Sandwell Council by-election win for Labour as Wednesbury South retained
Labour has retained the Wednesbury South seat on Sandwell Council after seeing off the Conservative challenge in a by-election.
Jenny Chidley won the seat with 854 votes, 200 votes ahead of Tory candidate Fajli Bibi who received 654 votes.
Lib Dem Manjit Lal got 77 votes in third, ahead of the Green Party's Mark Redding (56) and Gareth Knox of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
The turnout was 16.3 per cent. Mrs Chidley was formerly a Labour councillor in Princes End, winning the seat from Ukip at the 2018 local elections.
At this year's local elections she lost the seat to Conservative candidate David Wilkes by just 31 votes.
The by-election was called after Labour councillor Kirat Singh resigned his seat in August.
He had been suspended by the Labour Party in July 2021 – just two months after being elected – for reasons that have not been made public.
Sandwell Council said Mr Singh, who attended just one out of 10 council meetings in 12 months, had secured a new job that was "politically restricted".
Labour's victory means the party is in full control of Wednesbury South and on the council as a whole has 61 councillors to the Conservatives 10.
