The 2007 Southampton Council election took place on 3 May 2007 to elect members of

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

Unitary Unitary may refer to: Mathematics * Unitary divisor * Unitary element * Unitary group * Unitary matrix * Unitary morphism * Unitary operator * Unitary transformation * Unitary representation * Unitarity (physics) * ''E''-unitary inverse semigrou ...

Council in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control. After the election, the composition of the council was: *

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

18 *

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

18 *

Liberal Democrat Several political party, political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democracy, liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties ...

Campaign

Before the election the

and

parties both had 16 seats, while the Liberal Democrats who formed the administration had 15 seats, with one seat, formerly Liberal Democrat, being vacant. 17 seats were being contested in the election, with 2 seats up in Millbrook after Liberal Democrat Virginia Moore resigned from the council. In total 69 candidates were standing and as well as candidates from the national political parties, a couple of candidates stood for local parties called Southampton First and Southampton Save Our Services. They campaigned on local issues, with Southampton Save Our Services running on a platform calling for improved conditions for

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, infra ...

workers in Southampton. Candidates also included a 20-year-old Conservative, Vince Capozzoli in

Portswood Portswood is a suburb and Electoral Ward of Southampton, England. The suburb lies to the north-north-east of the city centre and is bounded by (clockwise from west) Freemantle, Highfield, Swaythling, St. Denys and Bevois Valley. Portswood Wa ...

, after the age for

councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

s was reduced from 21 to 18. National politicians including Conservative leader

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

and Labour

cabinet minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘prime minister’, � ...

Peter Hain Peter Gerald Hain, Baron Hain (born 16 February 1950), is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2005 to 2007, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2007 to 2008 and twice as Secretary of State ...

visited Southampton to campaign for their parties. The council used an electronic system to check

postal vote Postal voting is voting in an election where ballot papers are distributed to electors (and typically returned) by post, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling station or electronically via an electronic voting system. In an ele ...

s, but had to check them by hand after the system failed to read up to 40% of them.

Election result

The results saw no party win a majority, but the Liberal Democrats lost 4 seats, 2 each to the Conservative and Labour parties. The Conservatives won 9 of the 17 seats contested, to move to 18 seats, level with Labour, while the Liberal Democrats fell to 12 seats. One of the Conservative gains from the Liberal Democrats came in

Swaythling Swaythling is a suburb and electoral ward of the city of Southampton in Hampshire, England. The ward has a population of 13,664. Swaythling is predominantly residential in character, and noted for its large student population due to its proxi ...

and was put down to plans for a travellers' camp in the area, which had been opposed by the Conservative candidate. Overall turnout in the election was 30.2%. Following the election Conservative group leader Alec Samuels was elected leader of the council. This came after one Liberal Democrat councillor, Norah Goss, voted in favour of a Conservative administration, breaking from the rest of the party who

abstained Abstention is a term in election procedure for when a participant in a vote either does not go to vote (on election day) or, in parliamentary procedure, is present during the vote, but does not cast a ballot. Abstention must be contrasted with ...

Ward results

Bargate

Bassett

Bevois

Bitterne

Bitterne Park

Coxford

Freemantle

Harefield

Millbrook

Peartree

Portswood

Redbridge

Shirley

Sholing

Swaythling

Woolston

References

{{United Kingdom local elections, 2007 2007 English local elections

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

2000s in Southampton