Southampton City Council elections: all you need to know

In a mostly uneventful night at Southampton Guildhall, the majority of council seats stayed the same.

But there was a sting in the tail for the ruling party earlier this morning, when the Conservatives seized a Woolston seat from them and they lost another in Swaythling to the Lib Dems. 

But it was not all bad news for Labour,  who gained a seat from an independent councillor in Bitterne Park.

The changes mean that Labour now has 36 seats on the council, giving it a majority of 11, while the Conservatives now have 10 councillors. 

The Liberal Democrats built on their steady gains over the last three years as they increased their seats from three to four with the election of Thomas Gravatt. 

Speaking after all wards had been called, Labour leader Cllr Lorna Fielker said the result is a "vote of confidence" in how Labour is running the council. 

Current leader Lorna Fielker and her predecessor Satvir Kaur (Image: Stuart Martin Photography)

She said: "What the overall results are telling us is that Southampton continues to trust Labour to deliver, to meet their priorities, to meet the commitments to those residents and to be a safe pair of hands to lead the city.

"What you’ve seen from us if we’ve been open and transparent. We’re talking to people. Making sure they’re aware of what is going on and what our plans are in order to address that and we will continue to do that as different plans come forward.

"I think there’s an absolute vote of confidence in Labour to run this administration in a way that benefits the businesses and residents of Southampton."

Asked about the seats Labour lost, the leader added: "I don’t think it’s a reflection on Labour’s administration, if it was we would be losing seats across the city and that clearly hasn’t happened.

"The Lib Dems are a minority party and they’ve been able to throw the kitchen sink at Swaythling and that’s what they’ve done.

"They haven’t worked in other areas of Southampton. It is always likely with additional resources they will pick up seats.

"Woolston we have lost by a very small margin and we will have to look at the reasons for why that was in that area.

"It’s always really sad to lose hard-working councillors, particularly women councillors because it can be difficult to get women and minorities to apply to do these positions."

READ MORE: Southampton City Council elections 2024: Full list of results

The election comes just months after the council was granted exceptional financial support by the Government, allowing it to sell off its assets in a bid to balance its budget for this financial year and years to come. 

Outgoing Conservative leader Daniel Fitzhenry said the focus for the party is now to "hold the Labour group to account on the finances, holding it to account on the bin mess, holding them to account on the road chaos the road closures, the traffic chaos that is happening in Southampton."

Mr Fitzhenry has sat as a councillor since 2008 but took the decision to step down ahead of this election. 

A leadership contest is now expected to take place with members of the Conservative group electing their new leader at a meeting on May 13. 

Mr Fitzhenry said: "It is a weird feeling. In politics, if you get the chance to control your own end date it is best to take it because there are a lot of times when you don’t and it’s a surprise.

"It is a good feeling though, I feel it is the right time for me to focus on other things."

New Conservative councillor Robert Stead took the Woolston seat from Labour as Cllr Victoria Ugwoeme failed to be re-elected. 

Rob Stead won the Woolston seat from Labour (Image: Stuart Martin Photography)

The 36-year-old, who works in adult social care for Hampshire County Council, said he was "surprised and thrilled".

Asked if his success was down to Labour failures, he said: "I don't like to see it as a party political issue - it is down to whoever is running the council at the time, and if they can't empty people's bins on time, if they can't listen to residents when the feedback they're getting is a road scheme will be dangerous, they don't deserve to be in power - Labour or Conservative."

Fellow Tory, Rob Harwood, told the Echo: "It’s the hard work of the team that has got us to this position and it just goes to prove that our voters are out there.

"We’ve just got to motivate them on local issues to come out and not take account of the national picture which is quite atrocious."