SNP Hold Inverness Central After Highland Council Bi-election

17th November 2019

The by-election for a councillor to represent Inverness Central - Ward 14 on The Highland Council has been won by Emma Roddick - Scottish National Party (SNP) who was one of six candidates who contested the vacancy.

Voting was by the single transferable vote and Emma Roddick emerged as the winner at the third stage of the count.

The bi-election was caused by the resignation of Richard Laird who was an SNP councillor.

The second placed candidate was the Conservative's Rachel Hatfield who got 360, followed by Independent Richie Paxton on 338, who was ahead of the Liberal Democrats Mary Dormer with 325.

Labour's Ardalan Eghtedar was knocked out in the first round with just 154 votes, only to be followed in the second phase by the Greens' Russell Deacon with 238.

Inverness Central has 3 councillors. the other two are -

Bet McAllister - Labour

Janet Campbell - Independent

There are 74 councillors in Highland.

Political representation

Administration: Independent Group, the Liberal Democrat Group and Labour Group.

Oppositions Groups: SNP and Conservative and Unionist.

Independent (Ind) - 27

Scottish Conservative and Unionist (Con) - 11

Scottish Green Party (Green) - 1

Scottish Labour Party (Lab) - 3

Scottish Liberal Democrats (Lib Dem) - 9

Scottish National Party (SNP) - 21

Sutherland Independent Group (SIG) - 1

Non-aligned (NA) - 1

Total number of Elected Members - 74