THERE will be seats contested across eight Malvern Hills district divisions at the Worcestershire County Council elections today (Thursday).
After the last poll in 2013, five were taken by the Conservatives, and one each for the Green Party, Liberal Democrats as well as one independent.
Overall in the county the Conservatives had a majority of 18 with 30 councillors, there were 12 Labour, four UKIP, three Liberal Democrats, two each for the Health Concern party and the Greens and one each for the Liberals and the Wythall Residents Association.
The overall turnout was 30.7 per cent with the Conservatives netting 33.3 per cent of the vote, UKIP 20.4 per cent and Labour 19.44 per cent with the other 26.9 per cent being shared among the other parties and independents.
Among those in the Malvern Hills looking to hold onto their seats will be Conservative members Phil Grove (Hallow), Lucy Hodgson (Malvern Chase), Paul Tuthill (Malvern Link), Ian Hopwood (Malvern Langland) and Ken Pollock (Tenbury).
Malvern Langland is to be tightly contested once more with Mr Hopwood, who is now standing as an independent and not for the Conservatives, only having a majority of three while John Raine (Green) will look to keep Malvern Trinity and add to his majority of five.
Tom Wells (Liberal Democrats) has a 1,508 majority in Powick and looks certain to keep hold of his position.
The polling stations open from 7am to 10pm and the count will be done tomorrow (Friday).
Here are the candidates for the Malvern Hills seats:
Croome Ward
Doug Guest (UKIP)
John Lambeth (Green)
Paul Middlebrough (Con)
Irene Stickley (Lab)
Roger Sutton (Ind)
Hallow
Colin Bexley (Lab)
John Drage (Lib Dem)
Phil Grove (Con)
Danny Young (UKIP)
Malvern Chase
William Chaundy (Lib Dem)
John Gallagher (Lab)
Lucy Hodgson (Con)
Jeanette Sheen (UKIP)
Jackie Smethurst (Green)
Malvern Langland
Caroline Bovey (Lib Dem)
Ian Hopwood (Ind)
Lynne Lambeth (Lab)
James O’Donnell (Con)
Dinah Sage (Green)
Richard Spencer (UKIP)
Malvern Link
Kwai Chan (Lib Dem)
William Jenkins (Green)
Mike Savage (UKIP)
Paul Tuthill (Con)
Martin Willis (Lab)
Malvern Trinity
Kaleem Aksar (Lib Dem)
Tony Baker (Con)
Samantha Charles (Lab)
Len Marhsall (UKIP)
John Raine (Green)
Powick
David Barrie (UKIP)
Justin Chieffo (Con)
Tom Wells (Lib Dem)
Tenbury
Malcolm Delingpole (UKIP)
Elaine Drage (Lib Dem)
Stephen Main (Green)
Jonathan Morgan (Lab)
Ken Pollock (Con)
