THE leader of Bradford’s Conservative Group says local Tory Councillors were “punished for problems outside their control.”
The local Conservative Group was left licking its wounds after the local elections on 4 May.
The Party held 20 of Bradford’s 90 Council seats before the local election.
But after the votes were counted this had dropped to 16.
The party lost its last remaining seats in the Queensbury and Bingley wards, as well as losing one seat each in the traditional Tory strongholds of Craven and Wharfedale.
Although the party remains the second biggest on the Council, it is with a much-reduced voting power.
Reflecting on the results, Councillor Rebecca Poulsen, Leader of the Conservative Group said, “In light of the national political landscape, my Conservative Group colleagues and I knew that election day was going to be a tough day at the office, so to speak.
“The last couple of years have seen global problems, such as Covid and rampant inflation causing cost of living problems, which have produced unprecedented challenges all over the world and obviously the United Kingdom has not been exempt from the resultant hardships and frustrations.
“We, the local Conservative Councillors, fully understand that local elections are means by which residents express approval or disappointment with our performance, but at other times also to express frustrations with national problems.
“Having had a couple of days to reflect on the fact that the Conservative Group on Bradford Council has lost four seats, whilst the Labour Group has further tightened its grip on control of a council which it is visibly destroying, I can assert with absolute confidence that the Conservative Group Members with whom I have worked these last few years, have not in any way failed the people of Bradford District and they have been punished for problems outside of their remit and control.
“I can say with my hand on my heart that I am proud of the hard work that the Conservative Group on the council have done to challenge a controlling group which has delivered nothing but failing services and financial failings of a breath-taking scale and I know that they have been punished for national matters. I would like to publicly thank those Conservative Councillors who have stood down this time and those who lost their seats. The council has lost some very valuable contributors at a time when experience and measure could not be more valuable.”
Councillor Mike Pollard (Cons. Baildon) said, “I do find it slightly perverse that the controlling Labour Group on Council, which has recently lost control of its Children’s Services and is leading the District inexorably towards a s114 technical bankruptcy within this financial year, has managed to persuade the electorate to give it an enhanced majority.
“I will continue to tell the residents of the District the harsh truth, even if just now they seem inexplicably reluctant to listen or act, or perhaps more worrying unable to comprehend the sheer scale of the disaster that is about to befall the Council.
“For those who have actively supported the Labour Group at the recent elections, I can only say, I suspect that you may soon come to wish that you had been more careful about what you wished for, as I foresee that it will be twelve months at most when some of your friends will be telling you that they told you so.”
After the election Labour Councillor Imran Khan, Deputy Leader on the Council, said the Conservatives had taken “a hammering” across the country.
He said: “With the cost-of-living crisis getting worse, this was always on the cards. People are letting the Conservative government know what they think of them.”
In recent years Keighley and Shipley MP Robbie Moore (Cons) has been pushing for Government to split both his constituency and the Shipley constituency from the Bradford District.
If that were to happen today, and following the most recent local elections, the new Bradford urban council would have no Conservative Councillors.
The new Shipley and Keighley authority would have 36 Councillors overall – with 19 needed for a party to hold a majority. After Thursday’s election the Conservatives would be three seats short of holding a majority (16) in the new authority, with Labour holding 14 of the seats.
