The final local election preview takes in the post-1996 authorities that were part of the former South, West and Mid Glamorgan.
Pedants who will say, “Well, Rhymney Valley was in Mid Glamorgan so surely you should put Caerphilly here?” are politely redirected to the Gwent preview.
- Current Administration: Labour-Independent coalition.
- Current Leader: Cllr. Neil Moore (Lab).
- Number of Seats (2022): 54 (+7).
- Current Seat Distribution: Independents & Non-Affiliated (16), Conservative (14), Labour (13), Plaid Cymru (4).
Previous Results:
- 1995 – Labour control.
- 1999 – No Overall Control.
- 2004 – No Overall Control.
- 2008 – Conservative control.
- 2012 – No Overall Control.
- 2017 – No Overall Control.
The Vale of Glamorgan has seen one of the largest increases in the number of councillors following the boundary review. All of the main parties seemingly stand a chance of benefiting from that in different ways.
The Conservatives were unceremoniously dumped out of the ruling administration in 2019 following an internal dispute over the leadership. This resulted in a mass exodus of Conservatives to a new Independent group, who subsequently formed a coalition with Labour.
Labour would be looking to maintain that arrangement and probably seek to come out of the election as the single largest group – something they’re tantalising close to doing. To do that they may need to win back seats in some of the Barry wards like Cadoc, Dyfan and Illtud.
The Conservative “schism” also throws up some interesting contests in wards such as Cowbridge, Plymouth (Penarth) and Peterston-Super-Ely.
The Conservatives tend to dominate the big rural wards to the north and west as well as suburban wards in Barry and Penarth. Llantwit Major and Sully have long been Independent strongholds and they’ll be tough to shift (though the Tories are apparently trying hard in Sully), while Labour does well in the central Barry and Penarth wards.
Plaid Cymru has been gradually building up a presence – particularly in Barry – and put forward 33 candidates, which is a very respectable number. They’ve previously had a strong presence in Dinas Powys too which they would be looking to regain. You would expect them to hold what they have and perhaps add an extra seat or two.
Another thing to note is a large number of Green candidates (surely if Plaid and the Greens have a joint ticket in Cardiff, it would’ve been sensible to do it in the Vale) and possibly the only openly-declared Abolish the Assembly candidate in Wales (in Rhoose).
