Despite  having a great candidate, excellent campaign materials and some hard work by party members, sadly Virpi Kettu  came third in the Skipton North by election with 195 votes.

The winner was Independent Anthony Barrett, with 333 votes, Tory Susan Broadhead came second with 244 votes and the Green  Claire Nash came last with 156.

The turnout was 32 per cent – very high for a town council by election, prompted perhaps by our high profile campaign.

Though we hoped to do better this was still a good achievement for Labour in a ward that  has not previously been particularly good for us.

Onwards now to the district elections on May 3.

We’ll be announcing our candidates shortly and looking forward to a strong campaign.