For the first time in living memory, the Mendip ward has elected a councillor who is not a Tory

Sarah Mitchell, a music teacher, had been fuming the whole day and, as she waited outside her daughter’s school in a pretty village nestled in the Mendip hills, seized the opportunity to get it off her chest. The reason for her ire? Claims that last week’s local election results showed that the electorate wanted the government to get on with Brexit.

“A lot of Conservatives have changed to the Lib Dems here because they want a second referendum, not because they want to push Brexit through faster,” she told the Observer on Friday, as the results from the previous day’s poll trickled in. “What makes me mad is that we are not being listened to.”

Mitchell, who had only once before not voted Conservative when she opted for Tony Blair in 1997, was one of many voters in the Mendip ward of Bath and North East Somerset council to unceremoniously dump the authority’s Tory leader and return – for what could be the first time in the area’s electoral history – a councillor without a blue rosette.

In a story replicated across much of England, the Conservative council leader, Tim Warren, lost to a newly arrived 37-year-old Liberal Democrat campaigner, Dave Wood, who won 67% of the vote on a 55% turnout. In the last local election in 2015, Warren won 64% of the votes and the Lib Dem candidate managed just 15%.

This latest result means Jacob Rees-Mogg, the local MP who lives in a listed mansion in the rural ward, now has a Lib Democrat as a local councillor. Mitchell said the arch-Brexiter, who has represented North East Somerset since 2010, should be worried. “I would welcome him going at the moment,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jacob Rees-Mogg now has a Lib Dem a a local councillor. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Wood was not the only Lib Dem celebrating on Thursday night as the party took control of the council, which takes in Bath’s bustling historic centre and the surrounding countryside, winning 37 of the 59 seats. The Conservatives lost 24 councillors, while Labour took seven and six seats were claimed by independents. The result mirrored the national success of the traditional third party of British politics, as the Lib Dems gained 703 councillors, taking control of 10 councils.

In the village of East Harptree many previous Conservative voters said they had either stayed at home or switched to the Lib Dems. John Seaman, 46, said he had changed his vote because of Tory infighting over Brexit. “I was fed up with the Conservative party. I wanted a fresh approach,” he said. “The way they behave in the House of Commons is like a school canteen at lunchtime.”

There was also tactical voting in the ward. Mari Martin, who volunteers in the village’s busy community shop, is a Jeremy Corbyn supporter but lent her vote to the Liberal Democrats: “I wanted the Tories out – I’m delighted with the result.”

In nearby West Harptree a former police officer, Bob Cookson, 75, said he had stayed at home in protest at the Brexit deadlock. “I didn’t vote because I’m disgusted with what has been going on in parliament,” he said. “I voted to leave, but it still has not happened.”

Local issues against a backdrop of austerity appear to have played a part, too. Dominic Hooper, 41, who has voted for both Labour and the Conservatives in the past, said he had been impressed with Wood.

“He seems like a good guy,” he said, taking a break from mowing his lawn in a sleepy cul-de-sac. “I voted for him purely on a local basis: cutting pollution, and schools. My son’s school is constantly fundraising and doing cake sales because they are absolutely skint.”

On Friday the new councillor was the man of the moment, congratulated by a steady stream of locals in a pub in Temple Cloud. Wood, who lives nearby with his wife and son, had been up all night at the count and couldn’t stop smiling. He put his victory down to Brexit frustrations as well as an ongoing breakdown of traditional party loyalties.

“It’s incredible – I never thought it would be possible. We have a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives here that I assumed would never change,” he said. “But I suppose some of them must have done.”

In order to bring people round, Wood said he had visited every home in the ward six or seven times: “There has literally never been a Lib Dem or Labour councillor here – certainly going back 45 years, and I’d imagine further but I can’t find the records.”

Wood was planning to revisit one house in his ward soon. “I will pop round to Rees-Mogg’s house this weekend and ask him if there is anything he wants addressing,” he said, with a mischievous glint in his eye.