South Kesteven District Council Conservative leader and deputy leader lose seats at election

Both the Tory leader and deputy leader have lost their seats on South Kesteven District Council.

After being on the council since 2011 and the leader of it for the past three years, Kelham Cooke has been voted out of his seat.

Standing for the ward of Casewick which has two seats, Coun Cooke was relying on voters to be re-elected and retain his position of leader.

However the Green party’s Vannessa Smith won the majority of votes with 1,057 supporters while fellow Tory and former cabinet member Rosemary Trollope-Bellew received 709.

Kelham Cooke had the lowest number with 688 votes.

Ahead of the election Coun Cooke spoke about his passion for preserving the culture and heritage across Casewick and fighting against the Mallard Pass solar farm.

Earlier this evening the Tories suffered another loss as deputy leader Adam Stokes wasn’t re-elected and a number of other long-serving Conservatives were also ousted by independents.