AN EDINBURGH city ward has elected two councillors in one election after three previous councillors stepped down in the span of a month last year.
The Colinton/Fairmilehead ward lost three city councillors in November last year with one Lib Dem stepping down just days after being elected.
The vote to fill the two seats in the ward was held yesterday with a 31.9% turnout rate seeing 6,281 votes cast.
Labour councillor Conor Savage and Conservative councillor Neil Cuthbert were elected to the two open seats in the ward.
The declaration came in the early hours of this morning with polls closing yesterday and the count going well into the night.
Neil Cuthbert took the highest number of first preference votes sitting at 2,027, more than a third of the total votes cast.
Conor Savage took the second seat with a comparatively meagre 1,146 first preference votes, narrowly beating out Lib Dem candidate Peter Alexander Nicholson who held 1,009.
SNP candidate Marianna Clyde took 840 first preference votes, not enough to keep her in the running.
The total number of rejected ballot papers sat at 58 with these being counted as invalid and excluded from the count.
Returning officer for Edinburgh Paul Lawrence, said: “Thanks to everyone who took part in the by-election to elect two new councillors to represent their communities on matters affecting their ward and the wider city.
“I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Neil and Conor as new councillors and look forward to working with them.
“I would also like to thank our elections team and council colleagues who have worked so hard on this by-election in recent months – not least given the extremely challenging circumstances of rescheduling the count at such short notice due to Storm Éowyn.”
