Terry Gazzard has been elected to Bath and North East Somerset Council as Councillor for Bathavon North following yesterday’s by-election held in the ward.
The by-election was held following the death of Conservative councillor Gabriel Batt.
Mr Gazzard was elected with a total of 1,047 votes. The Liberal Democrats, who at the last local elections came within 52 votes of winning a seat in the area, came second with a 25.6% vote share.
In contrast to the national picture, UKIP finished in last place behind Labour and the Greens with just 11.3% of the vote.
Mr Gazzard, who lives in Bathampton, previously served as a councillor on B&NES for four years between 2007 and 2011, during which time he was also the Council’s Cabinet Member for Development and Major Projects and Culture, Tourism and Leisure for two years.
He has said his priorities will be to fight for a fair deal from B&NES for the area’s local villages and defend local Greenbelt from inappropriate housing development.
Conservatives have said they are delighted with the result for the party and have welcomed Councillor Gazzard back onto the Council.
Councillor Gazzard (Cons, Bathavon North) said: “I’m obviously absolutely delighted with the result. I would like to extend my thanks to the residents of Bathavon North for choosing to elect me as one of their Councillors, as well as thank the other candidates in this election for their efforts.
“I would also like to pay tribute to Gabriel Batt, who I knew and respected during my pervious time as a councillor and who served this area so well for many years.
“I will now get to work on representing local people as well as possible, and I look forward to working alongside my ward colleagues Martin Veal and Geoff Ward to stand up for our local villages and rural communities on the Council.”
Conservative Group Leader Cllr Tim Warren said: “I’d like to welcome Terry back onto the Council. I know he will be a dedicated representative for the area and will do an excellent job of championing the interests of local residents. It was a hard fought by-election campaign, but we are naturally very pleased with the outcome.”
