CONSERVATIVE Mel Stride has been re-elected as Central Devon MP with 32,095 votes, as the Conservatives held onto power with their biggest majority for more than 30 years.

In second place in Central Devon came Labour’s Lisa Robillard Webb with 14,374 votes, while the Lib Dem’s Alison Eden got 8,770 votes and Green Andy Williamson came fourth with 2,833 votes.

Mr Stride said: ‘My result I think reflects the fact that the majority of people in Central Devon to want to see an end to the Brexit situation. They want us to move on with other priorities like health, climate change and education and I don’t think there was an appetite for a hung parliament and years of dither and delay. I think people want to see some movement. We need to move on and try to bring this country together.’

However Green Party candidate Andy Williamson said he was ‘depressed’ by the election result which he said had been ‘won on the doorsteps’ over Brexit. He said what had happened ‘was going to have a major impact on this country over the next ten years’.

The Central Devon result was announced at the count at Parklands Leisure Centre in Okehampton around 4.30am this morning (Friday, December 13), just half an hour before it became clear that the Conservatives had secured a clear majority to take power nationally with 326 seats.

Further Conservative gains to come – many taken from Labour in pro-Brexit heartlands in the Midlands and North.

Many of these Conservative gains had apparently been aided by the Brexit Party's decision not to stand in seats with Conservative candidates.

In Central Devon, all but Labour made modest gains on their 2017 result, but their running order remained the same, with Conservatives first, Labour second, Lib Dem third and Green fourth. Brexit did not field a candidate.

Mr Stride backed Remain in the 2016 Referendum on leaving the EU, but said he would nonetheless be supporting Prime Minister Boris Johnson in ‘getting Brexit done’.

The turnout from voters was 77.97 per cent of the 74,926 of those eligible to vote in the Central Devon constituency, up slightly on the turnout in the constituency in 2017 of 77.8 per cent.