Mayor Dave's Thanks to Voters as he Wins Re-Election for a Further Four Years

Mayor Dave Hodgson has thanked voters across Bedford Borough, after a stunning victory in the mayoral election. Mayor Dave was re-elected with a majority of 8,789 over Jas Parmar, the Conservative candidate in second place, following the re-allocation of second preference votes under the supplementary voting system. The margin of victory was nearly 3,000 more than in the previous mayoral election in 2011.

Mayor Dave had led by 5865 votes after the first preference votes had all been counted, a remarkable result on a difficult day for the Liberal Democrat Party nationally, and a recognition of Mayor Dave's tireless efforts to save services in tough times, keep council tax down and bring growth and jobs to Bedford Borough.

Mayor Dave took to Twitter and Facebook in the immediate aftermath of the result to thank voters for their support:

"It's an honour to be re-elected as Mayor. Huge thanks for all the support. I will keep up the fight to save services lost elsewhere & maintain the Borough's jobs growth. Thank you!"

In his acceptance speech, Mayor Dave thanked all of the candidates for a hard-fought but fair campaign conducted in good spirit, and looked ahead to the hard work which awaits on behalf of the whole borough.

The full results after the counting of first preference votes were as follows:

Under the supplementary voting system used in the mayoral election, the top two candidates moved into a second round, and any second preference votes for them on the votes for the other candidates were allocated accordingly. Following this process, the final result was as follows:

For information on all of the Bedford Borough Council elections, which saw the Liberal Democrats win nine seats, see the full results on the Council's website