THE Vale of Glamorgan constituency has been won by Conservative Alun Cairns following the UK general election vote on Thursday, December 12.

Mr Cairns took the seat – polling 27,305 votes.

Labour candidate, Belinda Loveluck-Edwards finished second gaining the approval of 23,743 voters.

Green Party candidate, Anthony Slaughter – who stood in place of any Plaid and Liberal Democrat candidates – received 3,251 votes and Gwlad Gwlad candidate, Laurence Williams finished fourth, out of the four candidates, with 508 votes.

Vale of Glamorgan acting returning officer, Debbie Marles declared that 55,104 votes were cast meaning a turnout of 72 per cent – later corrected to 55,101 votes by returning officer, Isabel Graham.

There were 294 rejected ballot papers.

The first ballot boxes arrived at the Barry Leisure Centre count just before 10.25pm following the closure of the Vale’s polling stations at 10pm.

The result was declared just before 2am – one of the fastest Vale declaration times in recent history.

Winning candidate, Mr Cairns said it was a privilege to represent this constituency in 2019 and thanked everyone involved in running a smooth election; his family; his core team; and agent; and congratulated the candidates for their part in the campaign.

“I want to thank the police for keeping and maintaining a safe campaign for all of the candidates in increasing intimidation across social media and in person across the constituency and outside of the constituency.

“I pay tribute to them for all their work,” he said.

He said the Plaid, Liberal Democrats and other parties had worked together to try to block democracy.

“This was an election to deliver Brexit and I’m delighted that the people of the Vale of Glamorgan have seen through the efforts of the political parties to ignore or cancel their democratic vote in the referendum and have re-elected me as their member of parliament who has promised and committed to delivering on their instruction three-and-a-half years ago,” he said.

“I am committed to continue to represent every person who lives and works and is associated with this constituency.

“I am committed helping them on a constituency level and in driving the best interests of the Vale of Glamorgan.

“But above all I want to thank the electorate of the Vale of Glamorgan for showing and demonstrating further confidence in me.”

He added: “There are great challenges, but this is a great place. I am fantastically proud to be re-elected.

“I look forward to representing this constituency in a strong Conservative government that will represent people from all backgrounds from all walks of life.

“I will play my full part in working to them to achieve their best.”

Second place candidate, Ms Loveluck-Edwards said she was disappointed and disappointed for all the volunteers and she paid tribute to Jane Hutt for her support.

“I’m really proud of the fact that over 23,000 people across the Vale entrusted their vote in me and showed support. I would have liked to have won clearly but that wasn’t to be,” she said.

“I think the dreaded B word - Brexit - initially consumed a lot of people on the doorstep, but as the campaign developed on a national level people that filtered down so they were genuinely concerned about the NHS, about the increase in poverty, the increase in homelessness and what the future would look like under a Tory government.”

She added: “The Vale matters to me and always has so I’d like to pay a role in my community going forward.”