Bristol community with two votes on general election day

People living in one part of Bristol will have to cast two votes when they go to the polling station on General Election Day on July 4 – as what could be a crucial city council by-election happens at the same time .

Voters in Horfield will be asked to elect a councilor to represent them, just two months after already doing so following a blunder involving the Labor councilor who was elected on May 2.

The by-election is an early opportunity for the Green Party to win another City Hall seat, which would take their number to 35 – exactly half of the 70 councilors representing the city.

Read more: General election: All constituencies are changing where we’ll be voting in Bristol

Read more: Labor councilor disqualified just 17 days after winning election

Two councilors represent the Horfield ward and when voters cast their ballots on May 2, both Labor candidates were elected, including Labor group leader Cllr Tom Renhard. The other Labor candidate was Deborah Vittori, but when she arrived at City Hall to be confirmed as a councilor last month, there was a problem and she was barred.

Ms Vittori is a primary school teacher, but because the school she works at is one run directly by the city council as a local education authority and not an academy trust, her employer is technically Bristol City Council – and council employees are not allowed to be elected councilors as well.

This was not picked up by the Labor Party before they nominated her to be their second candidate in Horfield – only after the election was held and she won it. That meant she was disqualified from being a councilor just 17 days after the election, and now a by-election must be held to elect a councilor again – which will take place on July 4, at the same time as the General Election .

Five political parties are contesting the Horfield by-election. Labor chose Carole Johnson, a former councilor who represented the neighboring Ashley ward for five years from 2016 to 2021, when she was defeated by the Green Party. In May 2024 she again stood for Labor in St George but again lost to the Green Party.

The Green Party has chosen Anna Meares as its candidate. She sat in Horfield in May this year and came third to the two Labor candidates.

The Lib Dem candidate is Roxanne Lock, who came seventh in Horfield in May, while Sharon Scott has been named as the Tory candidate and Joan Molins is running again for the Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

The Horfield ward is in the Bristol North West constituency, where Labor MP Darren Jones is defending his parliamentary seat. It stretches from the road outside Bristol Rovers’ Memorial Stadium – but not the stadium itself – and then either side of Gloucester Road as far west as Southmead Hospital and Southmead Road and as far north as Orchard School.

In the May 2024 election, voters were asked to cast two votes for two councillors, and the final tally was as follows:

• Tom Renard (work) 1495
• Deborah Vittori (work) 1485
• Anna Meares (Green) 903
• Stephen Lloyd (Green) 672
• Simon Davies (Con) 466
• Roddy Jacques (Con) 417
• Roxanne Lock (Lib Dem) 193
• Ian Parry (Lib Dem) 132
• Joan Molins (TUSC) 91

A Green Party upset in this ward – it must overturn a 582-vote majority – would mean the party could – in theory – hold a working majority at City Hall for the first time because, with exactly half the councilors and casting . the mayor’s vote, he would not need the support of any other party.

However, the Green Party agreed that the Lib Dems would hold committee chair posts in the new committee-led system that followed the mayoralty being relinquished, and in any case the Lord Mayor for the next year at least is a Lib Dem. .