Liberal Democrats make big gains across Hampshire

6.14.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sat 7th May 2005

David Simpson and Adrian Collett both won County Council seats on May 5th with big majorities

Liberal Democrats made gains in all corners of Hampshire in the County Council Elections which took place on the same day as the General Election.

The number of Lib Dem County Councillors increased from 19 last time to 28, with Hampshire having the largest number of Liberal Democrat gains anywhere in the country outside Devon and Cornwall.

Here in Aldershot Constituency, David Simpson took the new "Hartley Wintney, Eversley & Yateley West" division with a magnificent majority of 634.

Charlie Fraser-Fleming came within 243 votes of winning Farnborough North

Meanwhile Adrian Collett held on to the nearby "Yateley East, Blackwater & Ancells" seat on changed boundaries with a majority of nearly 2000.

In Farnborough, Charlie Fraser-Fleming came within 243 votes of taking the Farnborough North division, while Craig Card missed Farnborough West by just 463 votes.

Linda Neal received an impressive 2,668 votes in the Farnborough South division.

Ian Colpus had the biggest swing to the Liberal Democrats in Aldershot East

In Aldershot town itself, Ian Colpus stormed from nowhere last time to come within less than 500 votes of taking Aldershot East in what was clearly the biggest swing of this campaign, while Philip Thompson increased the Lib Dem vote in Aldershot West by over 40%.