The Labor councilor was disqualified just 17 days after winning the election

A woman elected as a councilor on Bristol City Council has been disqualified before even attending her first meeting – because she is a teacher who works at a council-run school. And that means there will have to be a by-election with voters returning to the polls just weeks after the election in early May.

Labor MP Deborah Vittori said she was “shocked and absolutely gutted” to find out she could not be a councilor – something she was only told after she stood for election for the first time and won in Horfield.

Cllr Vittori was one of two Labor councilors voters backed in Horfield – the other was Labor group leader Tom Renhard – in the May 2 vote. But just as he was preparing to take on the role and start attending meetings, council bosses told him he couldn’t be a councillor. It now looks certain to be a by-election costing taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds, with voters in Horfield being asked to return to the polls just weeks after voting.

Read more: Greens to lead Bristol City Council in ‘coalition’ with Lib Dems

Read more: Seven big decisions that will shape what Bristol looks like

Deborah Vittori works as a teacher at a local primary school, which is still run by Bristol City Council, and because the rules state that no employee of Bristol City Council can also be a councillor, she has now been told she is disqualified from her position the chosen one. on May 2.

“I am shocked and absolutely devastated to discover that because of my job as a teacher in a local authority-maintained primary school, I will be prevented by law from serving the people of Horfield who have put their trust in me,” she said.

“Throughout the election campaign I spoke proudly about my role as a local primary school teacher. I did not know that my teaching would end up disqualifying me from serving the public in another role, as an elected councillor, and it is a great shame that it did. they don’t come out earlier in the process,” she added.

“I met so many wonderful people in Horfield; it is a matter of deep regret that I will not be able to represent them as a councillor,” she said.

Horfield has two councillors, both of whom were Labor before the May 2 election. Cllr Vittori was appointed back in October last year to be Labour’s choice to be their candidate following Philippa Hulme’s decision not to run.

At the time, Cllr Vittori said: “As a local primary school teacher I never thought I would go into politics but this is my chance to help build a safer and healthier community where children can grow up and the neighbors grow old. in the.”

“In my role as a teacher, I have seen firsthand the disparities within our community when it comes to access to things that improve the quality of life. The crisis in the cost of living has caused some families to stop accessing leisure activities, their well-being being severely affected. My priorities would be to improve access to things like safe and affordable housing, clean air and nature-rich spaces where you can relax, because that’s a great level and makes a huge difference to everyone in the area.”

Looking for top Bristol Politics articles in one place? Sign up here for our newsletter.

“Over the coming months I will be working hard alongside Tom Renhard and Philippa Hulme to win the trust of my neighbors in Horfield to vote for me in May,” she added.

Bristol Live understands that the onus of checking whether a candidate will be legally eligible to be a councilor rests with each candidate and the party nominating them as a candidate – and each candidate and their agent must sign a document stating that they are not I know a legal reason why I can’t be. Candidate eligibility checks are not conducted by the council until after the election, when the winners are known, as the winning councilors begin to be sworn in. The council’s monitoring officer flagged a potential conflict after asking which primary school Cllr Vittori worked at and, when she realized it was one run by Bristol City Council and not an academy, she was disqualified.

The council has now issued a vacancy notice and two people on the electoral roll can apply for a by-election to replace Cllr Vittori.

In the May 2 election, she was elected with 1,485 votes, well ahead of her nearest Green Party challenger, Anna Meares, who polled 903 votes.

But the Green Party is expected to fiercely fight the by-election in Horfield. The party emerged with 34 councilors after the May 2 election, one short of exactly half of City Hall councillors, so a Green Party victory would give them an even stronger base with exactly half the seats.