DESPITE a bad night for the Government nationally, it was a good night for Labour’s parliamentary hopefuls in Waltham Forest, with Stella Creasy securing a convincing, if unsurprising, win in Walthamstow.

Ms Creasy replaces popular veteran Neil Gerrard, who retired after 18 years representing the constituency, and increased the Labour majority.

Liberal Democrat candidate Farid Ahmed came in second with 11,774 votes.

Former local councillor and Mayor of Waltham Forest, Ms Creasy, said her first priorities in the constituency are to help young people and push for the regeneration of the town centre.

She said: “I went door-to-door and asked for support because this is my home and I feel honoured people responded in that way and increased the majority.

“I'm determined, I want to work with the council, police and other partnerships to make sure the young are safe and have activities to do.

“I also plan to push the campaign for the (re-opening of the) EMD cinema and the regeneration of Walthamstow town centre.”

Mr Ahmed, who also came second in 2005, looked visibly disappointed by the outcome.

He said: “We are very disappointed because we put a lot of effort in, but when you look around the country something happened which I don't understand right now.

People said they wanted to vote for us, but were scared.”

Conservative candidate Andrew Hemsted got 5,734, compared with a Conservative candidates' 6,254 share in 2005.

Green Party candidate Daniel Perrett received 767 votes.

Trade Union and Socialist candidate and local activist, Nancy Taaffe, received just 279 votes compared with 727 in 2005, but vowed to continue to campaign against public sector cuts.

Judith Chisholm-Benli for UKIP got 823, compared with 810 won by the UKIP candidate in 2005.

Ashar Mall of the Christian Party got 248 votes, and Independent candidate Paul Warburton received 117.

A total of 63.4 per cent of the electorate (41,004) turned out for the general election this year which is nearly 10 per cent more than in 2005, when 54.6 per cent voted.

While general election results were declared around the country from 11pm, starting in Sunderland, Waltham Forest council's count lasted for more than ten hours.

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