Gosport Borough Council:Conservatives buck the trend and pick up seats at Liberal Democrat controlled council

Leader Peter Chegwyn was among those re-elected overnight when there were 15 of 28 seats up for grabs, one in each ward plus a vacancy in Lee West – with both seats there picked up by the Conservatives. In total, the Lib Dems won eight seats, the Conservatives six and Labour one.

It means that of the 28 seats, 15 are now held by the Lib Dems, 11 by the Tories and two by Labour. There is still one vacancy in the Grange and Alver Valley ward after the recent death of Conservative Party councillor Margaret Morgan who was first elected in 2012. That seat will be fought in a by-election with a date yet to be announced.

The count took place at Gosport Leisure Centre and two new Conservative councillors were elected in the Lee West seats. Dan Hayes and Stevyn Ricketts won and held onto the seats left empty by John Gledhill and John Beavis.

Graham Burgess (Lee East), leader of the Conservatives, said it wasn’t a very happy night because of near misses, with his party being within 100 votes of taking Hardway and Bridgemary. There, Kirsten Bradley (Lib Dem) held onto her Lee East seat by 34 votes.

Conservative Supriya Namdeo won Peel Common, gaining the seat from the current Liberal Democrat mayor Martin Pepper, who stood down. She also beat Liberal Democrat Stephen Marshall who swapped from his seat in Brockhurst and Privett to run in the Peel Common seat.

Cllr Burgess said everyone was delighted with Cllr Namdeo’s win and she was the first Gosport Asian Conservative councillor. He was very pleased with the Gosport Conservatives’ results seeing as across England, the Conservatives have already lost 277 seats (as of 4.20pm on May 3).

He said: “Gosport Conservatives did rather well locally. We focus on local issues. If we had 300 more votes we would have had four more seats, taken control of the council and the Criterion would have been dead.”

Thomas Finn, a new member of the council, won the Brockhurst and Privett seat for the Liberal Democrats. The News was unable to speak to the group’s leader Cllr Chegwyn, with his party down one seat compared to before the election.

The winners by ward are:

Alverstoke

Zoe Huggins – Conservative

Anglesey

Alan Scard – Conservative

Bridgemary

Bob Maynard – Liberal Democrats

Brockhurst and Privett

Thomas Finn – Liberal Democrats (new)

Elson

Richard Earle – Liberal Democrats

Forton

Peter Chegwyn – Liberal Democrats

Grange and Alver Valley

Tony Jessop – Conservative

Harbourside and Town

Alan Durrant – Labour

Hardway

Kirsty Cox – Liberal Democrats

Lee East

Kirsten Bradley – Liberal Democrats

Lee West

Dan Hayes – Conservative (new)

Stevyn Ricketts – Conservative (new)

Leesland and Newtown

Julie Westerby – Liberal Democrats

Peel Common

Supriya Namdeo – Conservative (new)

Rowner and Holbrook

Murray Johnston – Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrats retain control