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23
Feb
Valley Gardens by-election candidates revealed
The candidates hoping to win a spot on Harrogate Town Council at a forthcoming by-election have been revealed.
Voters will go to the polls on March 19 after Liberal Democrat Edward Metcalfe, who formerly represented the Valley Gardens ward, last month resigned his seat on the local council.
The candidates are:
- Tracey Joan De Wet, Reform UK
- Alex Ireland, Green Party
- Thomas James Martin, Conservatives
- Nat Slater, Liberal Democrats
The news comes after Compass York and North Yorkshire, which is a group affiliated to the national Compass organisation that supports electoral reform, last week urged political parties to work together to stop Reform UK from winning the Valley Gardens seat.
Celine Barry, local group secretary of Compass York and North Yorkshire, said:
Given the growing fragmentation of British politics, progressive voters need to decide how best to use our combined voting strength to prevent a Reform UK win in this ward, by ensuring that our votes are not dangerously split or squandered.
Compass also called for the current first-past-the-post voting system to be replaced with proportional representation.
Responding, Jonathan Swales, chairman of Reform’s Harrogate and Knaresborough branch, said Reform UK "welcomes open debate in the Valley Gardens ward” but believes elections should be “contests of ideas, not coordinated efforts to exclude one particular party”.
The Lib Dems won by a landslide at last year’s inaugural Harrogate Town Council, securing 15 of the 19 seats.
The Tories currently have two seats, Reform has one and there is one independent.
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