Nats win the biggest share

The SNP secured their biggest ever share of the vote in South Ayrshire council elections.

And the Conservatives vote slumped almost 11 per cent compared to five years ago.

And the Tories lost two seats to independents, one in Ayr West to publican Bob Shields and in Prestwick, to former Tory council leader Hugh Hunter.

From a high of 43.4 per cent in 2017, the Conservatives fell to 32.6 per cent on Friday.

At the same time the SNP were able to increase their vote share by 3.2 per cent, rising from 30.2 percent in 2017 to 33.4 percent, overtaking the Conservatives but failing to add to their nine seats.

Labour benefitted from the national swing from the Conservatives to their party, but not to the same level, picking up 1.1 percent more of the first preference vote share.

The two incumbent independents, Alec Clark and Brian Connolly, were joined by CllrHunter, who sat out the last few months of the last council as an independent, and Mr Shields. Overall the independent share of the vote rose by 4.6 percent.

There was little impact from the other parties involved with the Liberal Democrats picking up 1.5 percent of first preferences, Alba, just 0.6 percent and the Scottish Family Party, 0.2 percent.

None of these parties had stood in 2017, while the Greens, who secured 0.6 per cent of the vote in 2017, never put up a candidate this year. The turnout was similar to 2017.

2022 Overall Election Results

Party Vote share (%) (v 2017) no. votes SNP - 33.4 (+3.2) 14,849 Conservatives - 32.6 (-10.7) 14, 520 Labour - 16.3 (+1.1) 7,276 Independents - 15.3 (+4.6) 6820 Liberal Democrats - 1.5 (n/a) 671

Alba - 0.6 (n/a) 275

Scottish Family Party - 0.2 (n/a) 108