Conservatives keep control of Dover District Council while Lib Dems and Greens suffer local elections defeat
19:08, 03 May 2019
updated: 19:09, 03 May 2019
Local election results in Dover bucked the national trend with not a single Lib Dem or Green seat gained.
The Conservative Party retained leadership on Dover District Council (DDC) with 19 seats, while Labour gained 13. There was one independent.
This was despite boundary changes which reduced the number of seats from 45 to 32.
DDC chairman Cllr Sue Chandler gained a seat in the ward of Sandwich. She attributed the district's result anomaly to the hard work of Tory members including both MPs Charlie Elphicke and Craig Mackinlay who she says continue to work towards delivering Brexit for the district.
Council leader Keith Morris reacted with a pledge to create jobs and boost tourism over the next four year term.
He said: "We did remarkably well. We had a plan. The plan worked almost to the letter.
"It was to win 18:14. We actually won 19:13. We went slightly over where we thought we would, so we're very happy.
Top of his list of priorities is "just getting back to work after the Bank Holiday."
He added: "I need to form my new team, which we'll do next week.
"Then we've got a full raft of policies to do with more jobs, more money coming in for the district, better tourism, all of that within making sure the environment is always looked after."
Our reporter Eleanor Perkins was tweeting results live from the count at Dover Town Hall today after counting began at 10.30am.
The Labour Party, while pleased with how they did, were sad to lose a number of experienced members.
This included Gordon Cowen, Bill Gardner and Ann Napier.
Green Party candidate Mike Eddy who retained his seat on Deal Town Council but lost out on a seat on DDC celebrated the party’s national achievements.
He defected from Labour Party in November.
Deal and Dover Liberal Democrat chairman Aston Mannerings marginally dipped out on a seat to Conservative Jamie Rose, 29, for Alkham and Capel-le-Ferne.
He said that he thought the boundary changes hadn’t helped his party gain seats.
He said: "It’s always helpful when you’re a small party to have a smaller area to campaign in, but boundary changes inevitably led to more people being represented by one councillor so it’s not helped. But that is not to say that’s the reason for it.
"Perhaps we didn’t get our message across hard enough and that’s something we need to work on in the future."
