Double success
Arran elects two councillors
Arran now has two serving councillors following the North Ayrshire Council election last week.
Conservative candidate Timothy Billings from Lamlash comfortably won the Ardrossan and Arran seat with 1,309 first preference votes – 379 votes ahead of his nearest rival.
He is joined on the new council by the SNP’s Ellen McMaster from Shiskine, who secured 932 first preference votes and was elected under the proportional representation system.
The third candidate elected to the seat was sitting councillor Tony Gurney from Ardrossan who secured 930 first preference votes. Although the two Arran councillors will also represent Ardrossan, the newly elected Councillor McMaster considered it a’ win-win’ situation for the island.
There had been concerns that with the retiral of Arran councillor John Bruce, and with one less councillor for the ward, the island could have been left without any resident representative.
But in the event, they have doubled Arran’s presence on the new council.
Councillor McMaster said: ‘It is encouraging to see that Arran as an island is politically engaged and I, for one, am willing to put party ‘politics’ to one side and work in the best interests of all residents of Arran and Ardrossan regardless of their political persuasion.
‘At a local level, two resident councillors is a winwin scenario for Arran.’
Councillor Billings said: ‘As an election candidate I identified a number of specific Arran issues, including housing and the environment, and these are still very important issues for Arran.
‘However, I am aware that there are other pressing priorities, such as education, health, transport, and social care. What I need to find out now is what are the specific issues for Arran, and what is needed to improve services.’
Arran’s other representative Colin Turbett (Ind Socialist) recorded 165 first preference votes, while sitting independent councillor John Hunter lost his seat.
Although there is no breakdown of how Arran voted, the return of two SNP councillors is seen as reflecting the 40 per cent share of the seat vote Arran represents. There was also nearly a 10 per cent increase in voter turnout (50.5 per cent) compared to 40.88 per cent five years ago when John Bruce won the seat with 837 first preference votes.
Overall it was the Conservatives who picked up the most gains across North Ayrshire, adding six councillors to the previous solitary council seat.
The SNP lost four seats and Labour two. The two parties now both have 11 councillors to the Conservatives seven and there are four independents.
As a result, as with the rest of Scotland, no party has overall control, although Labour, who ran the last administration, says it will try to continue to run a minority administration. Amid speculation over coalition deals, North Ayrshire Labour leader Joe Cullinane said: ‘Before last Thursday’s election, North Ayrshire Labour were written off, but we’ve defied the odds and fought back, and we stand today tied with the SNP having picked up the same number of councillors as we did in 2012.
‘We now stand at a crossroads with the council hung and no single largest party.
‘It is once again a time for political leadership.
‘North Ayrshire Labour will do no deals with any party that have imposed austerity on our communities. Our intention is therefore to form a new minority Labour administration.
‘For the last eight months we have been a minority administration with one councillor more than the SNP.
‘Whilst this council is even more split than the last, we showed during those eight months that we can make minority administration work.
‘Next Wednesday we hope to have a Labour-led authority that will continue to stand up for the interests of North Ayrshire by protecting our public services and delivering change.’