Conservative victory in Helensburgh and Lomond South by-election

March 19, 2021 Politics

The Helensburgh area’s newest councillor says she is ‘over the moon’ to have been chosen by voters to represent the area.

Conservative Gemma Penfold was named today as the winner of the Helensburgh and Lomond South by-election for Argyll and Bute Council, with the poll taking place the previous day.

The seat was previously held y the late Ellen Morton, a Liberal Democrat, but with that party and the Conservatives being part of the Argyll, Lomond and the Islands Group (TALIG) which controls the council, there is expected to be no change to political control of the authority.

Another by-election was held on the same day in Bute, where Independent candidate Liz McCabe took the seat formerly held by the late Len Scoullar, another independent.

Ms Penfold was declared the winner in Helensburgh and Lomond South at the first stage of counting, after she received more than 50% of all the ‘first preference’ votes cast under the Single Transferable Vote system.

She said: “I’m over the moon. It’s been a bit overwhelming as this is the first time I’ve run.

“As it was during Covid, we haven’t been able to get from door to door, so I didn’t know what we were going into.

“I was only going by people I had spoken to on the phone, so to win by such a big margin, I can’t quite get my head around it.

“I run a local dance school and my family and I live locally. We have a 10-month-old baby, so when the position came up I thought it would be nice for the council to have somebody with that background.

“While I’ve got my own business, I’ve got time to do other things as well, so I thought ‘Why not just go for it and see if I can make a difference?’.”

The turnout for the by-election in Helensburgh and Lomond South was 41.8%; the full results are: