New Peterborough City Council leader describes 'special moment' of Labour group's election success

The new Labour leader of Peterborough City Council has described his group's local elections success as a ‘special moment.’

Councillor Dennis Jones (67) said while the Labour group had expected to make gains at the May 2 elections, it had not counted on taking five seats and becoming the largest political group.

The last time the city’s Labour group was in the same position was 25 years ago.

Cllr Jones, who was elected council leader at its annual meeting on Monday, said: “Your never know how the cards are going to fall.

"Yes, we expected to make gains and yes, this is a good time for Labour locally and nationally.

"But to win five seats taking us to 19 was really special."

Despite the group’s success, it took about 17 days before it was announced that Labour would take control from the Peterborough First group and Cllr Mohammed Farooq, who was council leader.

Cllr Jones said: “Having worked with Peterborough First incredibly closely, I thought they would come quickly out of the traps, recognise the decision of the voters of Peterborough and recognise Labour was now the biggest party and say let’s just flip it around and keep the show on the road.

“I thought it was always assumed we would take control.

"I was rather hoping we would just flip it on its head and I‘d become the leader and Cllr Farooq would become the deputy.

"Having worked successfully with them for six months, my wish was we could still have that but they chose not to go into coalition and made it clear they’d stay in opposition.”