The Conservatives have remained in overall control of Dorset County Council.
Counts held overnight have revealed that the Conservatives won 27 of the 45 seats in yesterday’s ( 2 May) county council elections in Dorset. This represents a loss of two seats.
The Liberal Democrats won 12 seats (lost one*) and, as well as Labour winning three seats in Weymouth and Portland, the Labour and Co-operative party also secured two seats in the borough.
UKIP candidate Ian Smith took a seat from the Conservatives in Ferndown and the council’s one Independent member, Les Ames, lost his seat to the Labour and Co-operative party in Portland Tophill.
The make up of the new county council is:
• Conservative 27
• Liberal Democrat 12
• Labour 3
• Labour and Co-operative 2
• UKIP 1
Of the 45 newly elected members of the council, 18 will be new faces.
A total number of 125,682 votes were cast in the county council elections across Dorset. Overall turnout was 37.86 per cent, compared to 43.22 per cent in 2009.
For full details of all Dorset County Council results, go to http://
The first full meeting of the new county council will be held at County Hall in Dorchester on Thursday 16 May, where the newly elected councillors will elect their leader and appoint members to other key positions.
*Earlier this week, Cllr David C Fox switched from the Liberal Democrat party to the Wessex Regionalist party. He was not standing for re-election, but this meant that the number of Liberal Democrats before the election was 13 not 14.
