‘It's our turn to turn this council around’

ELECTION CLEAN SWEEP FOR YARM INDEPENDENTS

- By DANIEL HODGSON

A TEESSIDE town has gained a new set of councillors.

The election for Yarm Town Council, which took place on Thursday, resulted in a clean sweep for the Yarm Independents.

The election followed two rounds of departures that saw all 11 councillors leave their posts in June, beginning with an en-masse departure of seven of the team on June 5.

Newly elected councillors, along with less successful candidates, have been offering their reactions to the results, which were confirmed overnight.

The necessity of the town council itself has once again been questioned, whilst fears of a “dysfunctional” future have been raised, although the new councillors were keen to paint a positive picture of times ahead.

While not standing in this particular election, Reform UK’s John McDermottroe was in attendance at the count.

After recently having been elected as a Billingham Town Councillor, he described the night's results as “encouraging for us, to be honest, we've got what we expected when there were 11 seats up and the Yarm Independents had 11 candidates.”