Argyll turnout turns off
By Friday evening when the ballot count ended, Argyll and Bute had a new council comprising 10 Conservative councillors, one Labour, five Liberal Democrats, one Green, 12 SNP, and seven independents.
With no one party in overall control, the horse trading began to find a workable coalition. The council’s next full meeting, expected to be later this month, will decide who becomes leader, deputy leader, along with the posts of provost and depute provost.
If apathy had been a candidate, it would have romped home. No one party was the overall winner on polling day, Thursday May 5, but one of the biggest hitters upset councillors of all political parties and independents alike in Argyll and Bute – and that was apathy. Its close runner-up was age, with a notable absence of younger voters; ironic given the council now has one of Scotland’s youngest ever members, Tory Daniel Hampsey, aged 18, in Dunoon. Both he and Green Party councillor Luna Martin, 24, Oban North and Lorn are university students.
‘About 400 fewer votes were cast in South Kintyre than at the last election and in that time the population here has increased,’ said councillor Donald Kelly, who finds himself one of the council’s longest serving members. ‘There was a distinct lack of young people voting yesterday; we need to engage with the youth.’
In the two Oban-based wards fewer than half the people eligible to vote bothered to do so. One of the ballot boxes in an Oban ward contained less than a quarter of the votes, not including the postal votes.
Cowal managed to turn out the most voters to the polls at 55.8 per cent; Oban South and the Isles was the lowest at 45.7 per cent. Oban North and Lorn, reached 49.3 per cent.
Veteran campaigner, Cathy McInnes, convener of the Argyll and Bute Lib Dems, said at the count on Friday at Lochgilphead: ‘It always upsets me when out canvassing if you go to a door and people say they are not bothered about going to vote – especially if it is a young woman. Politics affect every part of our lives.’
There was also a large number of rejected ballot papers.