There were no real surprises about the results in the six OX3 wards. The LibDems not unexpectedly lost their seat in Headington Hill & Northway to Labour, but given that Labour won there in 2012 with a big majority and with the LibDems in fourth place it was no surprise. The LibDem’s sitting councillor Altaf Khan moved to stand successfully in Headington Ward, taking the seat vacated by David Rundle who had stood down. All the other wards re-elected the sitting candidates.

The media hype surrounding UKIP didn’t play out into any significant achievements for them. Their best performance was in Barton and Sandhills where they came a good second with 19.2% of the vote. They also came second in Churchill with 15.4%, beating the Greens into third place by just 15 votes. In Marston they could only manage fourth with 10.2%.

As I write I haven’t got the individual turnout figures for each ward. In Oxford as a whole turnout was 37%, up from 29% in 2012. The six wards all had higher numbers of votes cast this year than in 2012.

Ward-by-ward:

Barton & Sandhills

UKIP came in and took 19% of the vote, almost all from Labour who lost 16 percentage points. The Green vote was down slightly by about 3 percentage points and the Conservatives were down slightly too. The total vote was up 34% on 2012.

Churchill

It was a similar story in Churchill where UKIP took percentage share off all other parties in achieving a 15.4% share of the vote, but Labour were the big losers with their share down 19 percentage points. The total vote was up 7.5%.

Headington

The LibDems took the seat, with their share slightly down by about 3 percentage points.  Labour’s share also dropped by about the same amunt. The Greens were up 3.6 percentage points despite not campaigning, and the Conservatives were up almost 3 percentage points after an active campaign by their new candidate. The overall votes were up an impressive 53%, a tribute to the campaigning efforts of the LibDem team in support of their candidate.

Headington Hill & Northway

Labour (who won in 2012) took the seat with an almost unchanged share of the vote, and the Greens’ share was similarly almost unchanged. The LibDem share fell by 1.3 percentage points: their sitting candidate had moved to stand successfully in Headington Ward. UKIP’s candidate in 2012 was on the ballot paper with no allegiance but had announced he didn’t want to be considered a candidate. He nevertheless polled 1.6% of the vote compared to just under 8% in 2012. The overall vote was up 20%.

Marston

A confusing picture here. In 2012 an Independent won with a 46% share of the vote. This year UKIP fielded a candidate who achieved a 10% share. Conservatives, Greens and LibDems all increased their share of the vote but the big gain was for Labour who took the seat with over 53% of the vote, up from 33% in 2012. In contrast with the other wards, the total votes here only increased by 3%.

Quarry & Risinghurst

With no UKIP candidate this year their 4% share of the 2012 vote was available to the other candidates. Labour held the seat with a share 6 percentage points lower than 2012; the LibDem vote was up slightly (1.4 percentage points), Conservatives increased by 1.1 percentage points but the Green vote went up by a comparatively large 7.3 percentage points. The overall voting numbers were up 26% on 2012.

Here are the results of the City Council elections in the six OX3 wards. There’s a chart showing the percentages of the votes here – click the image for full-size pdf.

BARTON & SANDHILLS

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Sallie Barnard	LibDem	106
Van Coulter *	Lab	773	Re-elected – Lab hold
Raymond Hitchins	Green	121
James Johnson	Con	202
Benjamin Linus	Ind	28
Ian Macdonald	UKIP	293

CHURCHILL

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Berk Burak Bektas	Con	117
Susan Brown *	Lab	607	Re-elected – Lab hold
Julian Faultless	Green	164
James Reilly	LibDem	95
David Slater	UKIP	179

HEADINGTON

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Mohammed Altaf-Khan	LibDem	946	LibDem hold
Theodora Dickinson	Con	234
David Boyd Haycock	Green	181
David Henwood	Lab	514

HEADINGTON HILL & NORTHWAY

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Farida Anwar	Lab	719	Lab gain from LibDem
Ruth Bamber	Green	186
Mark Bhagwandin	Con	433
Maria Bourbon	LibDem	113
Nicholas Fell		24

