Just 325 votes cost LibDems the Council
If 325 people across the district had voted differently the Liberal Democrats would now have a majority on Canterbury City Council

By Alex Perkins, Canterbury Liberal Democrat Leader

An excellent result for Canterbury Constituency with several notable gains from the Conservatives.

LibDems did very well in all our target wards and our vote actually went up against the national trend. We gained seats in Barton and St.Stephen's wards in Canterbury, and took the villages to the East of the city known as Little Stour Ward.

We also regained the seat in the centre of Herne Bay from the "lady" who previously defected to the Tories.

However there was also the loss of three-member ward Herne and Broomfield, so it was not all good news. We have more councillors than before, but not enough to control the council. Labour lost all their seats to the Conservatives bar two.

Rather amusingly we very nearly removed the conservative council Leader Harry Cragg, who had to endure two recounts to hold his seat under heavy pressure form the LibDems.

As is always the case there were a number of tight contests, and pointless as the process is at this stage, if you add them all up we could have been in outright control of the council if another 325* people had not voted Conservative or Labour, but instead chosen the LibDems in various seats across the district.

The result of the election was: Con 29 LibDem 19 Lab 2.

* In the following wards if the number of voters shown in brackets had changed from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats (and as few as 14 voters changed from Labour to LibDem in Harbour Ward) then the Lib Dems would have won outright control of the council. St. Stephens (26 voters) Sturry South (84 voters) West Bay (90 voters) North Nailbourne. (111 voters)

325 people voting differently as suggested above would have given the result:

LibDem 25 Con 24 Lab 1