JUBILANT Tories maintained their grip on the New Forest today as the area stayed resolutely true blue.

New Forest Results in Full

In the Hamsphire County Council elections the Conservatives retained seven seats and gained one from the Liberal Democrats, while the Lib Dems managed to hang on to the other three.

The one division that changed hands was South Waterside, where Tory Alexis McEvoy captured the seat vacated by Lib Dem Lee Dunsdon.

Ken Thornber kept his Brockenhurst seat and David Harrison, leader of Lib Dem opposition group on the district council was re-elected in Totton South.

Rachel Smith, the defeated Lib Dem candidate in Brockenhurst, was forced to miss the count because her husband, Lib Dem treasury spokesman Vince Cable, has been taken to hospital with appendicitis Labour again did badly in the Forest, picking up only a few hundred votes in each of the divisions they contested.

The United Kingdom Independence Party finished second in New Milton in the absence of a Lib Dem candidate.

The seat was won by Mel Kendal, the county council's executive member for environment and former leader of the district council. Cllr Kendal had previously represented Lyndhurst, which also stayed Tory.

In Fordingbridge Edward Heron, deputy leader of the district council, won the seat vacated by his mother Kathy.

Several candidates referred to the hostility all parties had faced on the doorsteps as a result of the row over MPs' expenses.

Cllr Thornber said: "I have fought eight elections now and I have never known the going so difficult for reasons beyond local government. Some people - and you can't blame them - said 'a plague on all your houses'."

Veteran Lib Dem councillor Brian Dash also referred to the issue after retaining his seat in Dibden and Hythe.

He said: "We are outside the Westminster bubble. We are people who genuinely care about our political duty to our constituents."