Cheryl Roe had a solid win for the Conservatives in the Rayleigh Central By-Election:
Cheryl Roe – Conservatives 406 55%
John Hayter – English Democrats 218 29%
Elena Black – Liberal Democrats 117 16%
So congratulations to Cheryl and to the impressive Conservative election organisation.
December elections are certainly different . The mild weather in the morning encouraged some early voting, mostly by retired people, but by late afternoon it was cold wet and dark, so few people came out to vote after that. The turnout was only 22% , and over half of that was postal votes!
So, a disappointing night for us but still better than the last by-election that we fought in Rayleigh where we only got 11% (Wheatley Ward, July 2010). And the conditions were very unusual.
Thanks to everyone who helped our campaign, or voted for Elena.
Fantastic Effort Elena and Chris. The election was always going to be won by the conservatives but a shame to see the English Democrats getting such support. Un-educated protest voting! People still separate National from Local when it comes to these elections.