Council leader calls on Labour to pay £20,000 election bill after ineligible candidate wins

Councillor Mike Bird, leader of Walsall Council, said members of the party needed to "answer for their incompetence" over the Pleck poll.

The election, held on December 16, saw Labour comfortably hold the seat – but nobody was elected due to the candidate being ineligible.

It transpired Simran Cheema had a part-time job with Walsall Libraries when her candidacy papers were signed off, in breach of the rules.

Now Conservative Councillor Bird, alongside deputy leader Councillor Adrian Andrew, is tabling a motion next week calling on the party to refund the council.

But Labour chiefs in the borough have argued it was an "honest mistake" and the candidate had held her hands up after it was found she was ineligible.

He said: "It's a disgrace. We didn't want an election because the vacancy was due to be filled in come May anyway (at the next local elections).

"We discovered the person who won was not eligible as she was an employee of the council, but by law we had to go ahead with it.

"It cost the council around £20,000 and we don't care if it's the local Labour Party or the national Labour Party, the taxpayers in Walsall have been subject to around £20,000 of expenditure and someone should foot the bill – not the council."

Mr Bird, whose motion will be tabled at a council meeting on Monday, said the blame "should go where it lies" – and not be directed at the authority.

The motion reads: "This council condemns the indulgent waste of tax payers money forced on the residents of this borough by the Labour Party as they: called a by-election for December, 2021 in the Pleck Ward, for a seat that had been vacant since July 2021.

"This seat would have been filled on May 5th, 2022, as part of the usual election cycle; and selected a candidate who was ineligible to stand as they were an employee of Walsall Council and so could not take the seat.

"This council therefore calls on officers to write to the Labour Party requesting that they reimburse Walsall MBC and Walsall Council tax payers for these aborted costs circa. £20,000."

Labour leader Aftab Nawaz said: "The election was called correctly, but there was an honest mistake by the candidate who at the moment she found out held her hands up and acknowledged that mistake.

"I think that was it, an honest mistake was made. The election was called not by myself or my my group, but unfortunately it was called and we – like any political party would've done – is fight the election."

Labour's Simran Cheema's victory over the only other candidate standing – Conservative Mohammed Saghir – means the seat will remain empty until May when it is up for election again.

She polled 698 votes with Mr Saghir getting 382, and 10 papers were spoiled. The turnout was a lowly 10.66 per cent.