Independent majority for Winterbourne parish

also stood as a Lib Dem for South Gloucestershire in the Frenchay & Downend ward.

South Gloucestershire

Winterbourne ward councillor Nic Labuschagne was the leading Conservative in the election, with 799 votes, but his colleague Trevor Jones missed out on a parish council seat, polling 651 votes.

The other Tories elected were Nicole Beebee (748 votes), Jon Amos (747), Mike Goodman (727) and Diane Marriott (702).

Labour's John Lloyd won a seat, with 720 votes.

As well as Trevor Jones, Conservative candidates Lawrence Ward, Mary Newport, David Roughley, Venish Bansal, Carla Attwood and Theresa Van Der Merwe all missed out.

With the four Frenchay seats taken by members of the Frenchay Preservation Society standing under an independent label, who were elected unopposed, the council now has 10 councillors sitting as independents, with one Labour and five Tory members.

The only other parish ward in the area where an election took place is the Iron Acton ward of Iron Acton Parish Council, where five candidates, all of whom stood without party labels, contested the four seats.

John Wright topped the poll with 182 votes, followed by Paul Chapman (157), Denise Smith

(154), David Barker (145) and Catherine Spedding (113). Adrian Edmonds was the candidate who missed out, with 67 votes.

As reported in May's Voice, elections did not take place in the other Iron Acton ward, East, or any of the wards on Frampton Cotterell or Coalpit Heath & Westerleigh parish councils, as not enough candidates came forward to make a vote necessary.

Where seats are unfilled, nominations are reopened and new councillors can be co-opted if not enough candidates have come forward to make another election necessary.

ID rules cost 58 votes

MORE than 50 voters did not cast a ballot in South Gloucestershire's elections after falling foul of new rules on photo ID.

May's elections were the first to be held under new laws requiring proof of identification from everyone turning up at polling stations.

The council's returning officer said the "overwhelming majority" of electors brought photo ID that met the requirements.

A total of 216 electors were initially turned away after turning up to vote without a passport, driving licence or one of a number of other accepted forms of ID.

Of those, 158 returned with identification and were able to cast their ballots.

That left 58 who did not return.

The council says 43,798 people voted in the election and the number of people who did not get to vote represented just over 0.1% of the total who tried.

The council issued a total of 248 Voter Authority Certificates, for people who did not have another approved form of photo ID, before the election.

As you were for Frome Valley wards

ON a day when voters changed the balance of power on South Gloucestershire Council, the make-up of the Frome Valley's wards stayed the same.

The Conservatives lost ten seats across the district, and more than 1,000 across the country, but kept hold of both Winterbourne seats despite a swing towards the Liberal Democrats in the local elections of May 4.

In Frampton Cotterell all three Lib Dems won comfortably on one of the district's highest turnouts, with group leader and now council leader Claire Young leading the way.

Key to parties:

Con: Conservative

Lab: Labour

LD: Liberal Democrat

Grn: Green