Reading local election 2021 swing seats and battles

Candidates are standing in all 16 wards for the May 6 election, with one election in every ward except for Peppard, where there is also a by-election.

You can see all the candidates for the 2021 election here.

READ MORE: Councillors to stand for just one year in Reading

Let’s look at which seats have been strongholds over the last few elections and which have been swing seats, switching from one party to another.

Here are the 16 wards in Reading:

Abbey, Battle, Caversham, Church, Katesgrove, Kentwood, Mapledurham, Minster, Norcot, Park, Peppard, Redlands, Southcote, Thames, Tilehurst, Whitley.

There are currently 46 councillors who represent 16 wards, although this will increase to 48 from 2022, when all 48 councillors will stand for election and ward boundaries will change.

READ MORE: Councillors to stand for just one year ahead of boundary map changes in 2022

The council is currently split up as follows: 30 Labour councillors, 10 Conservative, four Green and two Lib Dem.

Labour have three councillors in: Abbey, Battle, Caversham, Church, Katesgrove, Minster, Norcot and Whitley. They also have one councillor in each of Kentwood and Redlands.

191293 Reading general election count pic chris forsey 12/12/19.

The Conservatives have three councillors in both Peppard and Thames and the sole councillor in Mapledurham. They also have two councillors in Kentwood and one councillor in Tilehurst.

The Green Party have all three councillors in Park and one in Redlands, while both Lib Dem councillors are in Tilehurst.

Here are the current councillors (table below).

The wards that have had the closest battles in recent elections are:

• Kentwood
• Redlands
• Minster
• Tilehurst
• Caversham
• Church

Kentwood

This ward has been closely fought between Labour and the Conservatives since 2011, with seats changing hands three times.

There were just 100 votes between winner Cllr Raj Singh (Conservative) and closest challenger Glen Dennis (Labour) in 2019 in Kentwood.

Cllr Singh beat Mr Dennis, who was a Kentwood councillor until 2018, by just six votes a year before in an even closer battle between the two.

Redlands

Cllr Jamie Whitham was elected in Redlands for the first time in 2019, with the Green councillor defeating Labour’s Mo McSevney by 220 votes.

Up until that election, Labour had won in the ward in every election since 2011, with the Lib Dems having had success in 2008 and 2010.

Minster

There were just 321 votes in it, as Labour councillor Paul Gittings kept his seat in 2019, defeating Tory candidate Nick Fudge. This was the closest race in Minster since 2008, when Labour won it by just 72 votes.

Tilehurst

This ward is always a battle between Tory and Lib Dems councillors.

The Lib Dems’ Ricky Duveen won this seat back in 2019 by a big margin (519 votes), having lost to Conservative councillor Helen Manghnani in 2018 by 167 votes.

Caversham

This seat has switched several times between Labour and Tory councillors in the last 10 years.

Labour won a seat from the Tories in 2019 by 543 votes to return to having three councillors in the ward, having lost by just 181 votes in 2015.

In 2008, current Reading East MP Matt Rodda was defeated former Tory councillor David Luckett.

Church

This is another ward where seats have changed hands between Labour and Conservative councillors in the last 10 years. It has been won by Labour since 2014, but by less than 500 votes in the last two elections.