Friday, 4 May 2018

Nadine Watts retains seat as Borough Councillor for East Wichel

community centre with polling station sign — East Wichel’s polling station at the community centre

Having been widely acclaimed within East Wichel as an exceptionally hard working councillor, the Labour Party’s Nadine Watts has retained her seat as councillor for Old Town ward of Swindon Borough Council for a second time. Nadine received just over 50% of the votes cast — up from almost 46% the last time she was elected in 2014 — and beat Conservative candidate Nick Burns-Howell into second place by 329 votes. Both Nadine and Nick will still be parish councillors on South Swindon Parish Council for which there were no elections this year.

The final result was

Nadine Watts (Labour) — 1781 votes
Nick Burns-Howell (Conservative) — 1452 votes
Bill Hughes (Green) — 126 votes
Peter Oliver (Lib Dem) — 116 votes
William Costello (UKIP) — 57 votes

Turnout was 45%, slightly higher than in 2016 — the last time local elections were held without national elections at the same time — and similar to other wards declared so far.