Wife of late former council leader wins his seat at by-election
Janet Rose vows to continue Lewis’s legacy after Carsington victory
THE widow of a former leader of the Derbyshire Dales District Council can continue her husband’s legacy, after she won the Carsington Water ward by-election.
Conservative candidate Janet Rose was voted into the seat held by her late husband Lewis Rose, who died in January after serving the district council since 1974.
Mrs Rose, of Kniveton, polled 343 votes followed by the Liberal Democrats’ Monty Stuart-monteith with 274, Labour’s Andrew Mellodew Hartley with 132 and the Green Party’s John Gary Ward with 34.
The turnout on Thursday was 52%, with 785 votes cast from an electorate of 1,507. There were two spoiled ballot papers.
After the declaration at Kniveton Village Hall, just before midnight on Thursday, Councillor Rose said: “The reason we’re all here is obviously because we lost my wonderful husband Lewis and if I can in any small way emulate what he has done over 47 years I will be very proud.
“I will do my best for everybody.” One of the region’s leading political figures, councillor Lewis Rose was the longest serving councillor on the Derbyshire Dales council and the last serving founder Member of the authority.
He was Leader of the Conservative group for 45 years until 2019.
He became a member of West Derbyshire District Council on its
formation in 1974 and held the distinction of proposing it be renamed Derbyshire Dales in 1988.
For most of his time on the district council he served as leader or deputy leader of the council.
Meanwhile in Amber Valley, the borough that encompasses villages such as Kirk Langley, and Turnditch, a wider election took place and its outcome made national headlines, after it became one of the few wards to see a positive result for the Conservative party.
The party retained control of the borough council and increased their majority while the Green Party also made hard-won inroads.
The Conservatives made three key gains to take seats off Labour in Heanor & Loscoe, Ironville & Riddings, and Langley Mill & Aldercar.
This has left the Conservatives with 30 councillors out of the 45 on Amber Valley Borough Council, two more than it had before.
Cllr Kevin Buttery said at the count: “When I woke up this morning we were certainly bracing ourselves for a difficult night, but this has far exceeded all our expectations. To end the night with two extra councillors is a tremendous result.
“I put that down to the fact that we have run a very positive campaign, we focused really on balancing the (council) finances, we inherited a failing council and our priority was to sort out the finances.
“We wanted to focus on delivering the Heanor High Street project and (Heanor) Grammar School and to focus on maintaining good quality services. I think that resonated with the public.
“I think what we saw from the opposition is that all they were focused on was having a referendum on the Prime Minister, with no policies to offer.”
Before the elections, there was a lone Green Party councillor on the borough councillor, Cllr Dave Wells, elected in Duffield in 2019 as the first ever borough or county councillor in Derbyshire.
Since then, the Green Party has gone from strength to strength and gained its first county councillor through Cllr Gez Kinsella in the Duffield and Belper South division last May.
On the night, Labour found its numbers reduced by four councillors, dropping from 15 to 11 and into a much smaller minority to the Conservative administration.