Gwynoro’s overview of the Local Elections in Wales

Counting is well underway in Wales and some results are already pointing to a good result for Welsh Labour with the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru coming under pressure. It will also be interesting to see whether the Welsh Lib Dems and The Greens will register some successes as has happened in England.

2017 was a bad year for Labour, losing 108 councillors and losing control of Balaenau Gwent, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil. They still had 472 councillors however.

The councils to watch out for will be those mentioned plus Cardiff, Carmarthenshire and Ynys Mon and Wrexham

In 2017 the Conservatives gained some 80 seats giving them a total of 184 councillors with the biggest gains in Cardiff, Vale of Glamorgan and Bridgend. Will be interesting to see whether the trend in England and especially in London and the south of the country whether that will continue in Wales – if it does then all the areas where the Conservatives did well at the local elections of 2017 and the General Election of 2019 will come under pressure.

Like the Labour Party, Plaid Cymru did not have a good 2017 local election, they only gained 9 seats. The party lost seats in Caerphilly, Conway, Torfaen and the Vale. As to whether PC will make inroads this time round places such as Ynys Mon and Ceredigion will be councils to watch and Carmarthenshire. Also there will remain as always how well they will do outside those traditional hinterlands.

Some political commentators are suggesting that Adam Price’s  partnership with Welsh Labour could cost him votes outside the party’s traditional areas.

For the Welsh Lib Dems, who have been in the doldrums in Wales since 2015, is there going to be some repeat of the good recovery the party has made in England this time. In 2017 they lost 11 councillors, mainly in Swansea and Cardiff. There were gains in Powys, Ceredigion and Newport. Currently they have 62 councillors, Places to watch will be Powys and Ceredigion as well as Swansea and Cardiff.

Again, like Plaid Cymru, there will the question will there be evidence of inroads being made by the Lib Dems in other parts of Wales.

One quarter of councillors in Wales are Independents with 322, Question will be will hey retain that number.

Finally the Greens have made gains in England, will that translate itself to Wales. In 2017 they only won one seat – Powys.