After a day of Swindonians heading to the polls in a practice run for the General Election in just six weeks time and hours and hours of counting at the Oasis the individuals chosen to run the towns parishes have been picked.
Which parties will be running the parish here you live after Thursday’s voting?
West Swindon Parish
Tim Swinyard, Caryl Sydney-Smith and Vinay Kumar representing the Conservatives took the three seats available in Grange Park. Nigel Gibbons also of Conservatives took the one seat in Eastleaze and Shaw. Matt Courtliff took a seat for Labour whilst John Lenton took the second available seat for Conservatives in Freshbook. Toothill went the way of Labour with Steph Exell and Timothy Makofu picking up to of the three available. The third going to Matt Walker for the Conservatives.
Peatmoor and Sparcells went to the Conservatives with Peter Stoddart and Keith Williams taking the two available seats. Westlea saw Suresh Gattapur and Mary Martin take seats for Conservative. Completing West Swindon were the two seats in Middleaze and Ramleaze announced early in the evening going to Ellen Heavens and Nick Martin.
Central Swindon North
With four of the wards not being contested in the voting due to not enough candidates there were seven seats available. Gorse Hill saw Ray Ballman, Hannah Fullick and Tom Smith pick up the available seats for Labour. The final four being split between Penhill and Rodbourne Cheney. Labour picking up another seat in Penhill with Paul Baker leading the voting and Kenneth Toward taking another seat for the Independents.
The Independents continued grabbing the seats taking both Rodbourne Cheney places with Paul Exell and Mick Lucas taking the large majority of the votes cast.
The uncontested seats in Even Swindon, Ferndale, Moredon and Pinehurst were taken by Labour in all but one of the Pinehurst seats which is now Independent.
Eldene, Liden & Nythe
The smallest parish of them all with a total of nine seats available over the three wards belongs to the Conservatives with a Zachary Hawson, Oladapo picking up seats in Eldene, David Bell in Liden and Kevin parry in Nythe. Labour picked up two seats with Adam Hunt in Liden and Bazil Soloman in Eldene. Independents took three of the seats Graham Stubbs in Liden, Brian Cockbill aand Gerry Cruse in Nythe.
St Andrews
The controversial parish, ripped away from its current standing with Blunsdon, had eleven seats available and had the biggest field of candidates, 23 in total, eleven of which were standing for the Conservatives.
In a result many in the party were probably dreaming of last night all eleven of the nominated candidates walked away with a seat.
Jean Blake, Susan Cole, Deborah Donohoe, Mary Friend, Paul Keevans, Phillip Lewis, Timothy Owen, Vera Tomlinson, Vince Williams, Kevin Woods and Melanie Woods.
Central Swindon South
The biggest parish of all with twenty-three seats up for grabs saw labour take a clean sweep in Central Ward with Junab Ali, John Firmin, Joy Gladman, Janine Lowry and Imtiyaz Shaikh picking up the five available seats. Lawn and Badbury Park went to the Conservatives with Michael Dickinson, Anthony Hawkins and John Short taking the seats.
Park South had two seats up for grabs which went to Labour with Chris Watts and Javed Miah leading the way and Walcot and park North was another clean sweep for Labour with the four seats going to Steve Allsopp, Jamal Miah, Trish Philpot and Barrie Thompson.
Eastcott and Old Town wards kept the crowd waiting in the auditorium for their results. With a recount needed on the recount due to the numbers being so close.
Old Town finally came in whilst Eastcott finished off counting with rumours of one of the parties requesting yet another recount due to being just three votes behind.
Labour took three of the four seats available with Neil Hopkins, Jane Milner-Barry and Nadine Watts coming in ahead of Nicholas Burns-Howells who picked up the final seat available for the Conservatives.
Liberal Democrats finished the evening off with a near clean sweep taking four of the five seats in Eastcott with Paul Dixon of Labour stopping them by just 15 votes. Dawn Pajak, Stan Pajak, Toby Robson and Dave Wood picking up the Liberal Democrats only seats of the evening.