MARSTON

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Mary Clarkson *	Lab	1054	Re-elected – Lab hold
Duncan Hatfield	Con	297
Jonathan Miller	UKIP	201
Alistair Morris	Green	254
Salman Navqi	LibDem	169

QUARRY & RISINGHURST

Name	Party	Votes	Notes
Katherine Harborne	Con	415
Delia Sinclair *	Lab	941	Re-elected – Lab hold
Roz Smith	LibDem	549
Liz Taylor	Green	253

The polling stations open at 7.00 tomorrow morning, so it’s time to decide who gets your vote. You can vote in both the European and local City Council elections – I’m only considering the City here. So what have been the big issues in the run-up to the election? Housing? Jobs? Traffic congestion and pollution? The major once-in-a-generation developments in the City (Westgate, Frideswide Square, the station, Oxpens, Northern Gateway)? The sanctity or otherwise of the green belt? Nope. Potholes.

I’m in Headington Ward and I’ve kept the leaflets that came through my door. There are four candidates (no UKIP here), and only Labour, LibDem and Conservative have delivered City election literature. I’ve seen nothing from the Green party or their candidate. The only doorstep candidates I’ve seen have been the LibDems.

Far too much of the literature from all three parties has nothing to do with the City Council. The Conservatives praise the Conservative County Council, and talk about a referendum on EU membership and the country’s long-term economic prospects. Labour tell you what a national labour government will do if elected in 2015. The LibDems opt for a more local but retrospective look at what they have achieved under their “You said We did” slogan, but also have a dig at the County Council over air quality, point to their role in the coalition government and criticise Labour’s stance on Europe.

I should also mention that the LibDem campaign in Headington Ward has been skewed by the current incumbent standing down and an existing councillor, Altaf Khan, standing in Headington rather than his current ward of Headington Hill and Northway. David Rundle, the outgoing councillor, had a strong personal vote and the LibDems have been working hard to establish Altaf as “part of the team” and get his name known in the Ward. In delivering more literature than the other two parties they have given me more material for this article.

Distilling out the candidates’ and parties’ statements about their hoped-for future role in City government, this is what I find.

Conservative

The Conservative candidate, Theodora Dickinson, will “fight for a Council Tax freeze”. There is no discussion of how this would impact the City budget or what services would be affected. She will also “ensure that potholes in Headington are fixed in a timely manner”, and she invites everyone to report hazardous potholes.

Labour

The Labour candidate, David Henwood, promises to “stay in touch all year round” with local residents. His priorities will be “street by street casework” to help residents in their dealings with the Council, working with the Police on speeding and parking issues, and “further promotion of green schemes and youth provision for Headington”. There are no details of “green schemes” or youth provision. However, one leaflet featuring David does set out Labour’s priorities in Oxford and I assume he supports these: building more homes; improving standards in private rented accommodation; refurbishing pavilions in parks; backing local sports clubs; investing in regeneration projects (Westgate); providing food recycling for all flats in Oxford; “getting the best for everyone” from the City Deal.

Several of these are contentious issues and merit much fuller debate, but there is no discussion beyond the plain statements of the priorities. But no mention of potholes!

LibDem

Their campaign has relied heavily on stressing their track record locally as hard-working councillors taking on all sorts of local campaigns and issues, and sorting out local problems from overflowing bins and overhanging vegetation to, yes, a pothole protest. At City level they criticise the decision to close Cowley Pools and the on-going rent reviews in the Covered Market: they say they would honour the arbitration decision on market rents and want to see “leisure and fitness facilities remain in the Cowley area”, which is not quite the same as not closing the Pool.

They also criticise the Council’s decision to give planning permission to the Port Meadow Flats. They want to bring back local area planning committees. Finally they feature a campaign to “Save Stansfeld” outdoor centre in Quarry, although the future of the site is out of the City’s control unless the Council buys the site itself. No party is committing to this at present.

All this amounts to not very much from the three parties, and they all avoid the major issues facing the City Council in the next few years with which I introduced this article. There’s criticism of the other parties, some relevant to local matters and some not, and where there is information about future intentions there’s no discussion or assessment of costs and implications. After the previous elections in May 2012 I wrote an article titled “A disappointing local election campaign“. Nothing’s changed.