May the 1st saw what is potentially the last local election for Leicestershire county Council. The County electoral divisions are roughly six times the size of a single seat District council election so to have any impact here was going to take a real team effort.
Our target seat was Market Harborough west & Foxton, which is where Darren Woodiwiss was standing. Our team put in a real effort and delivered three full deliveries of leaflets (over 150 hours of volunteer time), compared to incomplete deliveries from the Conservatives, Lib-Dems and the Communist parties. At the count Darren missed being elected by 19 votes so every vote counted and every volunteer hour.
It was a tricky election campaign as Darren’s father passed away on the day the election was announced and so he had many competing priorities but still managed to produce the leaflets and get them delivered.
Another election worth mentioning is Jamie Bayliss in South Wigston who put a huge effort into distributing his first leaflet into the area. This is the first time the Greens have campaigned at all in Oadby & Wigston so we are hopeful for the future there.
And lastly, but not Least, in the oddly named Gartree division (Which does not contain Gartree, but the Kibworths) Debbie James stood for the first time in the County elections and secured a very strong third place.
So, not the night we had hoped for but excellent progress on previous years as we build our capacity as a local party and our sister party in Charnwood did manage to elect the first Green ever into the council. For every GREEN WIN there is years of hard work, we do not just win seats as the protest party so if you wish to see more Greens elected into our local councils we need your time and support, not a lot of it, maybe an hour or two a month, but that will make all of the difference!