The Labour Party have maintained a handsome majority at City Hall following Thursday’s round of local elections, despite losing Sewell Ward to the Green Party’s Alex Catt.
One third of the council’s seats were up for election this year, one in each of Norwich City Council’s thirteen wards. All but one of the wards remained as they were in 2018. Leader of the Council, Labour’s Alan Waters said he was “very pleased with the results” but was also “very sorry to lose one of my colleagues in Sewell Ward, Matt Packer”.
Alex Catt, who ousted Packer in Sewell Ward said that “people in Sewell and across the city have felt left behind by the traditional parties” and that “the Green Party offered them something different”. He added that the Labour led council had “let things stagnate, from things like Anglia Square to our green spaces or the lack of affordable housing in the city” and that “people want some more opposition on the council to push them where they’ve become too comfortable”. He said his priorities in office would be “the climate crisis, that’s number one” as well as “the cost of living” and “to work even more closely with community groups”.
Celebrations as Alex Catt takes Norwich’s Sewell Ward for the Green Party, from Labour.
Alan Waters echoed some of those priorities, saying that “we’ve really got to make sure we see people through the cost of living crisis”, but also that Labour had plans for “a big housing programme” but also wanted to “protect private sector renters” and wanted to ensure that “people are living in a city that’s clean, green and safe”.
Students maintained their strong support for Labour in this election too, with Matthew Fulton-MacAlister retaining the seat. He said that students had stayed with Labour because “they see that we will tackle the scourge of private sector landlords, they know that we will tackle generational injustice that currently exists, and they also have faith in us being able to tackle the climate crisis we currently experience”. He also said that one of his aims in office was “for us, as a council to call on the government to introduce rent controls, that’s one of the major challenges facing students at UEA” and that “one of the unknown challenges of our ward is the level of deprivation”, despite many seeing it “as an affluent area where university lecturers and other well-paid jobs have moved to”.
Matthew Fulton-MacAlister gives his thoughts on why students continue to vote Labour, his priorities in office and the national successes of his party.
It was a solid performance from Labour across the country in this most recent round of local elections. Matthew Fulton-MacAlister said “I think it’s been an excellent night for Labour. At this point I think we’ve made over 150 council gains” and that “the Conservatives have a lot to be concerned about, I would be surprised if Boris Johnson doesn’t come under serious pressure for this”. Alan Waters added “although there’s only one seat that has changed hands, in the areas where the Tories are our main opposition, we’ve significantly increased our majority, and that’s really important for the coming general election”.
Leader of Norwich’s Labour City Council, Alan Waters, gives his thoughts on the results of the 2022 Norwich City Council elections.
Despite the Green Party gaining another seat on the council, as they did in 2021, the other parties still have much work to do make a serious dent in Labour’s majority, as they control 25 of the City Council’s 39 seats, compared to the Greens’ 11 and the Liberal Democrats’ 3. The Conservatives remain without a seat on the council, as they have been for a decade now.
Here are the full ward-by-ward results:
Bowthorpe: Labour hold. Mike Sands (Labour) 1170, Sean Bennett (Liberal Democrats) 184, Oscar Houseago (Conservatives) 409, Maddie Lyall (Green Party) 221. 29.1% turnout
Catton Grove: Labour hold. Paul Kendrick (Labour) 1,236, Hassan Iqbal (Conservatives) 563, Tony Park (Green Party) 355, Ian Williams (Liberal Democrats) 143. 29.5% turnout
Crome: Labour Hold. Claire Kidman (Labour) 1360, Steve Barber (Conservatives) 828, James Killbery (Green Party) 294, Nigel Lubbock (Liberal Democrats) 115. 31.7% turnout
Eaton: Liberal Democrat hold. Caroline Ackroyd (Liberal Democrats) 2,069, Peter Prinsley (Labour) 1,310, Jane Saunders (Green Party) 336, John Ward (Conservatives) 560. 55.3% turnout
Lakenham: Labour hold. Gurpreet Padda (Labour) 1391, Paul Davies (Liberal Democrats) 237, James Hammond (Conservatives) 464, Sabine Virani (Green Party) 363. 32.1% turnout
Mancroft: Green hold. Jamie Osborn* (Green Party) 1606, Jess Carrington (Labour) 691, Gordon Dean (Liberal Democrats) 55, Iain Gwynn (Conservatives) 243. 35.3% turnout
Mile Cross: Labour hold. Vivien Thomas* (Labour) 1135, Gunnar Eigener (Green Party) 318, Desmond Fulcher (Liberal Democrats) 87, Eric Masters (Conservatives) 382. 25.2% turnout
Nelson: Green Hold. Julie Young (Green Party) 2,138 Lynda Groves (Labour) 1,476, David Fairbairn (Liberal Democrats) 132, John Fisher (Conservatives) 226, Simon Redding (I) 41. Turnout 49.4% turnout
Sewell: Green gain. Alex Catt (Green Party) 1580, Matt Packer* (Labour) 1182, Helen Arundell (Liberal Democrats) 71, Antony Little (Conservatives) 238. 40.7% turnout
Thorpe Hamlet: Green hold. Ben Price* (Green Party) 1450, Cavan Stewart (Labour) 852, Simon Jones (Conservatives) 413, Jeremy Hooke (Liberal Democrats)114. 37.7% turnout
Town Close: Labour hold. Cate Oliver* (Labour) 1,968, Willem Buttinger (Green Party) 661, Mary Chacksfield (Conservatives) 534, Carol Chilton (Liberal Democrats) 246. 43.4% turnout
University: Labour Hold. Matthew Fulton-McAlister* (Labour) 1,170, Tom Holloway (Green Party) 483, Jane Fisher (Conservatives) 293, James Hawketts (Liberal Democrats) 148. 29.8% turnout
Wensum: Labour hold. Kevin Maguire* (Labour) 1,395, Alex Atkins (Liberal Democrats) 110, Liam Calvert (Green Party) 735, David King (Conservatives) 368. 32.2% turnout
Overall turnout for these local elections was 36.7%.
