Labour have narrowly won the West of England Mayoral seat, with 25% of the votes.
But the race was tight towards the end, with the Reform Party achieving 22.1% of the votes and the Green Party winning 20%.
Official figures released showed that nearly 685,000 people came out to vote in the West of England which roughly equates to 30% voter turn out.
This is down from the 2021 West of England Combined Authority (WECA) elections where the voter turnout was around 36.1%
The winner of the election, Helen Godwin, has promised to try and improve local infrastructure, particularly for young people in order to show other parts of the country “the absolute potential we’ve got here”.
The first female West of England Mayor promised to work hard for her local area, promising that “her door will be open to everyone”.
“I really want to get going, we want to get this right,” said Ms Godwin at the results. “It gives us work to do.”
The hall erupted when the results were announced, with Labour supporters such as MP Damien Egan came out in their droves to support.
The noise meant that the results had to be read out twice. Ms Godwin’s children were also watching the result and could be seen cheering on the newly elected mayor.
Ms Godwin succeeds Dan Norris as Mayor of the West of England after he was elected in 2021. More recently, he was arrested for alleged crimes against children and sexual assault.
Reform UK were the runners up to the WECA Mayor elections, missing out on a margin of 2.9% of the voters. It was an incredibly successful night for Reform who were elected in Greater Lincolnshire: the highest level of public office they have held to date.
The candidate for WECA, Arron Banks, was not thrown off by his loss this evening, suggesting that Reform will come back better next time.
“This was our least likely place to win and we came up 6,000 votes short,” Banks told the media at the announcement. “We have seen Reform victory after Reform victory.”
There was tension in Runcorn to confirm Reform win over Labour by only 6 votes, a number that needed to be reverified due to the close margins.
He also managed to leave the election with his sense of humour and friendly rivalry with Green Candidate Mary Page intact, saying “Oh and we beat the Greens”, before leaving the stage with a smile.
Keir Starmer has acknowledged Reform’s success in these local elections, and has promised to move things further and faster in future to ensure a stronger success for Labour in future.
Mary Page was positive despite not achieving the win she had imagined, setting her sights on the future.
“In 2027, South Gloucestershire and Bath, they both have elections and in 2028 Bristol has as well. So Labour and Reform, we are not going anywhere.”
