After just five months out of office, Sudha Sri Nukana has returned as a member of Swindon Borough Council.

Councillor Nukana was elected to the seat in Rodbourne Cheney vacated by the resignation of Will Stone, after his elections at the MP for Swindon North in July.

On a low turn out of just 21 per cent of eligible voters, Cllr Nukana won with 991 votes. Labour’s Meural Cardoso received 694 votes, Rod Hebden for the Green party got 173 votes, the independent candidate Alex Petrachie received 100 and the Liberal Democrat candidate Ciaran Skinner came in last with 82 votes.

Cllr Nukana’s vote share was 48.8 per cent.

After signing on as a councillor again, she said: “I’m very happy to be back, it’s been five months.

“I feel honoured to be able to serve the community again, and that’s my focus – to listen to people in the community and pick up their problems and do whatever I can to help them.

“I want to thank all the members of the Conservative party in Swindon. They were so well organised and worked so hard over the last six weeks. I’m so grateful to them.”

After defeats in both the local elections in May and the General Election in July, Swindon’s Conservatives were happy to  see things go their way, and to continue an impressive run of results in by-elections in the borough stretching back several years.

Chairman of the Swindon party Vinay Manro said: “The political landscape in May was very different and people voted for change. In those five months Rodbourne Cheney residents have realised Sudha is their strong voice.

“She will be working hard to represent them and continue to be their community champion.”

Both leader of the Conservative group Councillor Gary Sumner, and Labour council leader Councillor Jim Robbins said the result, in part, reflected  the national political scene.

Cllr Sumner said: “

“An exceptional result for the Conservative Candidate Sudha Sri Nukana in re-taking the Rodbourne Cheney seat from Labour. This success was reflected in other by-election results for the Conservatives across the country and for that we have to thank Sir Keir Starmer and his new government.

"In Swindon the swing resulted in our best-ever majority in that ward and the largest swing in all of yesterday’s results. This is a huge tribute to Sudha, who is well known to residents as a hard-working community councillor when she last represented the ward; a ward which the Conservatives have won previously only once in 19 years.”

Cllr Robbins said: “It was a disappointing result last night for us but I’d like to thank Meural for her positive campaign and I know she’ll continue her work with the local community.

“Just like the Labour government inheriting a £22bn black hole from the Conservatives, we inherited our own financial problems here in Swindon but we’ve been steadfast in our mission to turn the council around so that it delivers for the people of Swindon.

“We’ve already created the Swindon Plan after engagement with residents and started to deliver on it and have some exciting announcements coming up before the end of the year regarding redevelopments of key sites around the town centre which have been neglected and ignored by the previous Conservative council.”

The political make-up of the council is now that Labour has 40 of the 57 seats in the council chamber, the Conservatives 16 and the Liberal Democrats one.

Barring anything unforeseen, the next elections for the borough council will be held in May 2026.