Cherwell District Council

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The future of how Cherwell District Council will run its services will be discussed later.

For the last eight years Cherwell has been in partnership with neighbouring district South Northants.

That council is about to merge in to a unitary authority for the whole of Northamptonshire leaving Cherwell on its own.

The council's executive is being advised to continue with the same systems and contracts.

They will also look at the councils medium-term financial plan, which is warning of a £4.3m gap in its budget by the year 2024 if nothing changes.

A little boy who has been recovering from heart surgery has been given an early Christmas gift from his bin men during their round.

Billy loves waving out of the window at Cherwell District Council’s bin men every week so his parents contacted them and asked if they could deliver a present to him as a surprise.

Billy’s mum said: "It was priceless to see the look on his face when the crew presented him with the toy lorry, thank you so much."

The political make-up of Cherwell Disctrict Council is now: Conservatives 37; Labour 9; Liberal Democrats 1; Independents 1.

The big winners were the Liberal Democrats - it's been some years since they had a seat on the council.

Alaric Rose picked up Kidlington West with a lead over the Tories of more than 700 votes.

The Lib Dems had made an electoral pact with the Greens who stood aside for them in Kidlington West.

The Lib Dems equally stood aside for the Greens in Kidlington East, the pact not paying off for the Green party with the Conservatives holding that seat.

The Greens did they say they wanted to continue working with the Lib Dems.

Overall it was a good day for Labour. They picked up an extra seat in Banbury Cross but the party was disappointed it didn't make any gains in Bicester.

The Tories lost two seats, though they did narrowly pick up Bicester South from Independent Nick Cotter.

Cherwell in Oxfordshire has stuck with the Conservatives who now have 36 seats.

They lost one seat to Labour who are the second-largest party on nine seats.

The Conservatives are dominant here - it is mathematically impossible for them to lose their majority.

But it's part of the Oxford West & Abingdon Westminster constituency - where Lib Dem MP Layla Moran gained the seat from Nicola Blackwood in last year's general election. The Lib Dems should be looking to take one or two seats from the Conservatives.

BBC

UKIP will not be fielding candidates in any of the local elections in Oxfordshire this year.

Elections for Oxford City Council, West Oxfordshire District Council and Cherwell District Council are being held in May.

A total of 58 seats are available and when they were last contested in 2014 UKIP fielded candidates in the majority of them, although it did not win any.

In a statement the party says internal elections have dominated its agenda it had taken its "eyes off the ball".

But it added its membership was rising again and that UKIP was "getting back on track."