One principal authority by-election took place this week in Swansea. The Conservatives were attempting to defend this council seat.
Swansea Council, Fairwood
This week’s by-election was triggered by the death of long-serving Conservative councillor Paxton Hood-Williams, who represented this council ward for over 20 years. At the most recent council elections in 2022, the Conservatives topped the poll, albeit with a much smaller majority than in 2017, whilst we finished in last place.
Turnout fell by nearly 10% in this by-election compared to 2022. We were able to leapfrog into first place, whilst the defending Conservatives plummeted down to fifth place.
Congratulations are due to Cllr Beth Rowe and the Swansea Liberal Democrats for this excellent result, substantially increasing our vote share here.
Liberal Democrats (Beth Rowe): 240 (29.3%, +19.9)
Labour: 185 (22.6%, –9.3)
Reform UK: 139 (17.0%, new)
Independent: 94 (11.5%, new)
Conservative: 84 (10.3%, –30.3)
Independent: 77 (9.4%, new)
Liberal Democrats GAIN from Conservative
Turnout: 37.7%
Thank you to all of our candidates, agents, and campaign teams. A full summary of these results, and all other principal council by-elections, can be found on the ALDC by-elections page here.
* Liam Yip is the Campaigns and Communications Intern at ALDC
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8 Comments
An excellent result. Well done Beth Rowe and the Swansea Liberal Democrats. Strangely, there’s no comments from the doom-mongers.
Here is my usual month-end summary of the last fifty local by-elections.
Percentage Vote Share:
Reform 28.23%, Conservatives 21.02%, Liberal Democrats 20.44%, Greens 17.63%, Labour 8.36%, Independents 3.05%, Others 1.28%
Labour’s share of the vote is at an all-time low. Their previous low was 10.86% in January.
Gains and losses are:
Reform: Net gain of nine: 12 gains, 3 held, 4 lost
Greens: Net gain of three: 4 gains, 3 held, 1 lost
Conservatives: Net gain of one: 7 gains, 5 held, 6 lost
Others: Net gain of one: 1 gain, 0 held, 0 lost
Lib Dems: Net loss of two: 4 gains, 11 held, 6 lost
Labour: Net loss of five: 1 gain, 0 held, 6 lost
Independents: Net loss of seven: 0 gains, 0 helm 7 lost
Seats Won:
Reform 16. Liberal Democrats 15, Conservatives 12, Greens 7, Labour 1, Others 1
(Numbers do not add up to 50 due to double by-elections in two wards).
The above data is for the most recent 50 by-elections in England & Wales (5th March 2026 to 28th May 2026). Parish/Town Councils are not included. 25 of these by-elections took place before this year’s local elections; 20 were on the same day and 5 were afterwards.
Congratulations to the local team, I would love to know if there are any particular reasons & does anyone know why Plaid didn’t stand ?
Five contests since May so far & Reform haven’t taken one. That seems odd given that they got a sharp boost in the Polls after The 7th.
Well done BUT would we have won if Plaid had stood, they got 19% last time the same as our increase in vote.
@ theakes The Plaid Cymru candidate from 2022 stood in the byelection and came last. I am not privy to the internal discussions in Plaid Cymru but it is not unreasonable to surmise that their absence from the ballot paper was discretion being the better part of valour.
This is only the second Council byelection where the Welsh Lib Dems have gained a seat from another Party for many years. I have nothing but praise for the Swansea team.
Following the Senedd election and the new rule preventing double hatting, there will be 10 Plaid Cymru, 8 Reform and 1 Labour Council byelections in the next few weeks in Wales, in addition to the usual ones caused by Anno Domini.
The five by-elections that have taken place since May 7th have not only been poor for Reform they have been very good for us. Lib Dems 28.17%, Conservatives 21.53%, Reform 21.47%.
However, it is only five elections and one should not get too excited over a small number like this. Let’s see what happens over the next few months.
A note on Reform, we have just seen the 2nd Poll showing Reform losing their lead. You might think that would attract some notice by Journalists or The Commentariat.
Paul – what was this. It isn’t on the wikipedia page of polls. Not surprised by the lack of commentary – the slow but noticeable down-tick in reform poll ratings has passed by without comment in recent months. Ditto their lower national equivalent share in the local elections which mirrored that down-tick.