NEXT month’s Gloucestershire County Council is likely to be a very close-run thing in many wards.

This tightness is pronounced like no other in the Cam Valley and Dursley wards which are two of the tightest in the county with the top two parties separated by just a few dozen votes.

In Cam Valley, Conservative Brian Tipper is defending a majority of just 70 votes and is sure to face tough competition from fellow Cam parish councillor and former district councillor Julie Douglass who is representing Labour.

While the ward is likely to be a two-horse race, the Liberal Democrats have put forward Adrian Walker-Smith, former parliamentary candidate for Stroud who will be seeking to overhaul over 1,100 votes more than the party secured in the ward in 2013.

Voting was even closer in Dursley – a traditionally unsettled ward which has frequently moved between the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Labour in recent decades – with Labour’s Steve Lydon winning with a slim, 51-vote majority to take the seat from the Conservative Party.

The Liberal Democrat candidate, district councillor George Butcher, will be hoping to claw back a gap of more than 400 votes from the two most popular candidates last time around.

Unlike in 2013, the Green Party is not fielding a candidate in either Cam Valley or Dursley – a move which is likely to boost Labour and the Liberal Democrats mostly.

In the Hardwicke and Severn ward, mayor of Berkeley Liz Ashton will represent the Labour party which was comfortably beaten into second place in the last election by Conservative Tony Blackburn.

Stephen Davies, will represent the party which has a majority of just under 600 votes next month while Sue Hartley and Mike Stayte will represent the Greens and Liberal Democrats respectively in the ward.

Long-serving councillor John Cordwell will once again be standing for the Liberal Democrats in Wotton-under-Edge and will be looking to keep hold of his small majority from 2013 over the Conservative Party.

Seeking to close the gap in the division this time around is Graham Smith and UKIP and Labour have also put forward candidates in the form of David Hinder and Mark Huband respectively.