We use the improvement in the Green Party fortunes to explain what happened in the local election, the results of which were announced today.
The Greens used to be the smallest group with only three councillors, but they have been replaced by the LibDem group who now have only three seats, most of their candidates having lost out, including their group leader,and former council leader, Jenny Dawe.
There are big changes afoot in the City Chambers. Labour have emerged from the count today with 20 councillors, which means they are the largest single party. But as there are 58 councillors making up The City of Edinburgh Council it is clear that they will have to amalgamate with another party to form an administration. Such discussions will take place over this weekend.
The Edinburgh Greens fielded 17 candidates, one in each Ward, and had already said that they wanted to return to the High Street with at least 6 Green Councillors. Well they got what they campaigned for. They gained a 100% increase today in the number of Greens who will represent the city, and now have six councillors across the city.
Green candidate Nigel Bagshaw ousted LibDem councillor Tim McKay in Inverleith Ward with a 14.9% share of the vote coming second only to Labour’s Lesley Hinds who looks set to become Transport Convenor in the new council administration.
Green Gavin Corbett, a former Community Councillor, was widely predicted to be successful, and he is now representing Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart along with Labour Leader Andrew Burns and the SNP’s new man, David Key.
Melanie Main has been elected to serve as councillor for Meadows/Morningside where the shock result of the day was that former council leader, Jenny Dawe, was not re-elected. Dawe had switched from Drum Brae and Gyle in an effort to stay on.
Councillor Maggie Chapman returns to serve another term in the Leith Walk Ward, where the turnout was a low 36.2% down by 17.1% on last time round in 2007. The new councillor for Leith Walk is Nick Gardner who is the Labour Party representative. Meanwhile SNP’s Deidre Brock, another existing councillor, led the charge with 22.1% of the vote.
Chas Booth has been voted in to represent the Leith Ward where he campaigned on the Save Leith Waterworld ticket. The surprise here was that former Deputy Provost, Rob Munn, was not re-elected, although former councillor Labour’s Gordon Munro has been. The other new councillor in this Ward is SNP Adam McVey.
Steve Burgess is the Green Group leader and has been restored to his seat in the Southside/Newington Ward. He got 20% of the vote and will represent this area along with the SNP’s Jim Orr, Labour’s Ian Perry and Cameron Rose who is the Conservative councillor. The surprise in this 4-councillor ward was that Transport Convenor, Gordon Mackenzie was not re-elected.
So it seems that this election has been all trams, roads……and penguins…
In Pentland Hills Mike Professor Pongoo Ferrigan stood as a penguin and won 444 votes…..more than the LibDem candidate, Stuart Bridges..
This all makes for a new look on the council, new faces and new voices which we hope to bring you over the coming months.
In the meantime we have a few interviews on Audioboo with many of the people we met today which you can listen to here. George Ward was also helping out with election coverage today and he has published his audio on Soundcloud.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
