Parish election round-up

ONLY four parish council wards in the Yate and Sodbury area had elections in May - two in Yate, one in Old Sodbury and one in Iron Acton.

Yate Town Council's North ward had 11 candidates vying for its nine seats, and in a result that followed the pattern of local South Gloucestershire Council seats, it was the nine Liberal Democrats who were elected, with the two Conservatives losing out.

Topping the poll were the area's three South Glos councillors, Mike Drew, Chris Willmore and Ben Nutland, followed by Nicola Clarke, Alan Monaghan, John Emms, Ray Perry, Aziz Chowdhry and Karl Tomasin, with Conservatives David and Suzan Evan-Jones more than 1,000 votes behind.

In Central ward it was also the six Lib Dems who won the six seats.

The poll was topped by South Glos councillor Sandra Emms, followed by John Ford, Margaret Marshall, Tony Sharp, Gabriela Miron, and Wendy Tomasin, who was 554 votes ahead of sole Tory candidate Marian Gilpin.

In Sodbury Town Council's Old Sodbury Ward the sole Tory candidate, Scott Gibson, missed out on a seat by 14 votes.

He was the only candidate running under a party label: Andy Williams, Chris Anderson, Philip Rumney, Kevin Pitman and Matthew Rumney were the others elected, and Steve Spooner, Peter Whyton and Andy sage-Bell also missed out.

In the Iron Acton ward of Iron Acton Parish Council five candidates, all of whom stood without party labels, contested the four seats.

John Wright topped the poll with 182 votes, followed by Paul Chapman (157), Denise Smith (154), David Barker (145) and Catherine Spedding (113). Adrian Edmonds was the candidate who missed out, with 67 votes.

Elections did not take place in other wards, as not enough candidates came forward to make a vote necessary.