The election results in Oldham proved fruitful for Labour, but a few shock results caused some upset across the parties.
Much like last year, Labour have secured 15 seats, winning Saddleworth West and Lees but losing in St Mary’s where former council leader Arooj Shah missed out to Independent Aftab Hussain.
Shah lost with 1,801 votes to Hussain’s 2,190 in what was Oldham’s largest turn-out of this election at a whopping 52.72% – around 20% higher than the average turn-out across the borough.
Hussain said he was ‘delighted’ by the win in St Mary’s, but ‘of course’ he expected that result.
He said: “They’ve [voters] sent a very strong message to the Labour party – ‘do not select, let the people of St Mary’s decide who should represent them’.
“And they decided clearly who their councillor is tonight.”
But Labour came close to taking the Conservative seat in Saddleworth South missing out by just 11 votes, leaving the ward to be held by John Hudson.
There was another close running in Waterhead with Labour’s Vita Price holding off UKIP’s Ajawat Hussain by a narrow margin of fewer than 150 votes.
The Lib Dems secured three seats in Crompton, Saddleworth North and Shaw, the latter secured by Howard Sykes MBE, leader of the party in Oldham.
Early on the evening, Sykes said he was ‘encouraged’ by the Lib Dem results in Oldham.
He said: “I have to work hard for every single vote I got tonight, and so do my colleagues.
“We’re on the slow crawl – and I use those words deliberately – slow crawl back to recovery and back to the position we were in before and we’re winning back people’s trust, which is a good thing.”
The Lib Dems did, however, lose one seat to Labour in Saddleworth West and Lees where councillor of more than 20 years Val Sedgwick had stepped down prior to the election.
By the end of the evening, Labour held steady at 45 seats, the Lib Dems dropped to nine, the Conservatives and UKIP retained two seats whilst the number of Independents doubled from one to two.
Image courtesy of Mikey, via Flickr, with thanks
