Local election results in Newton-le-Willows

Counting has been taking place today in the St Helens Local Elections, with Reform dramatically taking overall control of the council from Labour.

Because St Helens Council has a system of ‘all-out’ or ‘whole council’ elections, it meant that all seats on the council were up for grabs, including in our local wards of Newton-le-Willows East and Newton-le-Willows West.

And with everything to play for, the results were dramatic.

Prior to these elections, St Helens Council was Labour controlled, with 28 Labour or Labour & Co-Operative Party councillors; 4 Green; 3 Liberal Democrats; 3 Reform UK; 2 Conservative; 6 Independents and two vacant seats.

Tonight, that looks very different: Reform UK have 34, Independents 6, Liberal Democrats 3, Labour 2 and Conservative 1.

In Newton-le-Willows West ward (formerly called Earlestown),  the Newton-le-Willows Independents successfully won back their three seats. Terry Maguire and Karl Collier were both voted back in, whilst fellow Independent Craig Smith was also elected.

And after a very long count, finally, at 7.30pm, we got a result for Newton-le-Willows East, where former Labour councillors Jeanie Bell and Seve Gomez-Aspron did not stand again to contest their seats, but their Labour colleague Keith Laird did.

And after a night in which Reform took the majority of seats on St Helens Council, taking overall control of the local authority, it was Newton-le-Willows East which won Labour their first and only seats of the night, with the last declaration of the evening.

Labour’s Keith Laird and Ian Mills were voted in to represent Newton-le-Willows East over the next four years, with a seat in the ward also going to George Woodward of Reform.