Dear supporters,

Thank you to everyone who voted or delivered leaflets for Alex and I, and to those of you who put up a board or poster. I am thanking every one of you individually.

Last night at the count I came second for Frome North division of Somerset County Council, with 1085 votes and 36%, to Conservative Linda Oliver’s 1551 and 52% – not quite enough to get in this time (see here). Pepita Collins also won 375 votes (12.5%) for the Greens. In some areas of Frome our vote was very strong indeed, and, seeing those, for a while I thought I might have done it. But it was not to be this time.

In the Frome College ward byelection, our Alex Shingler also came second with 36% and 469 votes, behind Conservative Carole Bullen on 576 (44%) who makes a second comeback to Mendip (see here). Pepita took 192 votes and 15% for the Greens, ahead of ‘Derek’ with 64 votes.  The combined Lib Dem and Green vote would have won there.

Elsewhere in Frome, Martin Dimery and John Clarke were elected for the Green Party in Frome East (contested by Lib Dem councillor Alvin Horsfall) and Frome West (contested by Lib Dem Damon Hooton), Martin winning by just 8 votes after recounts.  In the 3 Frome county seats we Lib Dems won 28% of the vote, 2^nd place to the Conservatives 38.2%, with the Greens third on 26.9% and Labour on 6%, but we win no seats as it is not proportional representation.

Elsewhere in Somerset, Conservative leader John Osman was beaten in Wells by former Lib Dem MP Tessa Munt, and our Ros Wyke only failed to win Mendip West by 6 votes, and our Liz Leyshon won one of the 2 seats for Glastonbury & Street. However, the Conservatives retained control of the council and increased their majority over other parties (see here).

Congratulations to the winners, commiserations to the rest. We worked hard, but just came up short here. I, we, could not have done as well as we did without your help.

So I’ll continue to work hard at Mendip for Frome College ward, and will be supporting our parliamentary spokesperson Mark Blackburn in his campaign to be our next MP in June.

If you have a board and can keep it up, we will change the name on it soon – I will let you know what the plan is. There will be more leaflets in the coming weeks, so if you can continue to help in the campaign, that would be marvellous. I’ll be in touch with full newsletter and calls for action on local issues as usual next week.

Anyone who can help, please get in touch, and let’s talk politics!

“The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of Liberty, equality and community and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance and conformity.” That’s now more important than ever now.

Thank you so much for your support. There is so much that needs doing by Somerset County Council in this area, and I will continue to lobby for improvements and action where necessary. 

Meanwhile, I am working on trying to secure a proper pedestrian crossing at Bath Road Heights rather than the ‘dropped kerbs’ the developer is proposing, and get Somerset County Council to act to reduce speeds here. The next Frome Town Council meeting on Wednesday will include a presentation from Fair Housing for Frome (after their meeting on Saturday), and reports and discussions on nature rights, housing and employment development, the Frome Literacy Action project, community project fundraising, crowdfunding. A planning application has recently been submitted by Vodafone for a mobile phone base station on the corner of Grange Road with Bath Road. Please see details of these in my April/May newsletters here: https://adamboyden.mycouncillor.org.uk/2017/05/05/april-newsletter-updates/  At Frome Sports & Fitness, temporary boilers are being installed while repairs are made to the boiler which has closed the swimming pool recently – see http://www.fromesportandfitness.com/news/pools-currently-closed-due-to-boiler-failure/ Please do not forget the Showfield fun run at 10am tomorrow Saturday – come along if you can! http://www.frometowncouncil.gov.uk/third-annual-frome-active-sport-festival/.

Thank you so much for your support,

Adam

Adam

Adam Boyden,

Liberal Democrat, Mendip District Councillor for Frome College ward

07809 284817, email aomboyden@gmail.com

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