Rob Walsh Wins Llay Election – Becomes New Wrexham Councillor

Rob Walsh last night won the Llay seat on Wrexham Council, where voters previously returned a Labour candidate moving it to Liberal Democrat control.

Mr Walsh recently stood for a parliamentary seat, with 1,735 votes across Wrexham which was a 20% drop in the Lib Dem vote. However, yesterday his local campaign in his own area of Llay has paid off with him winning the seat by 347 votes to become a County Borough Councillor.

Clarification has been requested on this article, with the seat previously held by an Independent who was elected as a Labour candidate. The change occurred when ten Labour councillors resigned from Labour and became Independents back in September.

The result came in just before midnight, with the Liberal Democrats gaining Tim Farron as a new leader hours earlier, supporters were referring to the victory as the “Lib Dem Fightback”

Rob Walsh told Wrexham.com: “I’m so proud to have the opportunity to represent Llay on Wrexham Council. I`d first of all like to thank my fellow candidates for conducting a fair and good spirited campaign. Putting yourself in the firing line is not easy, so all the candidates can hold their heads up high for giving the people of Llay a real choice.

“I have so many people to say thank you too. I will make sure I thank every single one of those people. But most of all, I would like to thank all those who voted for me. I will make sure I continue to work for the village and keep residents up to date with what is going on.

“I will be there to represent every single member of our community.”

The vote breakdown was as follows, with more detail to follow:
Conservative 64
Labour 353
Lib Dem 700
UKIP 60
Ind 124
Ind 41

The full result percentages are below, reflecting where previously no candidate had stood before:

LDEM – 52.2% (+52.2)
LAB – 26.3% (-24.8)
IND – 9.2% (+9.2)
CON – 4.8% (+4.8)
UKIP – 4.5% (+4.5)
IND – 3.1% (+3.1)

Our tweet in the run up to the announcement did prompt a couple of followers to enquire if the winner would be also declared the new Pope of Llay, implying such a position exists!

Someone has just emailed us this picture, apparently taken somewhere in Llay just now… pic.twitter.com/2NGNTuGQIp

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) July 16, 2015