#rebecaphillips — Public Fediverse posts

TREBANOS: Rugby club stalwart wins by-election for Plaid — as Reform takes second and Labour slumps to fourth

A Trebanos RFC stalwart has won the village’s by-election, holding the Neath Port Talbot Council seat for Plaid Cymru with more than half the vote.

Jamie Watkins took 223 of the 436 votes cast on Thursday — 51% — in the Swansea Valley ward, which takes in Trebanos and Craig Trebanos near Pontardawe.

The by-election was called after former Plaid councillor Rebeca Phillips was elected to the Senedd in May, representing the new Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd constituency — a seat she contested as part of the candidate team Plaid unveiled last summer.

Reform UK’s Graeme Kerrison took second place with 88 votes — 20% — ahead of Welsh Liberal Democrat Hayley Davies on 77 votes (18%).

Welsh Labour’s Stephanie Rhian Everitt finished fourth with 37 votes — 8% of the total.

That marks a steep fall for Labour in the ward. In 2017, when Trebanos was a straight two-way fight, the party’s candidate polled 187 votes against Plaid’s 284.

Welsh Conservative Liz Hill O’Shea polled seven votes and Wales Green Party candidate Griff Miller four.

Turnout was 31%, with 437 ballot papers issued from an electorate of 1,415 and one paper rejected — down from 45% when the ward last went to the polls in a scheduled election in 2017.

Cllr Watkins is a familiar face in the village — a Pontardawe Town Councillor for Trebanos since 2021, an Openreach worker, and a long-serving figure at Trebanos RFC, where he has held a string of roles and now volunteers as a referee, officiating games with local schools.

His campaign focused on the everyday — parking, and helping residents hit by flooding — and carried the endorsement of the woman whose move to the Senedd triggered the contest, with Rebeca Phillips MS backing him during the campaign.

The result keeps Plaid’s grip on a ward it has held for years, in a county borough the party runs — and comes with the party now also leading the Welsh Government after May’s Senedd election.

All of Wales’ councils face full elections in May 2027, meaning Cllr Watkins will defend the seat within a year.

Second place will offer Reform some comfort after a bruising run of local contests since the party won its first Senedd seats in May.

Last month Plaid took the Llangennech seat on Carmarthenshire County Council from Reform — a seat vacated, like Trebanos, by a councillor elected to the Senedd, in that case Reform’s Carmelo Colasanto, now a Sir Gaerfyrddin MS. In Swansea, Reform missed out in both Morriston and Mumbles, where Labour clung on by 86 votes and the Conservatives gained a seat, and in May the Welsh Liberal Democrats took Fairwood from the Conservatives.

Across five council by-elections in the area since the Senedd election, Reform has yet to win a seat — and lost the only one it was defending. Two of those seats fell vacant the same way, with a sitting councillor bound for the Senedd: Plaid held its one, and Reform lost theirs.

Every seat in Wales goes back to the voters in May 2027, when the full council elections are held.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

LLANGENNECH: Plaid Cymru take council seat from Reform in by-election
The seat Reform gained — and lost within a year.

SWANSEA BY-ELECTIONS: Labour holds Morriston by 86 votes and Conservatives take Mumbles as Reform and Plaid miss out
June’s double contest in the city.

Plaid Cymru unveil Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd candidates ahead of 2026 Senedd election
Where Rebeca Phillips’ Senedd journey began.