LORD Mayor of Oxford Bill Baker breathed a sigh of relief when he saw off a Green party challenge and kept his seat on the city council.

The Greens had campaigned hard to win Mr Baker's South ward seat but last night he held on with a majority of 270.

The Greens' Deborah Glass, who saw the party's share of the vote in South ward increase by about seven per cent, said: "Clearly it's a hard fight standing against the mayor but we will be back next year and they had better watch out."

The Greens took St Clements from Labour in Oxford but were disappointed not to win in East ward where Labour's Sarah Margetts won by just two votes. There were gains for the Conservatives in West Oxfordshire where they took five new seats on the hung district council and went from the smallest to the largest group. They also gained two seats on Cherwell District Council.

But they failed to re-establish any presence on Oxford City Council, while the ruling Labour group lost four seats.

Labour also lost two seats on Cherwell District Council - losing overall control there. Cherwell is now a hung council.

The Lib Dems held on to all their seats in Oxford and took three off Labour.

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