Greens tighten grip on Bristol City Council but fall short of overall control
It sets them up to run things in the city now the mayoral role has been scrapped
The Green Party has extended its position as the largest on Bristol City Council but narrowly failed to win overall control, after a hotly contested election in the city which has seen the mayoral role scrapped.
The build up to Thursday's vote was highly competitive with all party's knowing overall victory would give them effective control of a council which is returning to a committee system, following a referendum to scrap the mayoral model in 2022.
Todays result gives the Greens the strongest position on the council, but without overall control they will now have to enter negotiations with other parties to see how the council can be run going forward.
Among the most notable individual results came in Eastville and Westbury on Trym and Henleaze.
In the former, Labour's Marley Bennett, who had held a council cabinet position under mayor Marvin Rees, lost his seat to the Greens, meanwhile in the latter, former Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams was among three members from his party to gain a seat on the council, at the expense of the Conservatives.
Change is afoot
Since 2012 Bristol City Council had been run by a directly elected mayor.
The mayor, who was originally the independent George Ferguson but then, from 2016, Labour's Marvin Rees, was able to pick a cabinet made up of elected councillors, who between them would then make all major policy decisions in the city.
From 2016 when Labour's Marvin Rees took control this became increasingly controversial, as he and his councillors made up every seat on the cabinet despite not having control of the council on the whole.
For that reason an argument that the mayoral model was undemocratic grew louder and eventually a referendum on the system was backed by the Liberal Democrats and Greens, which they went on to win.
It all means the council will now be run by a committee system, giving individual councillors more say.