The City of Edinburgh Council has a new councillor announced at the by-election count at Waverley Court on Thursday evening/Friday morning.
Kevin Joseph McKay, Scottish Liberal Democrats, becomes the newest councillor at the City Chambers taking the group up to 14 members.
Cllr McKay said he campaigned on the condition of the roads and will continue to make that a focus. He will also seek to be a bridge between the community council – of which he was a member – the community and the council.
The votes were cast both by post and in person at the several polling stations in the ward, and the first indication of a strong vote for Labour as well as the Liberal Democrats and Edinburgh Greens came around 11pm by which time some of the postal votes had already been electronically counted.
At ten to midnight the Deputy Returning Officer announced that the electorate was 18,945, the total number of ballot papers returned was 6,264 making the turnout 33.1%. At the last council by-election in Colinton/Fairmilehead the turnout was 31.9% and the previous by-election held in the same ward in November last year was 37.4%.
There were 39 rejected ballot papers. The quota of votes for a candidate to be elected was 3,113.
At the last council election the turnout in Ward 9 Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart was 49.8% – but the turnout for by-elections is usually lower than at five-yearly elections.
The first preference votes cast for the candidates in this ward were:
- Bonnie Prince Bob, Independent – 36
- Derrick Emms, Independent – 9
- Lukasz Furmaniak, Scottish Libertarian Party – 25
- Mark Hooley, Scottish Conservative and Unionist – 857
- Richard Crewe Lucas, Scottish Family Party – 34
- Q Manivannan, Scottish Greens – 1133
- Kevin Joseph McKay, Scottish Liberal Democrats – 1269
- Catriona Munro, Scottish Labour Party – 1293
- Gary Neill, Reform UK – 489
- Mark Rowbotham, Independent – 25
- Murray Visentin, Scottish National Party (SNP) – 905
- Steve Christopher West, Independent – 39
- Marc Wilkinson, Independent – 111
After application of the election rules (under the alternative vote system) the new councillor was declared as Kevin McKay.
