After a slim Labour victory in the former Lib Dem stronghold of the North Oxford ward, Neil Fawcett, deputy leader of Oxfordshire's Liberal Democrats, explains why the party is still feeling confident about the future:

HAVING made eight gains from the Conservatives in the marginal Oxford West and Abingdon constituency in the last year we knew the by-election in North ward was going to be hard work,

In May 2012 Labour had won the city council ward with a healthy majority over the Greens and we Lib Dems were third.

North Ward is a bit of a curiosity. It’s got one of the best educated electorates in the country. It’s in a highly marginal Conservative/Lib Dem parliamentary seat.

Yet in local elections, the battle is between Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems.

The recent by-election in the ward was important for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it was the first real chance local residents have had to have their say on the controversial Port Meadow planning decision.

Secondly it is a pointer to how next year’s city council elections might go. And thirdly it gives some idea of how the parties are doing in the run-up to the next General Election.

On the key issue of the flats that now dominate the Port Meadow skyline, there is no doubt that local residents feel badly let down by the local planning system.

Our excellent young candidate Tim Bearder has been running a campaign for a return to a more local approach to planning decisions, giving local residents more say. It’s clear this won him a lot of support. Another key issue is that North Ward residents are very concerned about the future of the Covered Market.

Tim Bearder’s call for the city council to work with the traders to make the market a success went down very well.

Tim, along with the Lib Dem team across Oxford, will continue to campaign on these and other important Oxford issues.

Labour’s small majority of just 37 votes in the by-election suggests that they may not find it as easy to win seats in May as they did in 2012.

Between now and May we will be reminding people that Labour now have a large majority on the city council and arguing that they need a strong Lib Dem opposition to hold them to account.

The Greens will be disappointed to have slipped from second to third place. Their campaign was weaker than we expected and they were noticeably short of people on polling day.

Perhaps the most interesting outcome from the by-election is what it says about the likely result in marginal Oxford West and Abingdon at the next General Election.

And in that context the North Ward result doesn’t bode well for the Conservatives’ chances in 2015.

The Conservatives failed to find a local candidate, a worrying sign for them in a constituency they hold. They saw their share of the vote halve, winning just nine per cent of the votes cast.

So while we are obviously disappointed we didn’t win this time, we’re delighted that there was such a big swing our way, and that we’ve once again demonstrated that there are a lot of people listening to what we’ve got to say in one of the most marginal parliamentary seats in the country.