SHEFFIELD: Sheffield Liberal Democrats are ‘disappointed’ but looking forward - group leader says

Instead of taking over as the largest party in the council, the Liberal Democrats have lost two seats and Labour’s lead has been extended, which left the leader the party leader “disappointed”.

As Labour have gained six seats (with only losing one) and the Liberal Democrats were beaten in Ecclesall and Graves Park, Cllr Shaffaq Mohammed’s group is now well behind Labour at Sheffield Town Hall.

However, he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that they would re-group now and get ready for the general election where they target Sheffield Hallam.

Cllr Mohammed, the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Sheffield, said he was “of course” disappointed after losing two seats and seeing Labour extending their lead at Sheffield town hall.

He said: “We’ve lost two seats here, we’ve lost two colleagues, Roger Davison in particular, a long standing councillor, and Tariq Zaman who would have made a fantastic councillor in Graves Park - but we lost by 99 (votes).

“This things happen… This set of elections were always going to be tricky for us. Sometimes you’re on the right side of the result, this time we lost. But this election was the backdrop of the general election.

“In Graves Park, a lot of Labour leaflets went out to Labour saying ‘vote Labour to send the Tories a message’. Unfortunately, some people fell for that but I’m not sure what message they get when the Liberal Democrats are the ones that are losing a seat.”

It was clear that the Liberal Democrats were targeting Crookes and Crosspool, and Mosborough.

They did not win either of them.

Cllr Mohammed said Labour had a strategy to talk about the general election, he said “fair due” it was always going to be a challenge to win those seats.

He said: “We now re-group, go forward, and the next challenge we have is the general election that I’m really up for, actually, as if you look at the results across Sheffield Hallam, we’re still top of the polls.

“We’re still well ahead of Labour (there).”