IT WAS a sea of blue with a dash of red at the Forest of Dean count for the county council elections during the early hours of Friday morning.

At the last countywide election in 2015 UKIP gained three seats, but in 2017 the party failed to return a single member to Shire Hall.

The seven successful Conservative candidates were: Alan Preest (Lydney) Will Windsor-Clive? (Newent), Carole Allaway Martin? (Coleford), Terry Hale (Drybrook & Lydbrook), Brian Robinson (Mitcheldean), Patrick Molyneux (Sedbury), and Richard Boyles (Blakeney and Bream) with Graham Morgan capturing the Cinderford Division for Labour.

Mark Harper, the Forest of Dean’s Conservative candidate for the forthcoming general election said it had been a really good set of results.

He added: “While we take nothing for granted, these results look set to give us the Conservatives a good set of results at the general election on June 8.

“This result here adequately demonstrates that the UKIP vote has failed to materialise and the party has gone away empty handed. The Forest of Dean is not alone in this as the poor showing has been reflected elsewhere.

Councillor Graham Morgan said that running a negative campaign doesn’t win elections and added: “Too many candidates ran negative campaigns, but people don’t want to hear this. I’m sure the electorate would rather hear about the positives and those that did have been returned.

“I have been a councillor for a very long time and this is definitely the last time I shall be standing for election at this level.”

The turnout in the Forest of Dean was 33.9 per cent.

Full story and results in The Forester, published on May 10.