Fant Ward increase its Green vote by around 50% to 342 (18%) and we beat Labour into 3rd place. Last year we managed 223 (13%). In North Ward we also came third out of five beating Labour and an independent. Bearsted and High Street both polled well for the Greens with 12% and 9% respectively.

Stuart Jeffery: "This is a great result for us in Fant. We have doubled our support this year and are on a steep upward curve."

Our Results:

Ward	Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Fant	Stuart Jeffery	342	17.8% (3rd out of 5 and only 6% behind 2nd place)
Bearsted	Ed Wallace	319	11.5%
Bridge	Andrew Waldie	120	8.1%
Shepway North	Steve Muggeridge	119	6.5%
East	Jim Shalice	97	3.8%
Harrietsham and Lenham	Sarah Goodwin	50	2.4%
High Street	Wendy Lewis	148	9.1%
Loose	Angela Wooi	48	5.9%
Marden and Yalding	Ian McDonald	151	7.1%
South	Penny Kemp	183	7.4%
North	Derek Eagle	145	8.1% (3rd out of 5)

Borough Eelection 4th May 2006

Despite a hard fought election by LibDems and Tories, the Green votes were fantastic.

Results:

Ward	Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Headcorn	Penny Kemp	701	39.1%
Fant	Ian McDonald	223	12.7%
Bridge	Stuart Jeffery	166	10.9%
Shepway North	Steve Muggeridge	176	9.5%
North	Jim Shalice	141	7.5%
Bearsted	Ed Wallace	135	4.5%

Across the country the Greens have had tremendous sucess, increasing the number of councillors from 71 to 90, with the Green Party gaining more seats than the Lib Dems. In Maidstone, the average Green vote in the wards we contested was 14%, higher than the equivalent Labour average!

County Council and General Elections 5th May 2005

17% of voters, voted for Green candidate Ian MacDonald in the 2005 county elections, representing the best ever result in the centre of Maidstone. As each voter had two votes (although they could vote for the same person twice!), we have recorded this as 8.5% of votes in the table below.

Across Maidstone the Green Party stood for county council election in 7 of the 8 divisions, all increasing their share of the vote. We achieved a total of 3391 votes, or an average of 5%.

Division	Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Maidstone Central	Ian McDonald	1294	8.52%
Maidstone North East	Jim Shalice	298	4.0%
Maidstone Rural East	Penny Kemp	517	6.0%
Maidstone Rural North	Stuart Jeffery	356	3.7%
Maidstone Rural West	Andrew Waldie	504	5.6%
Maidstone South	Steve Muggeridge	249	3.3%
Maidstone South East	Jenny Reid	173	3.1%

The Greens will be building on this success over the next 12 months in the lead up the borough elections next year.

Across the country, the Green Party's vote share was doubled in the target constituencies of Brighton Pavilion, Norwich South, and Lewisham Deptford.

Green Party Principal Speaker Councillor Keith Taylor, who gained 22% of the vote in Brighton Pavilion, narrowly missing out on second place from the Tories by just 1.9%, comments: "This amazing result, achieved despite the grossly unfair first-past-the-post system of voting, is proof that people are rejecting mainstream "pollute and privatise" politics and turning to the Greens as the only principled alternative.

In the other local elections, the Greens have made a net gain of 6 seats in the often larger, and therefore more difficult to win, County Divisions. 8 County seats have been won overall and none lost. Oxford Green Party now holds 12 seats, 7 on Oxford City Council and 5 on Oxfordshire County Council.