Liberal Democrats have managed to take Tunbridge Wells Borough Council out of no overall control while in Maidstone there's a nearly equal split between parties.
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00:00 A mixed bag for the parties this weekend across Kent. Liberal Democrats taking control of
00:06 Tunbridge Wells. But in Maidstone, the council remains under no overall control. Before there
00:11 was a Conservative leader. The party retained the largest number of seats but losing 12
00:18 councillors has dashed any hopes of a majority.
00:20 We live in the borough, we work in the borough so I'm really proud of our team. Obviously
00:25 today was not an outright victory for us but we were not in a majority administration anyway.
00:31 Parties will now be scurrying to find coalitions to form the biggest administration.
00:37 It looks like we've got the biggest political grouping. We've got 10 Greens, 4 Independents
00:42 that we work closely with so we're going to form a Green and Independent political grouping
00:46 on the council. I think that makes us the biggest group which means we'll be in a good
00:53 position to negotiate.
00:54 I'd like to make a public notice that Matthew Richard Scott is duly elected as Police and
00:58 Crime Commissioner.
00:59 Some success for the Conservatives as they manage to cling on to control in the Police
01:03 and Crime Commissioner elections.
01:06 We deliver. Conservative Police and Crime Commissioners deliver for their communities.
01:10 I'm delighted that we've been able to retain so many Police and Crime Commissioners. We've
01:13 bucked the trend nationally. We've been able to secure more PCCs than I think maybe some
01:18 people anticipated and that's a message that we can take forward. Conservatives can be
01:23 trusted on law and order. We can be trusted on crime and Labour and the Liberal Democrats
01:27 have still got some work to do.
01:28 But Matthew Scott lost almost 14% of his share since 2021.
01:34 But I think as we've seen across the country there's a turning of the tide to Labour. The
01:38 positivity and hope that it offers and we've seen that in this election and if you look
01:43 at those kind of coastal and estuary communities in the Medway towns, in Gravesham here, in
01:49 Gravesham where we are, out across Thanet and in Dover and Deal, we're seeing a huge
01:54 turn. We've won the popular votes in those constituencies.
01:58 The next time most of us vote will be in a general election. It's hard to make direct
02:02 comparisons from these results but they do support polling for a Conservative washout.
02:08 Gabriel Morris in Kent.
02:10 [BLANK_AUDIO]