The second election preview looks at wards in Porthcawl and the Pyle/Cornelly/Kenfig Hill area.
Once again, if you’re not sure which ward you are in, enter your postcode into the widget below and it’ll tell you.
Which county councillors are standing down this year?
- Mike Clarke (Ind, Rest Bay)
- Steven Smith (Lab, Pyle)
- Ken Watts (Ind, Newton) – former Mayor of Bridgend County Borough Council.
Sitting councillors seeking re-election are in italics. Candidates are listed in alphabetical order by party and then surname.
Nottage (elects 1 councillor)
- Electoral History: 1 Lib Dem (1999); 1 Conservative (2004); 1 Lib Dem (2008, 2012); 1 Independent (2017)
Candidates
- Conservative: Robert Lee.
- Independent: Mark Chegwen, Norah Clarke, Jamie Strong.
- Labour: Valerie Monks.
Norah Clarke might have a job on her hands to keep her seat due to two Independent candidates standing against her. Her incumbency factor may be an advantage and she won very comfortably in 2017, but it’s a fairly small ward and even a few votes going somewhere else could leave her in trouble.
The flip side is the other two Independents could draw votes away from the Conservatives and Labour and possibly help Norah Clarke.
Either way, you would expect a close result. Given that it’s not what you would call a natural Labour seat, unless one of the other Independents manages to secure the vote for themselves the main beneficiaries from a split in the Independent vote are likely to be the Conservatives. A possible Tory gain?
Porthcawl East Central (elects 2 councillors)
- Electoral History: 1 Labour (1999, 2004, 2008); 1 Independent (2012, 2017).
Candidates
- Conservative: Byron Davies, Carolyn Perren.
- Independent: Brian Jones, Julia Jones, Steven Maitland Thomas.
- Labour: Neelo Farr, Graham Walter.
This one could get a bit tasty and is certainly one to keep an eye on, results-wise – being possibly the only genuinely interesting contest in the area.
Theoretically, any of them could win the two seats. East Central is the town centre ward where regeneration efforts in Porthcawl are concentrated, so opinions on that and the recent revising of the council’s vision could play a factor in how people vote.
Brian Jones won reasonably comfortably when it was a single-councillor seat, but with the increase to two councillors it makes the chasing pack more competitive. There’s the outside chance of an Independent one-two, but three candidates could result in a splitting of the vote.
Of all the wards in Porthcawl, this is perhaps one where Labour are most likely to take back a county council seat after they were wiped out in 2012. Neelo Farr has stood multiple times in various seats for Labour, joined by former Independent town councillor and Mayor of Porthcawl, Graham Walter – who pushed Ken Watts fairly closely in Newton in 2017.
Rest Bay (elects 1 councillor)
- Electoral History: 1 Lib Dem (1999, 2004, 2008, 2012); 1 Independent (2017).
Candidates
- Conservative: Francis Perren.
- Independent: Robert Smith.
With Mike Clarke opting to stand down, this is probably the Conservative’s best chance in years to win the ward – though given the ward’s electoral history, you would expect the Independent candidate to put in a strong showing.
The Conservatives managed to get to within 100 votes of winning the seat in 2008 and 2012 but slipped back quite a bit in 2017. The general characteristics of the ward – an older population, usually comfortably retired by the coast – ought to make it a natural Tory-voting area so it’s surprising that they’ve never won it before. Is this their year?
