After weeks of speculation, it's all over

15th AUG 2025

The story of the Ross West by-election on August 14th was one of a lady from the bakery who took on two political behemoths with their well-oiled election machinery and slam dunked it. It was the biggest win of the night, up in the buzzing neon-tube-lit heat of the counting hall in Hereford where it was announced she was elected.
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Reform came in second place, with a local tyre fitter in blue dungarees out-performing the Liberal Democrat candidate to complete the triple line-up of hopefuls running for Ross West.
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Over in Ross-on-Wye East, Reform brought in an ex-fighting machine, who one colleague was rumoured to have said was ex-SAS (but maybe that’s not true, and who knows, if he had to tell you he might have to kill you). He was duly elected at long gone midnight.
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Ross East was the much closer of the two seats, with only 32 votes in it.
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The Lib Dems came home empty handed after quite literally singing the praises of one of their candidates. Rumours were that when Facebook's Ross Notice Board folded all the election posts into one big one, that first-hand accounts of the racket setting dogs off in Roman Way and of people reaching for ear plugs were lost forever in digital nowherespace. Did the ditty do damage that the Lib Dem’s blonde part-time business consultant-type just couldn’t recover from? Who knows.
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Swatty types talking about those Ross East results the morning after have been musing over whether Labour’s peroxide princess of the people and the Independent market-loving/hating candidate for Ross East might have split the vote and inadvertently laid the path for Reform to win. Certainly between the pair of them they held enough green paper ballot papers to have won, but of course that’s not how it works, not even if they held hands.
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Of course in the final four days of the canvassing here in Ross there was polling card panic. So much so that on the Monday morning the council took the huge step of putting a piece of A4 about the lack of them on their notice board outside of their office in Cantilupe Road. The queues were incredible in the days that followed after, but unrelated, vehicular, and due to a van fire on the dual carriageway down to Monmouth.
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Well well well, my Michelle, the Polling Card fiasco is still yet to be explained - even one person up the giddy heights of the Lib Dems can’t seem to work out who to point fingers at, maybe trying to point at anything that isn’t yellow? Is that because all the current evidence does? Dunno.
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So, what happens now? Who knows? Who cares? You care don’t you? Naaaaa.
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Ok, ok, in case you do…
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In September your new town councillors will be welcomed onto the council by super-mayor extraordinaire, the force of nature that is Cllr Linden Delves - this will be at the next full council meeting on Monday 8th September. If pre-sale tickets are announced through Barclaycard we’ll update you here, hopefully helping you avoid missing out like you did with Oasis.
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In the meantime, if it’s all given someone you know a headache, Calpol is on offer in Boots apparently so go grab them some.
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Here are the numbers that matter:
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Ross West won by:
Saskia Harrison (Independent)

Ross East won by:
Richard McEvoy (Reform)
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Votes in Ross West:
‍Saskia Harrison (Independent) - 356 - ELECTED
Matt Symonds (Reform) - 254
Andrew Steele (Lib Dem) - 194
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Vote in for Ross East:
‍Richard McEvoy (Reform) - 310 - ELECTED
Emma Vigus (Lib Dem) - 278
Cathy Bevan (Labour) - 191
Maggie Kilcar (Independent) - 141
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Turnout in Ross West:
‍Overall: 30.0%
Postal: 73.7%
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Turnout in Ross East:
‍Overall: 30.2%
Postal: 73.3%