A candidate from the Labour Party has won one of the four Bradley Stoke seats on South Gloucestershire Council, meaning that the Conservatives no longer hold all the town’s seats for the first time since 2011.
The Bradley Stoke South ward has two new councillors after John Bradbury (Labour) topped the poll with 969 votes followed by Ben Randles (Conservative) on 915 votes. The other Conservative candidate, long-standing member Roger Avenin, lost his seat after coming third with 895 votes.
The other Labour candidate Kulwinder Sappal came fourth, followed by the two Liberal Democrats.
The Conservative share of the vote in the South ward was 44 percent (down from 48 percent in 2019) with Labour on 43 percent (up from 25 percent). Independent candidates took 21 percent of the votes in 2019 but none stood this time.
Turnout in the South ward was 31 percent, up from 26 percent in 2019.
The Conservatives fared better in the Bradley Stoke North ward, where they comfortably retained both seats. Their new candidate Terri Cullen topped the poll with 1062 votes followed by one of the incumbents, Franklin Owusu-Antwi, on 932 votes.
The two Labour candidates, Nigel Goldsmith and Ges Rosenberg came third and fourth, followed by Sarah Pomfret, the other Tory incumbent who stood as an Independent this time.
James Nelson, standing as the Green Party’s first-ever district election candidate in Bradley Stoke, came sixth with 9 percent of the votes cast, followed by the two Liberal Democrats and a Reform UK candidate.
The Conservative share of the vote in the North ward was 39 percent (down from 41 percent in 2019) with Labour on 29 percent (up from 22 percent). The Liberal Democrat share dropped from 19 percent to 11 percent.
Turnout in the North ward was 33 percent, up from 29 percent in 2019.
Labour also gained one seat from the Conservatives in the three-seat Stoke Gifford district ward, which covers part of south Bradley Stoke. Read more in this report on the Stoke Gifford Journal website: Labour wrests one of three Stoke Gifford seats on South Glos Council from Tories
For further details of the local results, see our 2023 District Election page.
No overall control
Overall in South Gloucestershire, the Conservatives have lost a total of ten seats, meaning they no longer command an overall majority on the 61-seat council. They have ended up with 23 councillors – down by 10 from the last elections in 2019 – with 36 percent of the vote. This is two points above the Liberal Democrats who won 20 seats, an increase of three, from a 34 percent vote share, while Labour went up from 11 to 17 members and received 24 percent of the vote, with one Independent.
A notable loss for the Conservatives was Steve Reade who, as Cabinet member with responsibility for transport, fronted the troubled Gipsy Patch Lane railway bridge replacement project and the abandoned Ring Road throughabout proposals.
All the South Gloucestershire results in detail: District Elections 2023 (SGC)
Results for the town and parish elections, including Bradley Stoke Town Council, are expected later on Friday. Look out for a further article on the Journal website in due course.
