Labour won an additional five new seats in the Sefton Council Local Election last night, increasing its domination of the local authority.
The party increased its number of seats from 46 to 51 of total seats available.
It included Labour’s first ever victory in Ainsdale, a seat previously contested by the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. The seat was previously held by former Sefton Conservative Leader Cllr Terry Jones.
Janet Harrison won the seat on a dramatic night by just 16 votes.
Janet won 1,497 votes, against 1,481 for Lesley Delves (Lib Dem), 1,046 for Nigel Ball (Conservatives) and 187 for Laurence Rankin (Green Party).
The votes were counted at Dunes Leisure Centre for the Southport wards and Aintree Racecourse for the south and central declarations.
It is a further gain in Southport for Labour as it looks ahead to contesting the next General Election, with the seat held by Conservative MP Damien Moore since 2017.
Despite the Labour gains, Lib Dem Councillor Iain Brodie-Browne said he was delighted his had topped the popular vote in the Southport constituency in these local votes.
He said: “It’s been a great night for the Lib Dems. We’ve topped the popular vote in Southport.
“If a General Election was held today on these votes, we would have won It.
“Labour have been strutting around boasting that they were going to win Southport and we defeated them.”
Further gains for Labour came at the Aintree count – in the wards of Harington, Sudell, Ravenmeols and Park wards.
Each of these gains came at the expense of sitting independent councillors.
Sitting Labour councillor James Hansen said: “The results are clear tonight. We’ve got the best result we’ve ever got in Sefton with 51 out of 66 councillors. Considering we only took control in 2012, it’s clear that Labour are on the up here. People are responding to the work we’re doing. They want decent councillors who represent them, put the graft in, are hard-working and it shows tonight.”
The results leave Labour on 51 seats, with the Liberal Democrats in second place on eight seats, the Conservatives with five seats and two independents.
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