All six county councillors in Three Rivers retained their seats following last week’s elections.

As results were announced in Rickmansworth on Friday morning, it became clear that the same six county councillors would be returning to represent their divisions for another four years.

Residents went to the polls on Thursday to decide all 78 county council seats, with the Conservatives tightening their grip by taking 51 seats – five more than in 2013 when only 77 seats were contested.

The Liberal Democrats also made gains, going from 16 seats to 18 in the space of four years, while the Labour Party dropped from 15 seats to nine.

In the area’s tightest battle, Liberal Democrat Sarah Nelmes came agonisingly close to unseating incumbent Conservative councillor Ralph Sangster in Rickmansworth West, losing out by a mere 66 votes.

In the other divisions, Sara Bedford and Steve Drury (both Liberal Democrat) and Frances Button (Conservative) all secured hefty majorities in their respective seats, while Labour’s Joan King hung on to the South Oxhey and Eastbury division by 201 votes, and Tory Chris Hayward fended off Lib Dem challenger Phil Williams by securing 153 more votes.

Cllr Bedford, leader of Three Rivers District Council, said she felt the impending General Election influenced voting patterns and played a part in a relatively poor turnout, which ranged between 30 and 40 per cent across the district.

“It is clear that people did vote with one eye on the General Election,” she said.

“We were disappointed not to take the seat in Rickmansworth and Chorleywood but we feel the results are a good vote of confidence in us.

“Even since the election we have had people moan to us about the state of the roads and lack of school places. It’s as we were I suppose, doing the same things, continuing to work for local residents to take up issues that they are a concern to them, and continuing to hold the county council to account.”

She said the newly-appointed councillors now needed to be allowed to “get on with things”, and added that having elections three in every four years at district level “helped keep politicians’ minds concentrated”.

Three Rivers Labour Party agent Councillor Stephen Cox was delighted with his party’s victory in the South Oxhey and Eastbury Division, saying it was a “personal triumph for the ever-popular Joan King” who, he said, worked incredibly hard and “bucked the national trend”.