Nottingham City Council leader David Mellen says Labour's huge majority after this year's local elections is 'pleasing' given the 'various issues' at the authority in recent years. Labour emerged triumphant after votes were counted on Friday (May 5) for the Nottingham City Council election.
It was part of local elections taking place across the country, which saw Labour make significant gains and the Conservatives suffer heavy losses. In Nottingham, the Conservatives in fact ended up with no councillors at all for the first time in history.
Labour now has 51 of the 55 seats available on Nottingham City Council, meaning just four councillors provide an opposition at the authority. Following Labour's victory, the Nottingham party immediately held a meeting to determine who would hold key roles.
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It's understood that there was a leadership challenge against David Mellen, but he was eventually re-elected as leader. Councillor Audra Wynter, meanwhile, replaces Adele Williams as the deputy leader. Speaking following the result, Councillor David Mellen said: "These are pleasing results and we aim to take every seat if we can, we got close to taking two more.
"We take the message to everybody in Nottingham and it's pleasing that they've come back after the various issues that we've had over the last four years Mainly [those issues] were brought up by people who perhaps were never going to support us at all. But there were concerns and we've been open about where there are concerns and what we're doing about them.
"To be given the trust of the people of Nottingham is an honour and responsibility, and we will represent everybody whether they voted for us, whether they didn't vote for us, of if they were excluded from voting from the Government's new rules on photo ID, of they didn't vote at all - we will represent them all and we will listen."
The manifesto produced by Labour during the election campaign featured over 100 pledges, including filling in 40,000 potholes. One of the more eye-catching pledges was to restore the water fountains in the Old Market Square.
Speaking about this particular pledge, Councillor Mellen said: "It's a manifesto between now and 2027, we cannot afford to restore the fountains quite yet. The problem is that it's not safe at the moment, the electricity and the water supply are too close together.
There's significant work to be done there, we haven't got the resources to do that. We will bid to get money, or be able to allocate some money, but at the moment our capital receipts are going to funding our transformation programme which is really important."
Councillor Mellen himself was re-elected as a councillor in the Dales ward with a strong majority, securing 2,287 votes. The redevelopment of the Broadmarsh and the continued oversight of a Government improvement and assurance board are among the pressing issues still facing Labour as they now begin another four-year term.
But Councillor Mellen added: "Nobody can tell the future, when I sat here four years ago I didn't know the things that have happened were going to. I would say while I'm the leader I'm going to continue to try and lead with integrity, honesty, to safeguard the money of the people of Nottingham, and to be responsive."
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