District elections - five Herne Bay Liberal Democrats elected

8.58.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 9th May 2007

For Liberal Democrats in Herne Bay, as throughout most of the South-East, the 3rd May local elections represented consolidation although - it must be admitted - not a great leap forward.

Cllrs Ron Flaherty and Ken Hando (Heron) and Roger Matthews (Greenhill and Eddington) were duly re-elected - and will be joined in the Liberal Democrat group on the City Council by Cllr Robert Bright (Heron) and Margaret Flaherty (Greenhill and Eddington). On the debit side, sitting councillors George Mavers and Nigel Oakes were sadly defeated - whilst councillor Ian Wright did not stand for re-election.

Nationally, it should be remembered, Lib Dems returned a 26% share of the vote - just 1% behind Labour. And we now have considerably more councillors nationwide than does Labour. Not such a bad result... and a sound springboard for the county and general elections ahead.