2004 local elections results summary
11 June 2004
The Green Party in England gained nine seats in this year's local elections and lost none. This amounted to an increase in council seats of 17%, following last year's 30% increase.
In the South East, Oxford Greens gained four seats to push the city council into "no overall control". Oxford Greens, with seven councillors, are now the joint strongest local authority Green Party group, with Lancaster. Oxford Greens averaged 20% their highest ever city-wide average.
In the North West, Manchester Green Party's chair Cllr Vanessa Hall held her breakthrough seat in inner-city Hulme, having had only one year in office due to boundary changes. In Lancashire, a rising Green vote put firefighter Ian Dixon into second place on 34%, just behind the sitting Tory councillor on 39%. The Green vote bore up well in Liverpool and Manchester especially, with the highest Green vote in Liverpool being 18%.
In Eastern region, Cllr Ken Brodhurst took the Green Party's second seat on Watford council, with 57% of the vote - over three times as many votes as the second-placed Labour candidate. And Norwich Greens held all three of their existing seats and gained two more.
In the South West, Stroud - for some time the country's strongest local council Green group - held its seats.
In Yorkshire and the Humber, the region with the largest number of Green Party councillors at the start of this election, the Greens successfully defended all their seats in Bradford, Kirklees and Leeds, gained an extra seat in Bradford and won their first seat on Sheffield city council. Kirklees Greens were just six votes short of gaining a fourth seat.
Unfortunately the party lost its only seat in Wales.
The overall percentage where Greens stood was reported by the BBC as over 10%, a significant increase on last year's 7% and the 5% in 2002.
