No change in the constituency

South Ayrshire Council in 2022 will look a lot like South Ayrshire Council in 2017.

Instead of building upon its position as the largest party at the 2017 election, the Conservatives ended up losing two of their sitting councillors.

Both the SNP and Labour secured the same number of seats as they did in 2017, with nine for the SNP and five for Labour.

Two of the biggest stories came via the independent candidates, who doubled their return from the last election.

Journalist Bob Shields was elected at the first stage in Ayr West, where he campaigned on a number of the most controversial issues in the town, the Station Hotel and the new Leisure Centre.

And in Prestwick, former Conservative council leader Hugh Hunter, symbolised the failings of the Conservatives. Having been overlooked by his former party, Hugh was elected at the expense of two Conservative candidates.

One of those defeated Tories, Owen North, secured just 71 first preference votes.

Both past SNP Council leader Peter Henderson and Labour Leader Brian McGinley overcame rumours of being voted out to secure their seats.

While the outcome is a repeat of 2017, there is more to the results than simply replicating the outcome.

A couple of months ago there was a belief among Conservative ranks that this was going to be the year they pushed on to secure an outright majority.

It was a confidence that led the party to take the risk of standing three candidate in a number of South Ayrshire wards, including Prestwick and AyrWest.

But the recent downturn in party fortunes nationally, together with these risky tactics, have not only returned a very similar outcome to 2017, it has pushed the Conservatives back to the number of seats they had five years earlier.

Conservative incumbents who failed to be re-elected were Derek McCabe in Ayr West and Arthur Spurling in Kyle.

They have a number of new councillors - Martin Kilbride in Prestwick, Gavin Scott for Girvan and Stephen Ferry in Kyle.

Labour returned all of its incumbents, adding 19 year old Cameron Ramsey and Duncan Townson to replace retiring councillors Helen Moonie and Andy Campbell.

The SNP also returned all of its incumbents, most of whom were elected at the first time of asking.

The only new SNP councillors are Mark Dixon for Ayr North and George Weir, for AyrWest.

Results (elected councillors in bold)

Overall (v 2017) Conservative - 10 (-2) SNP - 9 (-)

Labour - 5 (-) Independents - 4 (+2)

Troon - Ward 1:

Turnout 54.8% Kenneth Bell CON 1,015 Judith Godden LIB DEM 329 Rose Hall CON 459 Linda Lunan IND - 196 Craig Mackay SNP - 1,607 Annie McIndoe SNP - 898 Bob Pollock CON - 1,131 Philip Saxton LAB - 1,342

Prestwick - Ward 2:

Turnout 54%

John Caddis AMB - 78 Ian Cochrane SNP - 1,695 Hugh Hunter IND - 1,544 Martin Kilbride CON - 1,132 Owen North CON - 71 Cameron

Ramsay LAB - 1,020 Norrie Smith SNP - 674 Derek Stillie CON - 488

Ayr North - Ward 3:

Turnout 39.2% Laura Brennan-Whitefield SNP - 1,913

Ian Cavana LAB - 1,185 Ian Davis CON - 675 Mark Dixon SNP - 345

Mason Graham LIB DEM - 80 David Paterson CON - 336 Andrew Russell IND - 309 Denise Sommerville ALB - 79

Ayr East - Ward 4:

Turnout 49%

Chic Brodie IND 232 Andrew Bryden IND 185 Chris Cullen SNP 1,377 Ian Douglas SNP 556 Deirdre Kennedy LIB DEM 113

Mary Kilpatrick CON 959 Alan Lamont CON 520 Brian McGinley LAB 814 David Ramsay 180

Ayr West - Ward 5:

Turnout 58.5% Gordon Bryce FAM 108 Martin Dowey CON 2,271 John Duncan LAB 915 Lee Lyons CON - 699 Derek McCabe CON - 341 Jamie Ross LIB DEM - 295 Bob Shields IND - 1,909 George Weir SNP - 1,217 Margaret Weir SNP - 614

Kyle - Ward 6: Turnout 45.9%

John Aitken LIB DEM - 235 Geoff Bush ALB - 71 Julie Dettbarn SNP - 1,635 Stephen Ferry CON - 955 Arthur Spurling CON - 814 Duncan Townson LAB - 1,110

Maybole and North Carrick - Ward 7:

Turnout 46.8%

Iain Campbell CON 895 Brian Connolly IND - 756 William Grant SNP - 1,370 Laura McEwan CON - 623 Stephen Ralph LIB DEM - 106

Nicola Saxton LAB - 532

Girvan and South Carrick - Ward 8: Turnout 46.7% Alec Clark IND - 1,277 Aaron Gilpin LAB - 358 Peter Henderson SNP - 1,008 Linda Kane CON - 563 Todor Radic IND - 230 Gavin Scott CON - 573 Eileen Spence ALB - 47