Paul Collins (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party) has been elected as a councillor for the Lomond North ward of Argyll and Bute Council following a by-election on Thursday 16th December.

Paul Collins was elected at stage 4 of the process, receiving 742 first preference votes.

There were 1,842 valid ballot papers, 19 rejected ballot papers, giving a percentage turnout of 29.6%.

The full results are as follows, with candidates in alphabetical order and the number of first preference votes they received:

·       Paul Collins (Scottish Conservative and Unionist) – 742

·       Mark Irvine (Independent) – 418

·       Robert MacIntyre (Independent) – 204

·       Ken Smith (Scottish National Party) – 459

Since 2007, councillors in Scotland have been elected using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. This allows voters to express a preference for more than one candidate by ranking them in order.