Those hours between close of poll and the declaration of a hard-fought parliamentary by-election results are particularly tense. The only people who won’t be feeling overcome with butterflies are those at the count because they will be too busy. They will have some indication of the result once all the votes have been verified, but if, as expected, it’s really close, they will have their eyes peeled during the counting stage to make sure every single Liberal Democrat vote goes on our pile and not on someone else’s.

However, we have some good news to start our night of by-election coverage.

The first result is close to home for LDV. Our own Paul Walter has been elected to the Parish Council in Greenham in Berkshire. He and his colleague Lindsey Middlemiss bring the number of Liberal Democrat councillors gained in Newbury and West Berkshire this year to seven.

Here’s the result in full:

Nick East (Lab) 71
Alex Keegan (Lab) 57
Lindsey Middlemiss (Lib Dem) 329
Paul Walter (Lib Dem) 304

We’ve also won a seat from the Tories in impressive style in Chichester.

Southbourne (Chichester) result:
LDEM: 57.7% (+15.8)
CON: 25.8% (-32.3)
UKIP: 11.8% (+11.8)
LAB: 4.7% (+4.7)

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) December 1, 2016

It’s a fantastic win for Jonathan Brown who is the chair of the Liberal Democrats in Chichester and a regular contributor to Liberal Democrat Voice.

Well done to our three new Liberal Democrat councillors!

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social