Local elections 2024: What do results mean for Rotherham?

The borough’s Labour Party – led by Councillor Chris Read – increased their majority by two seats, and now hold 33 seats on the council and remain the ruling party.

They may have increased their majority, but it was not a landslide by any means – 30 seats are needed to take control of RMBC – meaning Labour are in power by just three seats.

It was a better result for the party than the last election in 2021, which saw Labour lose 16 seats and narrowly cling on to control.

However, it wasn’t as straightforward for the Conservatives this year, as they lost three seats, leaving them with 13 members on the authority.

The party celebrated in 2021, having entered the election with no seats at all to 20, forming the main opposition.

They are still the main opposition, but independent candidates took a chunk of their share, winning 10 seats.

The Liberal Democrats lost a seat, leaving them with three councillors

Going into the 2024 election, the picture had changed slighly in the three years since the last one.

The Conservatives were down to 15 councillors following resignations and by-elections entering the local elections this year.

Labour gained seats in Hoober, Maltby East, Rother Vale and Bramley, and Ravenfield, but lost seats in Keppel and Boston Castle.

Boston Castle, the last ward to declare, was hotly contested with 15 candidates.

The Conservatives gained in Hellaby and Maltby West, Anston and Woodsetts.

Councillor Chris Read, leader of the Rotherham Labour party, said he was ‘really pleased’ with the result, in what had been a ‘tough election’.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that feelings had ‘run very high’ around Gaza.

He added that the council’s priorities this year will be fixing potholes, and ‘basic council services that people depend on’, such as council house building and regeneration.

Conservative leader Simon Ball said that voters are ‘dissatisfied with how [Labour] operate,’ and that the party had ‘bucked the national trend’, after the party has lost more than half the seats it was defending across the country.

The party have hope that their MP, Alexander Stafford, will remain in post should a general election be called, after wards in his Rother Valley constituency elected 12 Tories.

Liberal Democrat leader Adam Carter said he had encountered ‘real unhappiness’ with the council on the campaign trail, and voters ‘wanted change’.