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Fife Council election results — Ward 8: Lochgelly, Cardenden and Benarty split between SNP and Labour

By Craig Smith

May 5 2017, 1:38pm

It was honours even for Labour and the SNP in Lochgelly, Cardenden and Benarty as the result largely followed expectations.

There was a strong Labour vote in the area before the newly-renamed ward came into force for this election, with the old Lochgelly and Cardenden ward effectively merging with The Lochs.

In the end, Mary Lockhart and Linda Erskine both retained their seats for Labour, while the SNP’s two new faces in Lea McLelland and Rosemary Liewald were also elected.

Ms McLelland said: “I’ll be honest – I’m a big character in the community and I think the community pulled together, so I can’t thank them enough for that.

“It’s great to be elected and I think we’ve got a good balance in the area.”

Ms Liewald echoed those sentiments and said she and Ms McLelland had worked tirelessly together to secure their first spots on the council.

And she added: “I’ve actually known Linda for quite a while, and Mary is lovely as well, so hopefully we’ll be able to do a lot for the ward because it deserves it.”

Ms Erskine was equally as conciliatory to her SNP counterparts.

“I expected two strong candidates from Labour and two strong candidates from the SNP, and that’s exactly what we got,” she added.

“Lea for instance was a hard working person in the ward before she became a candidate, so I think the ward has got four strong councillors to move forward with.”

And on the Tory vote across Fife, Ms Erskine said: “I think the Conservatives might have been a bit surprised with it as well – they put up a number of paper candidates in wards and now they are councillors.

“It’s going to be very interesting.”