Council Election Nominations Released – 12 Councillors Standing Down and 3 Seats Already Won

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Apr 5th, 2017

Wrexham’s nominations for the upcoming council elections have been released – with 12 councillors standing down and three wards being uncontested.

You can view all candidates and Q&A’s on our NEW Wrexham.com/election2017 section, and we expect further manifesto launches shortly!

The nominations were released shortly after 10am this morning, six hours ahead of their expected publication time of 4pm – the full PDF with details are on the Council site here!

In total there are 155 candidates standing in Wrexham – with 52 seats up for grabs across the 47 constituencies.

This time round there are more candidates running as Independents, rather than aligning themselves with the traditional political parties.

In total there are 61 Independent candidates running across 40 wards. This is an increase on the 31 Independent candidates who ran back in 2012.

Plaid Cymru have 15 candidates, Welsh Labour have 39 and the Welsh Liberal Democrats have 13.

The Welsh Conservatives will challenge 20 seats, UKIP have three candidates and the Green Party have two. A further two candidates have not specified any party, nor if they are formally Independent.

In 2012 the Johnstown, Llangollen Rural and Esclusham wards were all uncontested. This time both Council Leader Mark Pritchard and Cllr David A Bithell have challengers for their wards.

Three wards for this election are also uncontested, with Cllr Bill Baldwin (Little Acton), Cllr John Pritchard (Marchwiel) and Cllr David Kelly (Minera) unopposed – and therefore all but re-elected!

A further 11 councillors are also not running for reelection, including:

– Deputy Leader of Wrexham Council and councillor for Chirk North, Ian Roberts (Independent)
– Councillor Gareth Griffiths, Coedpoeth (Welsh Labour)
– Councillor Andrew Bailey Gresford (Welsh Labour)
– Councillor Neil Rogers (Independent)
– Councillor Michael Williams Gwersyllt North (Independent)
– Councillor Arfon Jones, Gwersyllt West (Plaid Cymru)
– Councillor Pat Jeffares, Llangollen Rural (Wrexham Independent Group)
– Councillor Carole O’Toole, Maesydre (Liberal Democrats)
– Councillor Mike Edwards, Marford and Hosely (Liberal Democrats)
– Councillor Mark Owens, Pant (Independent)
– Councillor Keith Gregory, Smithfield (Plaid Cymru)
– Councillor David Taylor, Cefn (Independent)

We spent several hours earlier on our election coverage, with just over three hours compressed into this video…