GREENS; first results

Taken from Green Party press release

Greens hold in Manchester - "bodes well for North West Euro-elections"


Cllr Vanessa Hall, the first ever Green councillor in Manchester, has held
her inner-city Hulme ward.

Prof John Whitelegg, Leader of North West Green Party, expressed his delight at the result: "Due to boundary changes Vanessa was up for re-election after only a year in office. That's very little time to make your mark in a seat that had been safe Labour for decades, but Vanessa has done it."


Highest vote

"Although Labour held the other two seats in the ward after a powerful
attempt to retake it, Vanessa polled the highest vote. She now has four
years in office and we expect to see more Greens elected in Manchester in
the next local elections in two years' time."

The Greens are hoping for their first North West MEP this year, and the hold
in Manchester is seen as a positive indicator.

Elsewhere in the country, the Greens are looking strong with so far one hold
and one gain in Oxford and no losses anywhere (at 0100 Friday).

ENDS


FIRST UPDATE

Greens on target in local elections

Green gains in Oxford push council into "no overall control"


Oxford Greens have taken four new seats in the local elections, bringing the
Green group on Oxford city council up to seven councillors. Oxford now has
twenty Labour, eighteen LibDem, seven Green and three Independent Working
Class councillors.

Oxford Greens now have the joint largest local authority Green Party group
in the country, alongside Lancaster. The two cities will be instrumental in
raising the Green Euro-election vote in two of the party's target regions.


On target

So far, the Greens look set to achieve their target of a 20% increase in
Green councillors.

In Watford, the winning Green candidate Cllr Ken Brodhurst polled 57% of the vote with 1000 votes  - 700 votes ahead of the second-place Labour
candidate. Watford Greens won their first council seat last year, and are part of the Green Party's surge in the Eastern region since the last Euro-elections in 1999. The Greens are hopeful of winning their first Euro-MP seat this year on the basis of successes in places like Watford, Braintree and Norwich.

Cllr Steve Rackett, the party's first councillor in Watford, commented after
the result: "We have shown that the Green Party working closely with the
local community can pull off big results.

"People were fed up with the other parties and their cynical campaigning
tactics, which really showed in this year's election."

With half the results in, the Greens have suffered no losses but have successfully held seats in Oxford, Stroud and Manchester, in three of the
regions most likely to return Green MEPs in Sunday's count.

ENDS


FRIDAY RESULTS

More Green gains

Yorkshire remains the Greens' strongest region in terms of council seats


Sheffield Green Party has won its first city council seat with the election
of Dr Jillian Creasy, while Bradford Greens have gained a seat, bringing
them up to four.

Leeds Green Party has comfortably held all three of its seats. Kirklees
Greens have successfully defended their three seats - and missed a gain by
just six votes.

Cllr Mark Hill, the Green Party's leading Euro-candidate in Yorkshire and
the Humber, commented on the results:

"Nationally our vote where we stood has gone up from about 7% last year to
over 10% this year.

"In a proportional election system we'd have had hundreds of councillors
elected in England this year on these figures."

Yorkshire and the Humber was the political region which began this campaign with more Green councillors than any other region - eleven - and it has made two gains while successfully defending all other seats.

Meanwhile over the Pennines in the North West, the Greens comfortably held
their single seat in Manchester, and had a close second in Hyndburn in
Lancashire. In Halton the Greens achieved a high of 31.5% in the constituency of Green Party Euro-candidate Jim Craig.

In Liverpool, the Greens' highest vote was over 18% and the average where
Greens stood was 10% - compared with UKIP's token appearance in one ward, scoring 6.9%.

In West Lancashire the Green vote gave further grounds for optimism in the
Euro-elections. The Green votes were 14.1% in Scott ward,  16.7% in
Skelmersdale South, 9.2% in Knowsley and 6.7% in Derby ward where the vote was squeezed by the local Ormskirk Party. North West Greens believe these figures are encouraging in terms of their hoped-for breathrough to the European Parliament.

The Greens have lost one seat in Wales, on Flintshire council, but none in
England.

Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, the party's head of media, commented: "Overall in
England we have gained nine seats and lost none. That's a 17% increase in
the number of Green councillors in England.

"The gains and the percentages give grounds for optimism over the
Euro-elections. All the gains have been in the Euro-regions where we have
the best chance of gaining seats and the vote share has been very
encouraging.

"Now we await the London election results due this evening."

ENDS


FINAL RESULTS SUMMARY

2004 local elections results summary
11th Jun 2004

Greens make gains with up to 57% of the vote

The Green Party in England gained nine seats in this year's local elections
and lost none. This amounted to an increase in council seats of 17%,
following last year's 29% increase.

In the South East, Oxford Greens gained four seats to push the city council
into "no overall control". Oxford Greens, with seven councillors, are now the joint strongest local authority Green Party group, with Lancaster.

In the North West, Manchester Green Party's chair Cllr Vanessa Hall held her
breakthrough seat in inner-city Hulme, having had only one year in office due to boundary changes. In Lancashire, a rising Green vote put firefighter Ian Dixon into second place on 34%, just behind the sitting Tory councillor on 39%. The Green vote bore up well in Liverpool and Manchester especially,
with the highest Green vote in Liverpool being 18%.

In Eastern region, Cllr Ken Brodhurst took the Green Party's second seat on
Watford council, with 57% of the vote - over three times as many votes as
the second-placed Labour candidate. And Norwich Greens held all three of
their existing seats and gained two more.

In the South West, Stroud - for some time the country's strongest local council Green group - held its seats.

In Yorkshire and the Humber, the region with the largest number of Green
Party councillors at the start of this election, the grains successfully defended all their seats in Bradford, Kirklees and Leeds, gained an extra seat in Bradford and won their first seat on Sheffield city council.

Unfortunately the party lost its only seat in Wales.

The overall percentage where Greens stood was reported by the BBC as over 10%, a significant increase on last year's 7% and the 5% in 2002.