Basingstoke council leader surprised over handsome majority Basingstoke s council leader has said he was not expecting to win so handsomely after his party claimed a comfortable majority. Ken Rhatigan was the leader of the Conservative minority administration on Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council before the election and saw his party claim 33 seats to leave him with a majority of 12. Among the highlights for him was taking two councillors in Winklebury & Manydown and Brookvale & Kings Furlong. Reacting to his party s efforts shortly after the final result was declared, Cllr Rhatigan told The Gazette: There was no expectation we would win so handsomely but after seeing the hard work put in I knew they had put as much as they could to win the electorate.
The new ward boundaries mean no one is certain where the pieces will fall. New battle lines will be drawn tomorrow as the town’s politicians prepare to fight the first elections with new ward boundaries. As part of cost-cutting measures, the number of councillors on Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council will be cut from 60 to 54. With that, comes changes in the boundaries of each ward, changing the battlegrounds for the first time since 2008. Therefore, it is hard to anticipate how exactly the results will go. But as ever in elections, certain parties will be more popular in certain areas, and by looking at historic results in the predecessor wards, we can predict which wards may be closest fought.
The shadow armed forced minister has come to Basingstoke on the campaign trail. Stephen Morgan, the Labour MP for Portsmouth South, visited the town on Friday to help his fellow party candidates campaign in the battleground seat of Winklebury & Manydown. He, alongside Alex Lee, who has served in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan in the army and is now standing for the council, met veterans from the town to discuss the issues that they faced. Some of the issues talked about included housing, mental health and helping soldiers transition back to civilian life after they leave the army.
Veterans David Knights and Hannah Stewart with Stephen Morgan.