![\"Newly](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_Baglan-Councillor-Josh-Tuck.jpg\")
Newly elected Baglan Councillor Josh Tuck(Image: Copyright Unknown)<\/p>\nReform had won a string of council by-elections in Wales of late but could only manage third in the vacant Baglan seat in Neath Port Talbot<\/p>\n
12:41, 18 Jul 2025Updated 13:53, 18 Jul 2025<\/p>\n
Newly elected Baglan Councillor Josh Tuck(Image: Copyright Unknown)<\/p>\n
The Labour Party have won a vacant seat at a council by-election in the borough of Neath <\/a>Port Talbot<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n The battle for the vacant Baglan seat took place on July 17, 2025, and was won by Labour<\/a> candidate Josh Tuck who took the position with 708 votes on the night.<\/p>\n The local election was triggered earlier this year after the sudden passing of long-serving Baglan Labour councillor Peter Richards in April of 2025, who had served as a member of the authority since June, 2004.<\/p>\n Councillor Tuck will now take up his position as a member of Neath Port Talbot<\/a> council after gaining a total of 708 votes on the night, defeating second place independent candidate Wendy Blethyn with 532 votes.<\/p>\n Reform, which had won a string of by-elections in Wales of late, in Carmarthenshire<\/a>, Bridgend<\/a> and Torfaen<\/a>, came third.<\/p>\n Speaking after the votes were counted, the newly elected councillor said: \u201cI\u2019m just over the moon but also so grateful to the people of Baglan for putting their trust in me.<\/p>\n \u201cI really want to pay tribute to Peter Richards as he was an incredibly hard working councillor and more than that he was a friend to Baglan who was much loved in the community.<\/p>\n \u201cMy priorities now will be taking on case work, getting our roads and pavements sorted out as well as making sure all the hedge rows and trees are cut back.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re also looking at the lay-by parking charges on Aberavon beach, that\u2019s a huge issue for us and I\u2019ve pledged to fight that, so that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do at council.\u201d<\/p>\n Baglan is a village and electoral ward in the borough of Neath Port Talbot, located between the town of Port Talbot and Briton Ferry.<\/p>\n The overall turnout at the local by-election was 33.99%.<\/p>\n The final voting results were as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n Josh Tuck \u2013 Labour Party<\/a> \u2013 708John Bamsey \u2013 Reform UK \u2013 447Nigel Bartolotti Hill \u2013 The Green Party \u2013 18Wendy Blethyn \u2013 Independent \u2013 532Colin Deere \u2013 Plaid Cymru<\/a> \u2013 149Tomos Gruffydd Roberts-Young \u2013 Welsh Liberal Democrats<\/a> \u2013 13Lee Stabbins \u2013 Welsh Conservative Party<\/a> \u2013 19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reform had won a string of council by-elections in Wales of late but could only manage third in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[103171,748,4884,35013,14700,103170,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-272086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-baglan","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-neath","12":"tag-neath-port-talbot-council","13":"tag-port-talbot","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114874382166929502","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}