IT WAS a sea of blue in South Bucks as the seven conservative Buckinghamshire County Councillors were all re-elected – though it was far from plain sailing.

The UK Independence Party came close to a shock result in Cliveden but narrowly missed out as Cllr Dev Dhillon edged out UKIP candidate Ken Wright by just 44 votes.

It was one of five runner-up finishes for UKIP candidates, an improvement on the one second-place finish they achieved in Stoke Poges in 2009.

Cllr Dhillon said: “There were times when I was getting very suspicious but I was very calm all through my canvassing.

“The opposition tried very hard to confuse the voters and I felt really sorry for them – but still common sense did prevail.”

The turnout in South Bucks this year was just 26.7%, which was down on 2009.

Leader of the South Bucks District Council, Cllr Adrian Busby, comfortably retained his seat in Beaconsfield with 60% of the vote.

Before the results were announced, he said that he would not take any result for granted and warned against complacency.

However, all concerns were soon squashed when the result was announced and he was delighted with the support.

He said: “National policies do inevitably impact on local elections but I’m only interested in Beaconsfield and as far as I’m concerned I won it convincingly.

“I’m very pleased and my heart-felt thanks go to all those people that have voted for me.”

One of the main talking points concerning this year’s election was the state of the roads.

However Peter Hardy, the county council cabinet member for transport and planning, retained his seat in Gerrards Cross with 47.2% of the vote.

Independent candidate Chris Brown won 31.4% of the vote, meaning Cllr Hardy was unable to repeat his 2009 performance when he won comfortably with 63%.

Elsewhere, re-elected Cllr Roger Reed of Denham said he was always confident that UKIP would not win any seats from the conservatives in South Bucks.

He said: “It was disappointing for the residents that UKIP, having stood, didn’t even leaflet extensively – if at all – and certainly as far as I was concerned in Denham they did absolutely no canvassing.

“People were complaining to me asking why haven’t they been out?”

South Bucks District Cllr Alexander Macmillan, the Earl of Stockton, is the grandson of former conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and he had his own view of where the protest vote went.

He said: “The protest vote against us in South Bucks certainly didn’t go to UKIP – it went to gardening!

“The candidates in South Bucks claimed that they were the only party against HS2 and yet in their election manifesto they wanted not one HS2 but three.

“That destroyed their credibility a lot. It was a silly thing to say that.”