INDEPENDENTS and Green candidates were the big winners in last week’s election for the Forest of Dean District Council.

The Independents are now the single largest group on the new-look council with 12 members while the Greens increased their numbers from two to six.

The Conservatives were the biggest losers from last Thursday’s poll and Labour also saw their numbers fall.

Both parties said a backlash over the Brexit impasse had had an impact.

The Conservatives – which was the single largest party before the election – has been reduced to 10 members while Labour has dropped from nine to five on the slimmed down authority.

There were some shock results – among them the margin of victory for Green Chris McFarling over former leader of the council, Conservative Patrick Molyneux.

Cllr McFarling, who was Cabinet member for environment in the previous administration, took some 80 per cent of the vote in the newly-created St Briavels ward.

The number of councillors on the authority has been reduced

from 48 to 38.

The Independents did not get it all their own way – in Newland and Sling, Green Dave Wheeler beat former deputy leader of the council Roger James and he also beat Terry Hale, a Cabinet member in the last Tory administration.

UKIP will not feature in the new council as it lost its last councillor, Alan Grant, who was beaten by Green Andy Moore in Pillowell.

With the ward being reduced from two to one councillor, Frankie Evans, a Conservative in the last authority, also lost her seat.

The leader of the last council, Independent Tim Gwilliam, topped the poll in Berry Hill and he will be joined by another Independent, Michelle Mumford.

Among the unsuccessful candidates in the ward was Conservative Marrilyn Smart, the previous Chair of the council.

The group that ran the council until the election was a ‘rainbow’ coalition of Independents, Greens and UKIP.

With no one group commanding a majority, some form of coalition will be necessary to run the council.

The most likely scenario would appear to be an agreement between the Independents and the Greens although the support of other parties may be necessary if some Independents do not come on board.

Former Cabinet member Paul Hiett, who was returned as an Independent for Bream, said: “It will be interesting to see what happens.

“I think the Tories have been decimated but we are willing to work with anyone – there will have to be some deals done.”

Cllr Brian Robinson, the leader of the Conservatives in the last council, said that more than a quarter of the authority’s members would be Tory.

He said: “We will be a very powerful force in influencing the policies of the council.”

The full make-up of the council will not be known until next month because the election in Newent and Taunton was postponed following the death of Green candidate David Humphries.

The new election, for three seats, will take place on June 20.