Huge Swing to Lib Dems in Hatfield Central by-election

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 28th Jun 2008

Welwyn Hatfield Liberal Democrats were delighted with the upsurge of support for their candidate Hazel Laming in yesterday's by-elections for town and borough councils in Hatfield Central ward. Starting from third place in May, the Lib Dems came close to winning, increasing their share of the vote from 16% to 26%. The Tories were pushed from first place to third, losing more than a third of their support. Labour also lost ground to the Lib Dems but hung on to win by 44 and 96 votes in town and borough respectively. The BNP polled even less votes here than they did in Welham Green in January (138 versus 214) and it is to be hoped they will now abandon Hatfield for good.

Called as a result of the resignation of Tory Darren Gilbert barely a week after his election on May 1st, the ballot was effectively a test of local opinion on the Tories' failure to look after Hatfield and in particular their apparent hiding of the delay in the town centre development.

"This clearly shows the level of dissatisfaction with the Tories across Hatfield" said Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Paul Zukowskyj. "Unfortunately it would appear that on May 1st the electorate was more concerned about national issues than they were about local ones. This result bears out our own findings from local residents' surveys - in this ward 97% of respondents feel the council kept quiet on the town centre because of the election and 89% feel that the leader of the council should resign as a consequence."

Said Hazel Laming, "There is clearly a following for us in Hatfield, and Hatfield residents are realising that Labour has let them down over the Post Offices, over the hospital and over the doubling of the 10p tax rate, not to mention all the other stealth taxes. We expect to offer them an increased challenge in future."