LABOUR lost four seats and held on to a fifth by just two votes in a series of results which suggest its control of Oxford City Council could be slipping after almost 20 years.

Sitting Labour councillor Gill Sanders was defeated by the Liberal Democrats in Quarry ward, and Old Marston and Risinghurst and West ward also fell to the Lib Dems. The Green Party took St Clements from Labour and sitting Labour councillor Sarah Margetts held off the Green challenge in East ward by two votes.

But the Greens were disappointed in South ward where, despite predictions of an upset, their candidate Deborah Glass was defeated by Lord Mayor Bill Baker.

Cllr Baker said: "I must admit that there were times during the campaign when I was slightly worried but I've got a great deal of faith in the people that know me."

He said he hoped the recent controversy over debt-stricken Donnington Community Centre, where he was a member of the voluntary association that runs it, would soon be laid to rest.

"I shall be glad when the investigation into Donnington comes out and I have no doubt I will be found to have acted in a decent, honourable and honest way." Dr Evan Harris, Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, said: "People are disillusioned with New Labour. There appears to be nothing a Labour council can do about it and we could take control in Oxford in a few years."

But Andrew Smith, Labour MP for Oxford East, said nationally Labour remained popular and it was not un- usual for people to vote for a different party at local level.

The Greens' Paul Ingram, city council group spokesman, said the party had had high hopes for South and East wards.

"We're pleased to win St Clements of course but there's a kind of bitterness as well," he added.

For the second year running the Conservatives failed to get a single councillor elected.

The make-up of the city council is now Labour 33, Lib Dems 14, and Greens four.

The Liberal Democrats also held on to Wolvercote, where there was an Oxfordshire County Council by-election yesterday.

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