THE city’s Greens continued their rise on the city council on an historic night for the party.

Worcester’s Greens picked up four new councillors on the way to becoming the city council’s second-biggest party, including a huge win that sensationally dumped the current city council leader from his seat.

Tor Pingree’s win against Tory leader Chris Mitchell in the St Clement ward was one of four for the Green Party – swiping three councillors from the Conservatives and one from Labour in another impressive performance in the local elections.

Ahead of polling day, the Greens had been confident of gaining three seats in this year’s contest and keen on nabbing the St Clement seat away from the Tory leader – a win which alone would have undoubtedly been the victory of the night – but were probably not expecting to win by such huge margins.

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Green candidates Elena Round and Andrew Cross won in the respective St Peter’s and Warndon Parish South wards – both previous Tory strongholds – and Hannah Cooper defeated Labour’s sitting councillor Jenny Barnes in the Arboretum ward, picking up an impressive 629-vote majority.

The party has come a long way from a decade ago when it had just only seen its first councillor elected to the city council to the point where it now has a real say on how the city council could be run.

Since then, the Greens have picked up wins turning previously Tory strongholds such as Battenhall and now St Peter’s and Warndon Parish South, which have long been home to Conservative councillors, into wards that are now represented by at least one Green.

READ MORE: Worcester council leader loses seat as Conservatives drop seven seats

It is not just the Conservative strongholds that the Greens have managed to overturn with Hannah Cooper’s latest win adding to Karen Lewing’s win in 2021 to make the safe Labour seat now represented entirely by Greens.

Green leader Marjory Bisset, who was also re-elected to the St Stephen ward on Friday morning with a huge 749-vote majority, was obviously delighted with the party’s performance.

“I am absolutely thrilled,” she said. “I'm just amazed.

"I did think it was possible, this was the best result that we could have hoped for but I had already got it in my sights that we could do it."

In the win of the night, the Greens’ Tor Pingree beat Tory leader Chris Mitchell by 115 votes to secure a historic win for the party on what was an embarrassing and catastrophic night for the Conservatives, which saw the party slip down to third in the rankings - falling from 15 councillors to just eight.