A councillor who represents Earley and Woodley on Wokingham Borough Council has resigned from the Labour party.

Councillor Shirley Boyt was elected as a Labour representative for the Bulmershe & Whitegates ward on Wokingham Borough Council in 2019.

Her work as a councillor involved raising the alarm over parking charge increases in Woodley, and going viral for her advocacy of residents who were hit with car fines during a ‘fiasco’ in December 2021.

At the time, parked cars in Blackthorn Close were lifted by council contractors so double yellow lines could be painted on the street.

The cars were then replaced and hit with parking fines by council officers.

Those fines were cancelled after neighbours and cllr Boyt complained, which attracted global attention.

Cllr Boyt is now listed as an Independent on the council website.

She is one of five sitting councillors who have retired ahead of the local elections.

READ MORE: The five Wokingham Borough councillors standing down ahead of the 2023 elections

Her resignation from Labour was confirmed by a party spokesperson on Friday, April 14.

Cllr Boyt chose not to comment in a brief phone conversation with the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The Bulmershe & Whitegates seat is being contested by Tony Skuse for Labour, Sagar Patel for the Conservatives, Sheila Jordan for the Liberal Democrats and Samuel Langlois, the Green Party candidate.

READ MORE: Wokingham Borough Council local election battlegrounds this year

Cllr Boyt’s departure follows others within the local Labour party.

Former cllr Carl Doran, who also represented Bulmershe & Whitegates ward on Wokingham Borough Council left Labour ‘in disgust’ of the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer in August 2021.

Also, an anonymous Woodley resident has noted that cllr Nada Al-Sanjari, a representative for Bulmershe ward on Woodley Town Council was previously a Labour member but left the party.

Cllr Al-Sanjari’s  departure was confirmed by a Labour spokesperson in May 2022.