There were hugs, cheers and tears as Labour rode a wave of success in Tameside’s all-out election that turned last year’s turbulence into a distant memory.
The council’s former leader, Brenda Warrington, continued in the role for just a handful of days following last year’s election before being replaced by Ged Cooney. Yet there were few signs of struggle for those wearing the red rosette, as Labour gained four councillors - wiping out the Green Party’s one-member presence, regaining a seat from an independent and reversing recent progress made by the Conservatives.
Against the backdrop of a positive night for Labour nationally, Tameside leader Coun Cooney said: “We’ve had a great night. Everyone would expect us to win [seats] off the Tories, but we’ve actually took the seat back from the Greens, so people must believe that we’ve got an environmentally green policy that suits them and that’s important to us.
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"More importantly, across all areas we’ve increased our vote… people are endorsing what we are doing and we are the right party for Tameside. I think we’re trying to address people’s concerns - on fuel, on heating, on taxes - and people are seeing that.
"One of our main ones was to make sure every care worker in Tameside was paid the living wage, not the minimum wage, and we’ve also supported, where we can, our communities.”
Reflecting on the events the Tameside Labour party have seen in the past year, he added: “It was never about me. I think what I’ve tried to do though is talk about where you live - you can talk all the national you want, but at the end of the day we’re a local council dealing with local issues.”
Any early jitters for Labour were soon settled by 10 straight clean sweeps - as ward after ward was announced with three Labour councillors. That included Labour returning to three seats on Stalybridge North, following Sam Gosling becoming independent last December.
As the night wore on, there was visible anxiety on Conservative faces. They were confident in Stalybridge South, where they went on to secure their own clean sweep of three seats - including group leader Doreen Dickinson.
But there was trouble on the horizon for the party in Hyde and Ashton. In the Hyde Werneth ward, Labour gained one seat from their rivals - with Jim Fitzpatrick replacing Conservative deputy group leader Ruth Welsh on the council.
Labour also pinched back a seat from the Tories in Ashton Hurst, with Mohammed Karim pipping Conservative incumbent Lucy Turner, while the Green Party’s Lee Huntbach also lost his seat in Ashton Waterloo to Labour’s Dave Howarth.
The Conservatives had also hoped to gain a seat in the Dukinfield/Stalybridge ward where campaigning had been tense, with a Tory leaflet branded misogynistic and a sick historic tweet unearthed. The joy was palpable among Labour’s succeeding candidates as the result was announced.
Leanne Feeley said: “I’m just so pleased that people in Dukinfield and Stalybridge voted for us to carry on doing the job that we’re here to do, because we take it seriously, and we love doing this job. The people have voted for us, and that’s really reassuring to feel that our messages are getting out there to local people and drowning out some of those voices that have been really difficult.”
The hours ticked by with ever more glee for the borough’s largest party, but there was one final twist as the clock ticked towards 6.30am. A tie in the Hyde Godley count meant the returning officer had to draw a lot to decide the third councillor for the ward, seeing Conservative Andrea Colbourne hold on to her seat in dramatic fashion against Labour’s David McAllister.
It was a late moment of glee for the Conservatives after a difficult night. A ‘dejected’ Phil Chadwick, who held onto his Hyde Werneth seat, said: “It wasn’t what we were expecting.
“We didn’t get that feeling on the door. It was quite positive. To actually see the result tonight, it’s a bit heartbreaking.
“I think in general you’re going to find local and national issues are going to intertwine, but what people forget is that it’s local issues. What Labour have been pumping out on social media and in local leaflets, they can’t affect - they can’t employ more police, they can’t employ more nurses, but what they can do is stop building on the green belt.”
With the election being Tameside’s first with voter ID, there had been dismay among candidates from across the political spectrum as ward turnouts began to be announced. Hyde saw both the largest and smallest turnouts in the borough, with 38.1% in Werneth and 22.3% in Newton.
Overall, Tameside’s turnout was 27.6%, just shy of last year’s 28%. Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, said the figure being ‘a little bit down’ reflected a ‘pattern’ seen across the country.
“It may well be that voter ID has had a bit of an impact,” he said. “We certainly came across it as I was going round my constituency, people saying they couldn’t vote because they didn’t have ID and hadn’t got a voter authentication certificate in time.
“Whether those people would have gone and voted anyway I don’t know but certainly on the margins it does seem to have had a bit of an impact. And because we’ve got all-out elections, it added a bit of an extra complexity because we had to tell everybody this year - and this year only - you’ve got three votes.”
The Green Party had been hopeful of holding onto a seat at Ashton Waterloo at the beginning of the night, but ended empty-handed. The independent, Liberal Democrat, Women’s Equality Party and Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidates also ended the night without success.
FINAL RESULTS - Labour 51, Conservative 6
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