NO group has won overall control in Powys but the Liberal Democrats will be celebrating as they have re-established themselves as the county’s largest party. 

And in a significant shift in Wales’ largest, and most rural county, they have also surpassed the independents as the largest group on the council winning 11 seats to take their number to 24, which is nine short of a majority. 

The independents traditionally have been the largest block on the council but in 2017 had to accommodate the Conservatives as junior coaltion partners. However the independents, including the Action for Powys group and non-aligned members, now have just 17 of the 68 seats. 

Group leaders will be facing a busy weekend of calls as to how a cabinet administration can be formed, with Lib Dem leader James Gibson-Watt the man in pole position. 

Those conversations will however be taking place without the woman who has led the Independent/Conservative council for the past five years. 

Rosemarie Harris, a veteran independent, lost out in a new ward due to boundary changes that have reduced the overall number of seats from 73. 

The Conservatives have lost five seats from their 2017 total, winning 14 seats today, though did win some seats from independents. 

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One of the major issues in Powys has been the fate of the council’s rural schools and it is likely to have cost Harris whose administration had been under heavy pressure from the Lib Dems on the issue. 

The cabinet member for education, Phyl Davies, a Conservative, also lost his seat – with the Lib Dems launched a two-pronged attack on the Torries over schools and council tax.

In 2017 the Conservatives promised not to raise council tax if they were in control but as junior partners supported increases every year.

The issue of what to do about small rural schools won’t go away for the new council but it could be key to how any administration is formed and how long it lasts. 

While the Lib Dems and independents have more than enough members between them to form a coalition, they would have to reconcile the previous independent led administration’s support for school closures and the strong opposition to the plans from the Lib Dems. 

The independents and Conservatives re-uniting their previous coalition would leave them four seats short of a majority and its unclear how stable it would be or how much unity there is among the independents. 

Labour has also had a good day, winning two additional seats to take its total to nine, benefiting from boundary changes that have created additional seats in Brecon. 

Plaid are also up one, having taken a seat from the Conservatives, and the Greens have regained a seat in County Hall. 

Emily Durrant became the first Green Party candidate to win an election in Wales, in the Powys ward of Llangors in 2017, though she defected to Plaid last year but wasn’t standing for re-election. Jeremy Thorp has however won the Forden and Montgomery seat as the Green have enjoyed their best ever Welsh results with four councillors elected across the country. 

Whether the Lib Dems could work with the other political parties to control Powys remains to be seen but such is the bitter divide between them and the Conservatives in the county a power sharing agreement between the two largest political parties can probably be ruled out. 

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Montgomeryshire was once the heartland of Welsh Liberalism but it lost the Westminster constituency in 2010 and it has been downhill ever since for the party in the northern shire, though it will be cheered by a strong performance in Llanidloes where Cllr Davies the education chief lost out. 

But what will be most pleasing for the Lib Dems are successes over the Conservatives in Brecon and Radnorshire a year after it lost what had been its only Senedd constituency to the party which has also enjoyed a run of success since 2015 in Westminster elections. 

The Conservative downfall and Lib Dem gains also suggests the county is following its pattern of closely mimicking, as it does during Westminster elections, wider UK politics whereas previously the strength of independent candidates had suggested Powys council elections were very much a local poll for local people. 

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