All the results from the North Northamptonshire Council elections 2021

Conservatives across North Northamptonshire swept the board at the new council’s first ever elections last night (Friday, May 7).

They won 60 out of the 78 seats on offer including every single seat in East Northants and all but one in Kettering and Wellingborough.

The big story of the night was the Greens winning all three seats in Kettering’s Clover Hill ward on the back of their dogged campaign to save under-threat Weekley Hall Wood.

Labour took 14 seats, with twelve of them in four wards in Corby, one in Wellingborough and one in Kettering.

Only one independent, stalwart Jim Hakewill, won a seat in Rothwell and Mawsley ward.

The night was dominated by Conservatives, with the party taking the first nine seats and reaching the 40-seat majority they needed by 8pm.

Several big-names lost their seats including Cllrs Ash Davies, Lesley Thurland, Phil Sawford and Keli Watts in Kettering and Adam Henley, and Tony Aslam, Andrew Scarborough and Andrea Watts in Wellingborough. Freeman of Corby and long-standing borough councillor Ray Beeby also missed out during a tight-fought race in Corby rural. Community champion and county council stalwart Chris Stanbra also lost his seat after the Liberal Democrat vote collapsed, with the party returning no councillors.

But a crop of young councillors in their 20s also won seats including Zoe McGhee and Macaulay Nicol in Corby and Emily-Rose Fedorowycz in Kettering.

A leadership connotes will now take place among the Tories with the Northants Telegraph believingthere are several in the frame including Wellingborough’s Martin Griffiths and East Northants’ Jason Smithers.

Labour are also yet to pick their leader although Corby’s Jean Addison is the front-runner, with Mark Pengelly and John McGhee also being tipped by some members at last night’s count.

After Mark won his Lloyds seat last night, he said: “Corby is red. We’re happy that the public have kept faith with us and we won’t let them down.

“We’ll do our very best to hold the Tories to account.”

Leading Tory Martin Griffiths said he hoped to work with the opposition to ensure that every town and village ‘from Easton Maudit to Easton on the Hill’ and the 43 miles in between felt represented by the new authority.

Victorious Green Dez Dell and Emily-Rose Fedorowycz said: “We need to get more young people engaged in politics.

“We’ve been working outside trying to save Weekley Hall Wood and now we have got people on the council who can really act to help save it.

”The council make-up before has not always been representative of the people of Northamptonshire so we’re really pleased to have won three seats.”

You can see what happened throughout the night on our live blog