RULING party Liberal Democrats increased its lead at Three Rivers District Council last night when it gained two seats from the Conservatives.

Of the 48 seats, the Liberals now hold 29, with its nearest rivals the Tories declining to just 12, while Labour held onto all of its seven current seats.

Residents from across the district visited the polling stations with the overall turn out standing at 42.1 per cent.

This was an 10.85 per cent increase on last year when only 31.25 per cent of residents exercised their right to vote.

Seats to change hands were Oxhey Hall and Carpenders Park.

Oxhey Hall was a closely fought battle and the biggest surprise of the night as it saw Conservative Councillor Teresa Paddington narrowly losing her seat by just 32 votes.

In Carpenders Park, an area the Liberal Democrats had targetted, Councillor Nigel Stewart lost his seat in favour of Liberal Democrat Geoffrey Dunne by more than 500 votes.

The highest turn out in the district was at Chorleywood West where 61.26 per cent of residents voted and Councillor Harry Davies held onto his seat with 1197 votes.

This was a massive increase as just 48.9 per cent of residents in the Chorleywood West ward turned out to vote at last year's elections.

The lowest turn out in Three Rivers was the Northwick ward where just 27.45 per cent of residents voted to enable Labour Councillor Leonard Tippen to hold onto his seat.

From the first count of the votes for the European elections, 41.68 per cent of electors voted, which a council spokesman said was a big surprise after last year's poor 27.62 per cent turn out.

Leader of the Council, Ann Shaw said: "This is a splendid result for the Liberal Democrats - we held all of our seats and won the two Conservative seats.

"In Carpenders Park the Consrvative majority of 600 was over turned on a 40 per cent swing to Liberal Democrats.

"These results are a clear endorsement of the Liberal Democrat administration of the council and all the hard work done by the Liberal Democrate councillors and candidates, not only through the election campaign but the whole year."