↑ "Tory wins Yscir by-election where no-one stood at May poll". BBC News. 23 June 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-09-12. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  14. ↑ "Representation of the People Act 1983, Section 2". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  15. ↑ Electoral Commission. "I have two homes. Can I register at both addresses?". electoralcommission.org.uk. The Electoral Commission . Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  16. ↑ "Timetable for local elections in England and Wales: 4 May 2017" (doc). The Electoral Commission . Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  17. ↑ The deadline for the receipt and determination of anonymous electoral registration applications is one working day before the publication date of the notice of alteration to the Electoral Register (that is the sixth working day before polling day). cf "Guidance for Electoral Registration Officers (Part 4 – Maintaining the register throughout the year)" (pdf). Cabinet Office and The Electoral Commission. July 2016. p. 114 (para 7.128). Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  18. ↑ http://www.electionscentre.co.uk/?page_id=3755
  19. ↑ http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/labour-takes-top-positions-bridgend-13055104
  20. ↑ http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/council-agm-few-points.html
  21. ↑ http://www.tivysideadvertiser.co.uk/news/15283501.Tribute_paid_to_candidate_as_new_Ceredigion_Council_is_formed/
  22. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-39962523
  23. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-40137091
  24. ↑ http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/conwy-council-elects-new-leader-13054901
  25. ↑ http://www.deeside.com/councillor-aarron-shotton-re-elected-leader-flintshire-county-council/
  26. ↑ https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/politics/2017/05/23/leader-of-powys-county-council-announces-new-cabinet/
  27. ↑ http://www.barryanddistrictnews.co.uk/news/15308473.Vale_council_leadership_confirmed/
  28. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-40050714
  29. ↑ http://www.wrexham.com/news/wrexham-councils-new-executive-board-opposition-parties-react-132152.html
  30. ↑ http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/independents-tories-set-run-wrexham-13050252
  31. ↑ 14:37, 4 JUL 2014Updated16:06, 4 JUL 2014 (2014-07-04). "Conwy: Liberal Democrat councillor Mike Priestley defects to Labour". Daily Post. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  32. ↑ 13:06, 10 MAR 2016Updated13:11, 10 MAR 2016 (2016-03-10). "Conwy council Independents in disarray over attempt to oust Plaid Cymru leader". Daily Post. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  33. ↑ "Denbighshire Labour councillor defends opposition". Denbighshirefreepress.co.uk. 2012-06-13. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  34. ↑ "Committee details – Cabinet". Denbighshire County Council. 2016-10-26. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  35. ↑ http://www.welshelections.org.uk/wales/lby/bryncrugllanfihangel.php/
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