Reform UK won Hutton and Locking with 706 votes on 26.31% turnout. The Conservative vote in the ward fell from 834 in 2023 to 281, and the Lib Dems came second.

Reform UK has won the Hutton and Locking seat on North Somerset Council. William Jones took 706 votes at Thursday’s by-election, 94 ahead of the Liberal Democrat candidate, on a turnout of 26.31 per cent (North Somerset Council).

The seat was previously held by Cllr Terry Porter, who had represented the ward since 2009. The council says the by-election was triggered by his death.

The result in full

  • William Jones, Reform UK: 706
  • Georgina Barry, Liberal Democrat: 612
  • John Edward Standfield, Conservative: 281
  • Yue He Parkinson, Labour: 133
  • James Gavin Willis-Boden, Green: 104
  • Rejected ballot papers: 2

What changed since 2023

Hutton and Locking is a two-councillor ward, so the last full contest here worked differently: in May 2023 every elector had two votes and two seats were filled. The candidate totals are not directly comparable. The direction of travel still is.

At that election, Terry Porter topped the poll for the Conservatives with 834 votes and Michael Solomon, who now sits as Cllr Mike Solomon, was elected as an Independent with 628. Georgina Barry stood for the Liberal Democrats and came third with 449. Turnout was 27.80 per cent (declaration of result, 4 May 2023).

Three things follow from putting the two documents side by side.

Reform UK did not stand here in 2023. The 2023 declaration lists a Conservative, two Labour candidates, a Liberal Democrat and two Independents. There was no Reform UK candidate on the ballot. The party has now won the seat.

The Conservative vote fell to a third of what it was. Porter’s 834 became Standfield’s 281.

Georgina Barry improved and still lost. Her 449 in 2023 became 612 on Thursday, and she finished second.

More people voted than at the last full election

This is the detail worth pausing on. Add up Thursday’s papers and you get 1,838. In May 2023, at an ordinary all-out local election, 1,764 ballot papers were verified in this ward.

More votes were cast at a by-election than at the general council election three years earlier, and yet the turnout percentage went down.

The council has not published the electorate for Thursday’s poll. Working backwards from its own turnout figure, 1,838 papers at 26.31 per cent implies an electorate of about 6,990. In 2023 the declaration records it as 6,345. That is roughly 640 more voters in three years, a rise of about a tenth.

The boundary commission has seen the same growth. Its draft report says Hutton and Locking is forecast to have 14 per cent more electors than the district average by 2031 (LGBCE draft recommendations).

Reform UK’s group of three, and how it got there

The council now records a Reform UK Group of three members. Only one of them was elected as a Reform UK candidate.

The council’s register of councillors lists the other two as Andy Cole, who represents Nailsea Golden Valley, and Stuart Davies, who represents Wick St Lawrence and St Georges (North Somerset Council).

The declarations for their seats show what was on the ballot paper in 2023. Andy Cole was elected as an Independent, with 1,027 votes (Nailsea Golden Valley declaration). Stuart Davies was elected with no party description at all, with 380 votes (Wick St Lawrence and St Georges declaration).

Reform UK’s share of the vote has climbed at each of the three by-elections this council term, all of them in different parts of the district:

  • Long Ashton, 13 November 2025: 349 votes, 15.5 per cent, fourth place. Turnout 32.56 per cent (result).
  • Clevedon South, 5 February 2026: 334 votes, 27.7 per cent, second place. Turnout 36.39 per cent (result).
  • Hutton and Locking, 10 September 2026: 706 votes, 38.5 per cent, elected. Turnout 26.31 per cent.

The percentages are our calculation from the votes each council release publishes, and exclude rejected papers.

Reform UK's share of the vote at the three North Somerset by-elections of this council term

Nobody is close to a majority

North Somerset Council has 50 seats. A majority needs 26. After Thursday the council publishes its political balance as:

Group Seats
Conservative Party and Independents 13
Liberal Democrats and Independents 12
Labour 10
Green 8
Portishead Independent 4
Reform UK 3

The council has been run without any one group in overall control since 2023, and it says that has not changed.

What it means for you

  • Hutton and Locking now has both its councillors back. The ward is represented by William Jones and by Cllr Mike Solomon of the Liberal Democrats and Independents Group. It has been a councillor short since the vacancy arose.
  • The ward is set to grow to three councillors. The Local Government Boundary Commission’s draft recommendations would create a three-councillor Hutton and Locking ward taking in Bleadon and Loxton parishes, bringing it to 8 per cent fewer electors than the district average by 2031. Its final report is due on 29 September 2026, and any changes take effect at the next elections (LGBCE).
  • Every seat is up on Thursday 6 May 2027. Thursday’s result gives one councillor to one ward. The whole council is elected in under eight months.
  • If you are thinking of standing, the council is running two free sessions. They are on Thursday 8 October, online, and Saturday 14 November at the Town Hall in Weston-super-Mare, chaired by chief executive Mandy Bishop with a panel of serving councillors. Places must be booked in advance (details and booking links).
  • Ward councillors are the route into planning decisions. Applications across the district are listed on our North Somerset planning news page, and what each parish pays is set out in North Somerset council tax bands.

Sources