There were four principal council elections held on the 12th February. The Tories held three seats and lost one to Labour. There were two Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC. The Tories took one seat from the Lib Dems and the Lib Dems took one from the Tories.
In the four principal elections put together we only polled 440 votes. In most by-elections we will fight to win and you can often get much bigger swings than are possible in a regular local election. The entire Local Party’s resources (and help from outside) can be directed into a small area. Not fighting to win should be rare and would only usually happen except in a very poor ward when perhaps you are in the run up to wider local elections and you do not want to take effort away from your main targets. But even when you are not going all out to win you can still set yourselves achievable goals. Your goal may well be to develop your organisation in that ward or to build data in your strongest areas to help at a different election – perhaps the General Election or the next set of locals in the area. Your goal could be to train campaigners in election skills for future elections. Don’t miss the opportunity.