Mayor of Havant loses her seat

Paul Buckley and Gerald Shimbart both retained their seats as councillors for the Waterloo and Hart Plain wards, and new candidate Narinder Bains secured 2,367 votes to keep the Cowplain ward seat Conservative.

Narinder is a community safety manager for the local authority, as well as being the chair of governors at Cowplain Community School and a mother of three.

She said: ‘I would like to say thank you to all my friends and family that have delivered leaflets for me.’

Narinder is taking over the seat from Marjorie Smallcorn, the current Mayor of Havant. Marjorie had represented Cowplain for the Tories for 13 years, but following a reselection dispute she stood as an independent candidate. Marjorie secured 472 votes.

She said: ‘I’d have been delighted to have won, but I never expected to. Standing as an independent is a gamble, and if I hadn’t been deselected I would have stood as a Conservative.

‘As far as I am concerned, I am a Conservative. I always have been and always will be.’

For the Hart Plain ward, sitting councillor Gerald Shimbart won 2,541 votes, 52 per cent of the poll, and kept his seat blue, beating Tabitha Smith, the Ukip candidate.

Paul Buckley retained his seat as a Conservative councillor for the Waterloo ward, increasing his votes by over 700 to 3,032, 1,898 more than Ukip’s Tom Davies.

Turnouts for were bolstered by yesterday’s general election. For the Waterloo ward, 68 per cent of the electorate voted, versus only 34 per cent last year, with Cowplain and Hart Plain showing similar results.