Wandsworth By-Election: Labour Hold Trinity by 127

Labour held Trinity ward at the by-election on 27 August, and the balance of Wandsworth Council is unchanged as a result. The council added the formal declaration of result and the rest of the election notices to its by-election page today.

Shirin Chiara Georgiani won with 1,558 votes. The Conservative candidate Otto Jacobsson took 1,431, a margin of 127. Turnout was 39.56 per cent.

We reported on polling day that a Conservative gain would have taken the party to 30 of 58 seats and an outright majority. It did not happen. The council’s composition is exactly what it was after the May election.

The full result

The electorate was 8,319. There were 3,283 valid votes and seven rejected ballot papers: five unmarked or void for uncertainty, and two where the voter had marked more candidates than they were entitled to. (Wandsworth Council declared result)

The seat had been vacant since the resignation of Councillor Lizzy Dobres, who topped the poll in Trinity for Labour in May. Georgiani now sits alongside the Conservative Kirsten Botting, who holds the ward’s other seat.

The smaller parties were squeezed

Trinity elects two councillors at an ordinary election, so in May each voter had two votes and 8,792 were cast. In the by-election each voter had one and 3,283 were cast. That makes party shares a rough comparison rather than a clean swing, but the direction is unmistakable.

Adding each party’s candidates together in May and comparing the shares of votes cast:

• Labour went from 39.0 per cent to 47.5 per cent
• the Conservatives went from 36.0 per cent to 43.6 per cent
• the Green Party fell from 14.4 per cent to 5.1 per cent
• the Liberal Democrats fell from 5.4 per cent to 2.3 per cent
• Reform UK fell from 4.5 per cent to 1.6 per cent

Two candidates stood in the ward both times. Otto Jacobsson took 1,518 votes in May and 1,431 in August. Dylan Henderson of the Liberal Democrats took 250 and then 75.

The gap between the leading Labour and leading Conservative candidate narrowed. In May it was 195 votes, between Dobres on 1,842 and Botting on 1,647. In August it was 127.

What it means for who runs the council

Wandsworth has 58 councillors and a majority is 30. The declared position after May, and now again after the by-election, is:

• Conservative: 29
• Labour: 25
• Labour and Co-operative Party: 3
• Independent Member: 1

The Conservatives are therefore one seat short on their own. In its statement on the result, the council said the party “has a confidence and supply agreement with an Independent councillor to form a majority”. (Wandsworth Council)

That is the arrangement that decides every contested vote at the Town Hall, including the budget. It matters this year in particular. The council is challenging the Government over an £84 million funding cut and has already modelled a 71 per cent council tax rise into its own funding assumptions.

What it means for you

If you live in Trinity ward, your two councillors are now Shirin Georgiani (Labour) and Kirsten Botting (Conservative). The ward’s four polling stations were Trinity Road Chapel and Holy Trinity Church on Trinity Road, St Mark’s United Reformed Church on Rowfant Road, and St James Community Centre off Ouseley Road, which places the ward between Upper Tooting, Balham and Wandsworth Common.

If you did not vote, you were in the majority: about 60 per cent of the ward’s 8,319 electors did not. On the current four-year cycle, the next borough-wide elections are due in 2030.

Seven ballot papers were thrown out, five of them because they were left blank or could not be read. Mark one box only, in one clear cross, and your vote counts.

Sources

• Election results for Trinity, 27 August 2026, Wandsworth Council, for the candidates, votes, electorate and rejected ballots.
• Election results for Trinity, 7 May 2026, Wandsworth Council, for the May figures used in the comparison.
• Local Elections 2026 results by party, Wandsworth Council, for the borough-wide seat totals.
• Trinity ward by-election results declared, Wandsworth Council, 27 August 2026, for the turnout figure and the confidence and supply agreement.
• Trinity ward by-election page, Wandsworth Council, updated 3 September 2026, and the Notice of Poll, for the declaration and the polling station addresses.