Southwold & Reydon Lib Dems are runners up in the ALDC's Best By-Election Awards

Southwold & Reydon Liberal Democrats were awarded the runners up prize in the Best By-Election category in the Association of Liberal Councillors (ALDC) Annual Awards.

The awards, sponsored by Election Workshop and presented by Willie Rennie MSP, were revealed during the ALDC AGM at Autumn Conference in Brighton.

Best By-Election Runner-up: Southwold, East Suffolk Liberal Democrats

The judges said:

Southwold and Reydon was a seat which had not been contested by the Liberal Democrats for many years at district level and had been consistently held by the Conservatives for decades. When the sitting Conservative councillor died in May it was decided to run a full election campaign in the ward. David Beavan was already well known in the area as a long-time local resident and through a variety of interests from the local rugby club to being a sailing instructor as well as having stood in the County Council elections in 2017, coming second.

A lot of help was given by both local members and from across East Anglia which allowed most of the ward to be fully canvassed.

The result:

• LD David Beavan 1005 [71.4%; +71.4%]
• Con 307 [21.8%; -28.4%]
• Lab 78 [5.5%; -14.7%]
• UKIP 18 [1.3%; -13.4%]
• Grn 0 [0.0%; -14.9%]

From a standing start, a vote of almost 71% was outstanding.

Joint winners were - Labour-facing: Pallion, Wearside and Conservative-facing: Knaresborough, Harrogate

The Eastern Region were again succesful gaining the:

OVERALL CAMPAIGN WINNER: WATFORD

The Watford Liberal Democrats stormed to victory in recent local and Mayoral elections, with Peter Taylor being elected Mayor with nearly 50% of the first preference vote. There was more success in the borough council elections, where the Lib Dems retained all of their councillors, including in Central against a big Momentum led effort and gained Callowland ward from Labour, electing Lowerstoft Road resident and local campaigner Ian Stotesbury. The current composition of the council now has 26 Lib Dems, 10 Labour and no Conservatives.

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