Councillor Bill Walters
William Walters was an elected as a Communist Party councillor in Llantarnam, a then a small village between Cwmbran and Newport, South Wales. He was repeatedly re-elected from at least 1950 to the late 1960s, regularly topping the poll, which he remarkably achieved on first being elected.
In 1953, Walters was re-elected on a platform which included the demand for a municipal bus service, because, as his election address put it: "A local authority knows its own needs better that a private company operating for profit".
The village became subsumed by the New Town of Cwmbran in subsequent years, creating the conditions for the undermining of the personal vote that had nonetheless been cast for a Communist.
Michael Walker
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