THE majority of people in Bromsgrove turned out to re-elect Julie Kirkbride as town MP.

Townsfolk went to the polls on Thursday May 5 to choose who they wanted to represent them in Parliament.

After the votes were counted in the early hours of Friday morning, it was announced at about 3am that Miss Kirkbride had achieved a 51% share of the ballot, totalling 24,387 votes and was re-elected.

She said: "I am thrilled to have been re-elected as MP for Bromsgrove with increased votes and an increased majority.

"It is a privilege and a pleasure to represent the people of Bromsgrove in parliament. As usual I will represent all strands of the community."

Her closest rival for the seat was Labour candidate David Jones who totalled 14,307 votes.

He added: "I am reasonably pleased, I had one of the least swings in the region.

"It was a great experience that will stand me in good stead for the future and the main thing is that overall Labour got in for a third term."

When asked if he would stand again he said "you could never say never".

Liberal Democrat candidate Sue Haswell received 7,197 votes and bucked the national trend.

Nationally the votes for Labour were down, with votes for the Tories and Liberal Democrats up. However, in Bromsgrove both Labour and Conservative lost votes with Liberal Democrats increasing their percentage from 2001 along with UKIP.

She said: "I am delighted that we managed to increase our votes by 25% and think there is a lot of positives to take from the result.

"The influence of the Liberal Democrats is growing all the time. The future is yellow."

United Kingdom Independence Party candidate Paul Buckingham pulled in 1,919 votes on the night.

He added: "I am disappointed with the result. Both nationally and locally the party didn't do well. I can only think the message didn't get across or that people are not feeling the pain of Europe enough yet."

The overall turnout in Bromsgrove was 67.80%

l Julie Kirkbride will now be sending out thank you cards to her supporters that will copy the style of Austin Chamberlain's thank you notes following the 1906 election.

Previously she has sent a letter but decided on the local flavour after seeing Chamberlain's campaign in the Hughes Collection.