THE Conservatives claimed back Warrington South after an 18-year absence in the town.

David Mowat picked up the most votes in the closely run election campaign that was number 85 on the list of Tory target seats.

He fended off tough competition from Labour’s Nick Bent who polled 1,553 fewer votes than the Conservative candidate.

Mr Mowat said: “I was delighted to win and excited about becoming the MP for Warrington South. We fought a positive campaign and it feels good having won doing that.

“One thing we are sorry about is that we did lose a lot of votes to the Lib Dems saying we could not win here. Next time they will have to say the Conservatives cannot win here twice. They lost to us by 4,500 which is quite a lot.”

Mr Mowat polled 19,641 votes, a 2.8 per cent swing in favour of the Conservatives in comparison to Nick Bent’s 18,088. That meant Labour’s ballot figures held up from 2005 and fell by only 884.

The hotly contested seat saw Lib Dem candidate Jo Crotty take 15,094 votes keeping the party in third place but with 3,983 more votes than in 2005.

UKIP candidate James Ashington managed to double the party’s vote and picked up 1,624 while Stephanie Davies took 427 votes for the Greens.

Now the work begins for Warrington South MP Mr Mowat.

He says that the party will be aided by the young volunteers who have helped out during the election campaign.

He said: “Of the three parties the one that had all the young people working for them was the Conservatives and that would not have been the case a few years ago.”

He headed to London on Monday to start his MP induction including picking up parliamentary laptops and mobile phones as well as being taught how to fill out those expenses forms.

And this weekend he already has two events as the MP planned.

“We’re starting surgeries, we have got plenty of e-mails and letters and I will start doing the real work in Warrington,” he added.