Whilst the political focus remains on the day to day poll changes with the Tories and Labour vying to get ahead of each other and form what is likely to be another coalition government, let us not forget the local elections treading on our door step.
In Batley East defending is Labour’s Amanda Stubley who successfully held the seat in 2011 against Mohammed E Laher who finished second and is again standing as the Conservative Candidate.
Whilst Batley West sees the existing councillor Peter O’Neill retiring and in his place running to keep the Labour strong hold is his daughter Marielle O’Neill.
At the moment all the Batley councillors are from the Labour party but with the hype of the general election parties like the Greens have picked up a following. And if the more than half who don’t normally vote – some out of protest – decide to back a party, there could be some interesting results.
Meanwhile Dewsbury has in recent times brought interesting battles. Who can forget the 2012 local election in Dewsbury South that resembled a fight to become the next MP.
We are not likely to see the same intensity this time probably, however, Dewsbury South could be interesting again. Tory Salim Patel held his seat last time with a majority of 681. This year he’s up against popular new comer Nosheen Dad who last year became the first female Muslim president of the University of Huddersfield’s Students’ Union. The 25 year-old certainly has the tenacity and could well unseat Patel.
Darren O’Donovan will be defending his Dewsbury West seat, which he gained for Labour in 2011 from the LibDem’s who this year are fielding Shehzad Hussain after he crossed over to the Liberal Democrats from the Tories. Hussain was unsuccessful in last years elections when he stood for the same seat for the Tories.
The safest Dewsbury seat is likely to be with Labour’s Eric Firth who successfully held the seat in 2011 with a two-thirds majority.
In any case, although the local elections are playing a side fiddle to the GE2015, these are the people who will define a lot of the local services we regularly use and decisions on the local services under the council’s knife.
