Tag: John Whitby

Peterborough City Council election 2016 – the battle for control

10:21 Thursday 28th April 2016
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: So we’re a week away from the local elections – who will be in control of your council come May 6th? Today we’re focusing on Peterborough, and who’s going to be in control of that. Will it still be the Conservatives that are running things, and doing it their way? Or will Labour surge through? Perhaps UKIP will grab a load of seats. Or the LibDems will see a resurgence of yellow across the city of Peterborough. Well let’s find out that they all think. We’ve got in the studio Nick Thulbourn from Labour. He’s the Deputy Leader. Morning Nick.
NICK THULBOURN: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: We’ve also got John Holdich, currently the Leader of the Council for the Conservatives. Morning.
JOHN HOLDICH: Morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Nick Sandford is here, the Leader of the LibDems. Good morning.
NICK SANDFORD: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: And also with us (A CHIME GOES OFF) oh .. also with us .. I don’t know what that was .. also with us is John Whitby, who’s a UKIP councillor as well.
JOHN WHITBY: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Welcome to the show. Well let’s start with the man who’s been running the Council then, after Marco’s ousting. John Holdich is with us. A difficult task. You’ve had to do some difficult things, some of which have gone down like a sack of wet fish with the people of Peterborough. Are you going to pay for that at the ballot box?
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Cereste toppled

17:17 Friday 8th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

WASEEM MIRZA: There’s been a day of drama already today. Let’s start with Peterborough, where there were 20 out of 57 seats up for election. Technically 56, because a councillor had resigned about a month or so ago. Today the Leader of that city council Marco Cereste lost his seat. A little bit of background, back in May 2013 Marco Cereste survived a leadership challenge, after being criticised for his support on major projects, including a multi-million pound solar and wind farm near the city. He survived that surprise challenge back then, but in today’s elections he lost his seat to the Conservative Ray Bisby, and UKIP’s John Whitby. Now the new make-up of Peterborough City Council now looks like this. Largely unchanged from the last election, Conservatives with 26 seats, losing 2 on the previous election. Labour 12, the same as before. The Independents 7. Again no change there. UKIP 4, that’s up on the previous 3. Liberal Democrats 4, again no change there. The Liberal Party 3, the same as before. So what does that mean? Well no party has overall control of Peterborough City Council, again, the same result as in the previous election. But with Marco Cereste no longer at the helm, there could be big ramifications there for the future. So, what next for Mr Cereste? Well he told this programme earlier the public will decide his legacy.

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