On the 5th May voters across the West Midlands headed out to their polling station to have their say in the local elections.
Predictions had been made that these elections would present nothing decisive or dramatic, and for the most part this is what we got.
The Conservatives held control of those traditionally Conservative areas, including Solihull, Dudley, and Walsall, while for Labour it was a similar story, with the party continuing to run the likes of Coventry and Wolverhampton.
However, beneath the surface we did see some changes that could be indicative of future shifts in the region.
For Labour there was hope that these elections would enable the party to make some sort of recovery over the Conservatives, who have made a steady advance northward in recent years. And to an extent we did see this, with the Labour party having their best performance in Dudley since 2016, making gains in Redditch, and increasing their majority in Sandwell, something which will be heartening for the Labour leadership who were eager to stem the rising Conservative control in the West Midlands.
Elsewhere, for the Conservative party these election results were a case of a ‘best of a bad situation’. With the ongoing spectacle surrounding the party on a national level, many supporters headed into these elections with scepticism, anticipating losses in several key holdings.
However, the story was far less dramatic. While the big story of the night came in Worcester, where the Conservative’s lost control, leaving a hung city council, aside from this there were few major upsets, a silver lining for those supporters who predicted a greater number of victims of the national picture.
Nevertheless, it was away from the two major parties where we did some interesting developments; the Green party not only held onto their seats, but also won several, as they made gains over the Conservatives in Worcester, leaving them with balance of power in the region, and had their first ever councillor elected in Coventry.
This was the tale of the night. While there were no enormous changes in the West Midlands, there were certainly interesting developments that will be mulled over with intrigue by all the parties ahead of future local elections and the upcoming General Election in 2024.
