Anderson elected as Liverpool mayor, Manchester votes ‘no’
LABOUR leader Cllr Joe Anderson became the first elected Mayor in Liverpool last night, picking up almost 60% of the votes in the process.
Cllr Anderson collected 59.3% of the total votes cast, finishing ahead of independent campaigner and former BBC journalist Liam Fogarty in second.
The turnout was less than 32%.
In Manchester, voters narrowly rejected the idea of an elected mayor in a referendum, with 53.2% voting ‘no’, although less than one in four of the city’s population voted.
The elections proved to be a generally good night for Labour, which gained overall control of Wirral, Sefton and Carlisle councils.
In Wirral, Labour took majority control of a council in which no party has had a majority for years. It gained seven seats and now has 37 councillors, compared with 22 for the Conservatives’ and seven for the Liberal Democrats. In Sefton, it now holds 15 seats, compared with six for the Liberal Democrats and one for the Conservatives.
Labour also gained all ten of the seats it was fighting in Rochdale to strengthen its hold on the council.
In Stockport, Liberal Democrat council leader Dave Goddard lost his seat in the Offerton ward, where he was narrowly beaten by Labour’s Laura Booth.
Results of the Salford mayoral election have yet to be declared, but in the local elections both of the sitting Liberal Democrat councillors lost their seats to Labour, which gained eight seats. It now has 52 seats on the council, while the Conservatives have eight.
Speaking of the task ahead for Liverpool’s elected mayor, the city’s chamber of commerce said that it will have four key areas on which he will need to focus to facilitate business growth.
The most important will be “creating the right physical environment” for investors, including improving the city’s road infrastructure, driving its bid to become a low-carbon economy and do more to bring people off welfare and into work.
Jenny Stewart, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce’s head of client services, said the mayor would also need to work with the LEP to promote trade “not just within the City of Liverpool, but also across the wider city-region, in Whitehall, Westminster, and further afield”.
“Promoting inward investment, visitors and exports are the mainstay of Liverpool’s rebirth as an international, outward looking city and the mayor will need to demonstrate a statesman-like approach to dealing with both local and overseas partners,” she added.
