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Councillor Charlotte Bishop is the new leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council’s Plaid Cymru group.

The Aber Valley representative and nursery teacher was voted in unopposed and is the first woman to lead the Plaid group on the council.

She will take up the role of opposition leader in the chamber after Lindsay Whittle was chosen to be Caerphilly’s new Senedd Member in a by-election in October.

Speaking after her appointment, Cllr Bishop alleged the Labour-controlled council “faces significant challenges, with staff morale at an all-time low – and that affects everything including service delivery”.

“There is a need to rebuild trust inside the council and out in the community,” she added.

“We are at a turning point and working together Plaid Cymru can inspire, rebuild and lead a better future for Caerphilly.”

First elected to the council in 2021, Cllr Bishop spent more than three years as Cllr Whittle’s deputy leader.

“I would like to thank my fellow councillors for their confidence in electing me as leader and the first female leader of the Caerphilly Plaid group,” she said.

“I recognise it will be a tough act to follow Lindsay Whittle with all his years of leadership, experience and work in the community.”

Cllr Bishop added she intended to work “very closely” with Mr Whittle and Plaid’s two regional Senedd members, Delyth Jewell and Peredur Owen Griffiths.

The party also announced Llanbradach ward councillors Gary Enright and Colin Mann will both serve as co-deputies in the Plaid group.

Cllr Bishop said the two appointments would “strengthen our leadership group” ahead of the 2027 local government elections.

Her appointment as leader comes at a time when senior Plaid figures believe the party is on an upward surge, buoyed by a by-election result which wrested ownership of the Caerphilly Senedd seat from Labour for the first time.

Cllr Bishop said Mr Whittle’s by-election campaign “reminded me that it’s not just about what we say, but how we say it – with authenticity and heart”.

Plaid said Cllr Bishop had built a strong presence on social media, attracting “a huge following for the party locally” on TikTok by reaching out to younger people – and had also earned more than a million views on Facebook over a four-week period.

Away from her local authority and party work, Welsh-speaking Cllr Bishop teaches self-defence to volunteers who travel to Ukraine, and also takes self defence classes in her husband Nathan’s kickboxing club.