Liberal Democrat Wins the Hatfield South Herts County Division to Unseat Tory Highways Boss

On Friday morning Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats were delighted when their colleague Paul Zukhowskyj took a seat from the Conservatives. This was a double triumph since the losing Conservative was no other than the former Executive Member in the administration, Stuart Pile, who had been responsible for Highways and the Environment.

This was a great achievement for the Liberal Democrats, but will clearly be an embarrassment for local MP and Conservative Party Chairman, Grant Shapps, who now sees the Tory vote in his Welwyn Hatfield constituency slowly slipping away.

Stuart Pile (aka "Mr Pothole") was responsible for the outsourced highways maintenance contracts for over 15 years and his failure to effectively manage these contracts - plus the expensive fiasco of the defective Moor End Road Bus Link - was one of the several factors that led to his defeat. Paul Zukhowskyj is well known locally as as an effective Liberal Democrat worker and campaigner.

The result for the Hatfield South County Council Division was:

Conservatives 766 (27%) [-19%]
Green 102 ( 4%) [- 3%]
Labour 640 (23%) [+ 3%]
Liberal Democrats 803 (29%) [+11%] Paul Zukowskyj elected
UKIP 474 (17%) [+ 9%] the increase is on the 2009 total for "Others"