Friday 3 May 2013

At the City Hall for Bristol Council election results


Inside the City Hall reporting on election results
CJ team blogging from the Council Chamber
The City Hall was a lively place this morning - a great sense of anticipation but a few anxious faces too as the results were read out in the Council Chamber. The re-arranging of this session from it's original timing of yesterday afternoon meant that only two of our team were able to be there but they had media passes and did a very fine job of covering the event for two hours through blog posts, photos, interviews and Tweets - including some interaction with University of Bristol's Alex Marsh and David Sweeting that can be seen on the @BSmayorwatch feed on the Bristol Mayor Watch blog.

Since the team had interviewed several East Bristol candidates last week at the Lawrence Hill and Easton Councillor question time event at the City Academy it made the announcement of the results seem more personal and relevant as they were already familiar with the aims and aspirations of people like Dr Jon Rogers (Lib Dem), Rob Telford (Green) and Habiq Jama (Labour).

There was much jubilation in the Chamber from Green party supporters as two candidates were voted in - Daniella Radice and Rob Telford, doubling their presence on the council. Daniella had also been the Green candidate for the Mayoral Elections in November and was interviewed by the previous CJ team on the Ujima Radio show after the elections. She agreed to be interviewed again and we hope to have her on one of the forthcoming Ujima radio programmes.
Rob Telford interviewed about his election to Ashley Ward for the Greens
Daniella Radice, Greens, gets a double interrogation after...
her election to Bishopston ward
Unfortunately we had to leave before the Lawrence Hill results were announced but understand that news of the election of Bristol's first Somali Woman, Habiq Jama, representing Labour, was received with much excitement.

Another interview our CJs had recently recorded was with Guy Poultney, in connection with planning and regeneration in the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. Guy is a Lib Dem and had represented Lockleaze ward for four years and was on the Council Executive, but was ousted by the Labour Candidate for that ward, Estella Tincknell. We hope to interview whoever is appointed to Guy's previous role as a member of the council committee for Development Control in the Enterprise Zone.

Announcement of Lockleaze Ward's Labour win - and Lib Dem loss.
A disappointing day for the Liberal Democrats in the election results - both Jon Rogers and Guy Poultney had been enthusiastic supporters of Ujima, along with Marvin Rees (Labour), George Gollop (Conservatives) and representatives from other parties. However, the gains and losses in the council and new cabinet appointments will all provide a good source of material for discussion on the radio programmes in the very near future.

Two of the CJ team with Ujima's Roger Griffith

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