Local by-election preview 22.9.11

Results from last week:
Bramshott and Liphook: 2 C holds, 4.2% swing LD to C
Graiseley: Lab hold, 4.2% swing Lab to C
Headley: C hold, 10.1% swing LD to C
Highgate: Lab hold, 4.8% swing Grn to Lab
Highland: SNP hold, 0.4% swing SNP to C on first preferences (1.0% swing C to SNP since 2008 by-election)
Phoenix: Lib Dem gain from Lab, 7.0% swing Lab to LD
Surbiton Hill: Lib Dem hold, 0.9% swing LD to C

Just one by-election on 22nd September.

STAITHE, Fenland, Cambridgeshire; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor in a car crash. Welcome to Wisbech, self-styled Capital of the Fens. Located on the Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border, the town became a wealthy port in the 17th century, handling agricultural produce from the newly drained Fens; the River Nene here is still navigable. Many of the buildings in the town centre are Georgian, leading to some film and TV costume dramas being filmed here, while the town's most famous son is the slavery abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, who has a memorial and a ward named after him in the town. Staithe ward, one of seven wards covering Wisbech, is located on the eastern edge of the town before it merges seamlessly into the suburb of Walsoken, which is over the county boundary in Norfolk. Fenland distict is an extremely Tory part of England, with the Tories having a majority in 2003 and 2007 before a single vote was cast through unopposed returns and undernomination by opposition candidates; Staithe was Conservative unopposed in both those years. In May the opposition made an effort to actually contest the election, and Labour and UKIP candidates were nominated for the ward; the result was C 55.1 Lab 28.8 UKIP 16.1. The ward forms a quarter of the Wisbech South county division which at the last county council election in 2009 voted C 46.4 UKIP 26.5 Lab 10.6 LD 9.5 Libertarian 7.0. Candidates for the by-election are C, Lab, UKIP, Lib Dem and an Independent.