I am pleased to say that after a tough campaign, John and I remain your District Councillors.
Now that we know the full story, it’s clear we were right to be worried. A very effective campaign led by Graham Pritchard (who also enjoyed a very strong personal following in the ballot) meant that part way through the day we were neck-and-neck and Brympton’s two seats meant that control of the Council was in serious doubt.
In the late afternoon, both sides went all out to find their missing voters and some people (especially neighbours and friends) had a very unexpected late evening knock on the door. I even met Veronica doing my own street.
The response we got to the “knock-up” was brilliant and the last, crucial 133 votes were all cast in the last hour, with the very last voter arriving at 9:58 pm!
The results are:
- Peter Seib, 1123 votes
- John Richardson, 925 votes
- Graham Pritchard, 792 votes
- Veronica Venables, 702 votes
With good weather and both parties trying hard, turnout was a full 8% of the electorate up on the 2007 election.
John and I would particularly like to thank all those kind people who took a moment to say a friendly word on the doorstep, or at the Polling Station after casting their vote. “Feel-good” moments are rare in politics and those personal thanks are the best of the best.
The SSDC elections have, happily, resulted in no change in political control.
- Liberal Democrat seats – 31 – (loss of 6 seats.)
- Conservative Party seats – 25 – (gain of 8 seats.)
- Independent seats – 4 – (loss of 2 seats.)
Key here in Yeovil is the loss of two seats in Yeovil South (due to the vote being split with Labour and the Green Party) and one in the Cokers (under an unwarranted fear of development). For the first time in a while, there will be three Conservatives on SSDC’s Area South Committee. My main fear is that the collaborative, cross-bench working which South Somerset is famous for may be the price we pay for this power struggle.
Other than that we had a fairly robust result and South Somerset DC remains the blob of orange on the UK local government map.
The results for the 39 district wards, showing the number of votes given to each candidate and who was elected for each ward, are on SSDC’s Local elections results page. The district turnout was 47.66%.
John and I will now move on to deliver our pledges and to serve all of you to the best of our ability.
Peter Seib, 6th May 2011
You said the Lib Dems lost a seat in the Cokers ‘under an unwarranted fear of development’. Would you like to explain why it is an unwarranted fear? Mr Foyne seems pretty determined to us, biased ‘traffic survey’ and all.
First, the caveat … as you know, I haven’t been the Portfolio Holder for Planning for some time and my views here are my own, not that of the Council. Furthermore, this is a Brympton Ward blog, so I don’t intend to get into too much of a debate.
In my opinion, people have been whipping up a fear of development for various reasons and it has caused a lot of unnecessary worry. I also think that tired yellow “rat run” signs ruined the look of the village and stories that concrete will be soon poured south of Goose Laid Farm are utter tosh!
To answer the question, the fear of development to the south of Yeovil is unwarranted because if development there ever became part of the plan, it wouldn’t be allowed in a form which harmed the Cokers “way of life” nor would development be allowed to change the villages substantially (unless locals pressed for that).
My view is that to harm the Cokers would be damaging to inward business investment in Yeovil and to international inward tourism.
So my argument is … if development’s not going to cause substantial harm and if it’s many years away anyway, why would fear of development be justified? I’d rather spend my energies working out what could be allowed and what couldn’t.
If you look at the policies in the draft Core Strategy, it’s clear that protection is the intent. Indeed recent studies, including the traffic counts which you mention, are all there to find out whether it’s possible to protect the villages from harm and still carry out development.
It is my firm hope that the community in the Cokers will engage, through their new councillors and through evidence, and will work to establish what can be allowed and what specific protections are needed. This is not “rocket science”, as many other hamlets around Yeovil will attest.
Having said that, the current Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, seems determined to frustrate control through the planning system. It seems to me that he only sees planning as a negative thing, getting in the way of the development business.