Bedford keeps its Liberal Democrat mayor

One of the few bright spots in the local election results was Liberal Democrat Dave Hodgson being re-elected as the executive Mayor of Bedford.

Dave was only elected 18 months ago in a by-election after the death of the previous independent mayor. So it is tribute to Dave’s abilities and the amount he has been able to achieve in that short period that, with the background of such a difficult national picture for the Liberal Democrats, he managed to be re-elected with such a strong result.

On Bedford Council itself the three main parties achieved the difficult feat of winning exactly 12 seats each.

Central Bedfordshire

It was a different story for the Liberal Democrats in Central Beds who had a very bad night. They were reduced to only 5 seats leaving the council heavily dominated by the Conservatives. It was slightly better news for Labour who return to being represented on the council with Roger Pepworth being elected by a narrow margin in the Dunstable Manshead ward.

• Bedford Mayoral result
• BBC: Bedford
• BBC: Central Bedfordshire

This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.