The 2008 Southampton Council election took place on 1 May 2008 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

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

gained overall control of the council from 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 ...

26 *

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 ...

14 *

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

Background

After the 2007 election the Conservative party took control as a minority administration after one

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 ...

, Norah Goss, broke with her party to support the Conservatives. However, at the February 2008 budget meeting, the

and Liberal Democrats joined together to take control from the Conservatives.

Election result

The results saw the Conservative party win a majority on the council for the first time since 1984. The Conservatives gained 8 seats, 4 from Labour, 3 from the Liberal Democrats and 1 from an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

. Two 18-year-olds were among the Conservative winners, David Fuller taking Bitterne by 460 votes and Matthew Jones gaining Peartree by over 500 votes. Meanwhile, both the Labour leader of the council, June Bridle, in Sholing and the Liberal Democrat group leader, Adrian Vinson, in Portswood were among those who lost seats. The Conservative gains meant that they won 15 of the 17 seats contested to take a 4-seat majority with 26 seats, compared to 14 seats for Labour and 8 for the Liberal Democrats. Overall turnout in the election was 29.7%, down on the 30.3% in 2007 and varying between a low of 16.1% in

Bargate The Bargate is a Grade I listed medieval gatehouse in the city centre of Southampton, England. Constructed in Norman times as part of the Southampton town walls, it was the main gateway to the city. The building is a scheduled monument, whic ...

and a high of 36.9% in Shirley. The Conservative election success was put down to a combination of a rejection of the pact between the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, anger at plans to charge people for parking outside their homes and the national issue of the abolition of the 10p rate of

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

. The results were also seen as indications for the next general election, with projections that the Conservatives could gain

Southampton Test Southampton Test is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by Alan Whitehead, a member of the Labour Party. History The constituency was created for the 1950 general election, when the previous two ...

and

Southampton Itchen Southampton, Itchen is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Royston Smith, a Conservative member of parliament. Discounting the Speaker (of the House of Commons) returned in the early 1970s in two ...

constituencies from Labour on swings of 15.9% and 18.9% respectively, based on the local election results. Following the election, Alec Samuels became the new Conservative leader of the council, Richard Williams became leader of the Labour group and Jill Baston took charge of the Liberal Democrat group.

Ward results

Bargate

Bassett

Bevois

Bitterne

Bitterne Park

Coxford

Freemantle

Harefield

Millbrook

Peartree

Portswood

Redbridge

Shirley

Sholing

Swaythling

Woolston

References

{{United Kingdom local elections, 2008 2008 English local elections

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

2000s in Southampton