Lincolnshire: County Council Results

3 May 2013, 13:09 | Updated: 3 May 2013, 13:31

The UK Independence Party has made large gains at Lincolnshire County Council.

The results of yesterday's local election has left no party in overall of Lincolnshire County Council.

  • Conservatives 36 seats.
  • UKIP 16 seats.
  • Labour 12 seats.
  • Lincolnshire Independents 8 seats.
  • Liberal Democrats 3 seats.
  • Independent 2 seats.

In total 161,315 votes were cast across the county out of an electorate of 551,106. 

There are 38 new councillors, and in a statement, the Council says ''discussions will take place over the next few days to form an administration.''

Martin Hill, Conservative group leader at the authority, said a coalition which did not involve the Tories would be 'shambolic'. 

He said: The trouble with Ukip is they are all new councillors.

I don't know them, they don't seem to know who their leader is and it's difficult.

If we are going to work with people, we need to know what they are about and where they are coming from.

I am not ruling it out but it seems difficult to get through those problems.'' 

Mr Hill said he had found it difficult to get information on Ukip's policies for Lincolnshire. 

He added that he wants to 'engineer a period of stability' to ensure important services are kept running and future government cuts are managed. 

Mr Hill said national issues had influenced the local election but one of the great strengths of Britain's first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who was born in Lincolnshire, was that she had the ability to connect with ``ordinary working people''. 

He said: "I think David Cameron and the Coalition have got to show more that they are not just taking rural and suburban areas for granted.'' 

Ukip received 24.3% of the vote in Lincolnshire - up from the 3.1% of the vote it polled in 2009. 

Its new councillors include Sue Ransome and her daughters, Felicity and Elizabeth, who all won seats in Boston. 

The Conservatives picked up 36% of the vote. 

Labour gained eight seats to take 12 overall with 16.4% of the vote and the Lincolnshire Independents increased their total from four to eight seats with 10.4% of the vote. 

The Liberal Democrats lost two of their five seats and received 4.4% of the votes, down by 14.6%. 

Two independent councillors secured the remaining seats.

Full results are on the Lincolnshire County Council website.