United Kingdom local elections, 1973
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
1 Unicameral area, all 6 metropolitan counties, all 39 non-metropolitan counties, all 36 metropolitan boroughs, all 296 English districts, 1 sui generis authority, all 26 Northern Irish districts, all 8 Welsh counties and all 37 Welsh districts |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
The first elections to the new local authorities established by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales and the new Northern Ireland district councils created by the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 took place in 1973. Elections to the existing Greater London Council also took place.
The elections took place on three dates:
Elections took place for all the seats on the councils. In the case of the new councils, they became shadow authorities, taking over from the existing local authorities on 1 April 1974. The elections for the new councils had been brought forward from an originally planned date in November 1973, to allow the councils more time to act as shadow authorities - the final dates were set in May 1972.
The elections held on 12 April saw a very impressive performance by the Labour Party, which regained control of the Greater London Council and took control of all six of the new metropolitan county councils. In the rest of England, they won seven county councils, including two of the new "estuary" counties: Cleveland and Humberside. The party also won Gwent and the three Glamorgan county councils in Wales.
The poor Conservative vote in London and the metropolitan counties was somewhat compensated by winning thirteen of the non-metropolitan counties. Failure to gain Essex or Hertfordshire were disappointments to the party, but taking control of Gloucestershire was a success. The party also failed to gain its only realistic Welsh prospect, South Glamorgan.
There were no great successes for the Liberal party, which found itself in third place in all the metropolitan counties. They did however gain representation on the GLC for the first time, winning two seats at Sutton and Cheam and Richmond upon Thames. This followed the previous year's by-election success in winning the Sutton and Cheam parliamentary seat from the Conservatives.
Independents won two English counties outright: Cornwall and the Isle of Wight. They also formed the largest grouping on a number of other councils, and entered agreements with the Conservatives in the running of some of these. In Wales, Independents controlled three mainly rural counties.
The results of the elections in May saw an improvement in the performance by the Conservatives since the county council elections, and a slight fall back in the Labour vote. The Liberals had a notable success, becoming the largest group on Liverpool council.
...
Wikipedia