County Hall in Lewes.

Tories take three Hastings seats off Labour

Hastings Conservatives did well in yesterday’s county council elections, taking three Hastings seats off Labour – both parties now hold four each in the town. Neither the LibDems nor the Greens threatened to win a seat. Nick Terdre reports.

While results from the rest of the county were still awaited, the destiny of the eight Hastings seats on East Sussex County Council was revealed early this morning, showing a swing to the Conservatives as evidenced in the country generally.

The Tories won three of the seven Hastings seats previously held by Labour. In St Helen’s and Silverhill, Martin Clarke polled 1,643 votes against 1,228 for Labour’s Judy Rogers – Ms Rogers had won the seat in a by-election in 2015 following the death of John Hodges.

Baird and Ore went to the Tories’ Laurie Loe with 1,182 votes, beating Labour’s Kim Forward (1,111) into second place. The previous incumbent was Labour’s Michael Wincott. In Maze Hill and West St Leonards, previously held by Ms Forward, Labour’s Steve Thorpe ((807) lost out to the Tories’ Matthew Beaver (1,391).

Peter Pragnell (1,599) held Ashdown and Conquest for the Tories, with Eileen Masters of the Labour and Co-operative Party coming second with 720 votes.

Labour hold four

The other four seats were held by their Labour incumbents. In Old Hastings and Tressell, Labour’s Tania Charman (1,414), who originally won the seat in a 2015 by-election caused by the death of Jeremy Birch, triumphed over the Tories’ celebrity candidate Claire Hamill by 1,414 votes to 740.

Phil Scott held Hollington and Wishing Tree with 1,287 votes, Trevor Webb Central St Leonards and Gensing with 1,520 and Godfrey Daniel Braybrooke and Castle with 1,848, with the Tory candidates taking second place.

Of the smaller parties, the UK Independence Party, which contested all eight seats in 2013, was conspicuous by its absence. The Liberal Democrats recovered from a poor showing in 2013, more than doubling their overall number of votes to 1,734 and taking third place in six of the seats, though they were far from challenging to win any of them.

For the Green Party the results were disappointing. Though they stood in all eight seats against six in 2013, and their overall vote rose by a third to 1,310, they came last in all but two seats.

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