Greens become Bristol's largest party after historic by-election win
The party is set to take charge of the city when the Mayoral model is scrapped next year
The Greens have become the largest party on Bristol City Council after an historic by-election victory overnight (February 3).
The party has gained the Hotwells and Harbourside ward from the Liberal Democrats after Alex Hartley stood down for health reasons in 2022.
Candidate Patrick McAllister took the ward by 26 votes ahead of Liberal Democrat and former Bristol West MP Stephen Williams.
It means the Greens now hold 25 seats on the council, one ahead of Labour who have 24.
"I'm absolutely over the moon," Patrick said.
"I'm thrilled the residents of Hotwells and Harbourside have decided to put their trust in me.
"I'm going to be working very hard on their behalf to keep that trust over the next few months.
"We were expecting this to be a very close race and it was."
Last time around in 2021, just 26 votes separated the Lib Dems and Greens, in the Lib Dems' favour.
By chance the margin in favour of the Greens this time around was exactly the same.
Issues on the ballot included cladding, with several buildings in the ward impacted by fire safety issues and the Western Harbour development scheme, which covers a large area including the Cumberland Basin and Spike Island.
Council leadership has earmarked the area for housing development, with planning applications likely to be submitted in or around 2025.
What does it mean for the council?
The result raises questions over how the council will now be run and whether it will be able to operate effectively.
As Mayor, Labour's Marvin Rees currently leads the local authority with a cabinet made up entirely of Labour councillors.
The Green's new majority, albeit a slim one, will now make his ability to govern more difficult as certain policies proposed by the cabinet must be signed off by full council, which the Greens now dominate.
The first major test of the new situation will likely come on February 21, when the cabinet's proposed budget for 2023/24 will go before all councillors.
Going forward
Whilst this result may prove a serious headache for Marvin Rees, he is only set to stay as Mayor until May 2024 at which point the council will revert back to a committee system.
Some may raise the question as to whether Mr Rees should now include the Greens on his cabinet, but with no rule forcing him to do so and him out of the role soon anyway, it seems unlikely that he will be willing to bow to those demands.
Rather than immediately hoisting the Greens into power in Bristol, more likely is that it sets them up to have the loudest voice when the committee system takes over next year.
An historic result
Even before tonight the Greens already had more councillors in Bristol than on any other local authority nationwide.
The Green Party does already run one local authority outright, in Brighton, but this result in Bristol will be taken as a sign that their political power is growing.
"I'm absolutely delighted," Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said.
"It's fantastic to have this level of trust from the residents of Hotwells and Harbourside and Bristol more broadly.
"People clearly want to see Green policies enacted in the city and I think it's a real sign of the changing of the guard."
The party is very open about the fact it wants to gain only its second parliamentary seat in Bristol West, at the next General Election.
Tonight's result will only make the party more confident that such a step is possible.
"It's an incredibly positive sign that voters are excited about the Green Party and are keen to give us their vote," Carla said.
"We now have 17 of the 20 councillors in the Bristol West constituency, so that's at least one Green councillor in every single ward.
"So we know there's that appetite for Green policies and we're ready to deliver them."
Turnout in the by-election was confirmed as 32.4 percent, with 1,251 votes cast in total.