Amid the losses three faces return to the chamber

11 May 2006

AS COUNCILLOR after councillor lost their seat on election night, you could have missed the return of three former members.

Alec Castle, Mark Cummings and Joyce Bacchus have all served on Brent Council in the past, and now they are back.

In 2002 Alec Castle stood unsuccessfully for re-election as a Labour councillor in Tokyngton. Four years later, and after a brief spell living in Africa, he was voted in as a Liberal Democrat in Dollis Hill.

He said: "It is quite fun being back, it will be better this time. The Labour party, the way it stood, it was very, very static, it was insulated from any change or dynamism. The same is not true of the Lib Dem group."

Mr Castle was not surprised to receive a few insults from his former Labour colleagues, but insists it does not bother him.

He said: "There are two types, there are the decent people who are at least human beings who chat and smile and ask why you left, and then there are some who come out with expletives."

Mark Cummins was Brent's mayor in 1997-98, but the Queen's Park councillor did not stand for re-election in 2002.

But he returned to the fold with a vengeance on Thursday night, winning in Brondesbury Park this time, a ward where the Lib Dems finished a distant fourth behind the Green party in 2002.

Joyce Bacchus was the final councillor to make her comeback last week. The former Labour councillor for the old Roundwood ward lost out when standing in Wembley Central in 2002. But she was not to be put off, and four years later Mrs Bacchus had better luck in Tokyngton, and was one of the only Labour candidates to gain a seat on the night.