INDEPENDENT candidate Onnalee Cubitt has vowed to continue fighting for the residents of Old Basing after she retained her seat on the borough council.

As previously reported, Onnalee Cubitt was forced to fight in the borough elections as an Independent candidate after she was prevented from standing with the Conservative party.

Cllr Cubitt originally quit the borough Conservative group in May 2012, becoming an Independent, after she spent months on the fringes for her outspoken comments on the Manydown saga.

The outspoken Basing ward member applied in March to represent the Tory party, but her application to be put on the party’s approved candidate list was rejected by the Basingstoke Conservative Association.

As a result, the former borough councillor for Chineham, John Downes was imposed as the candidate to represent the party in the Basing ward by the Hampshire Conservative Federation’s executive committee.

But Mrs Cubitt was ecstatic following her victory over Conservative candidate John Downes by a majority of 673 after she received 1,368 votes. Basingstoke UKIP leader Alan Stone came third receiving 458 votes.

She told The Gazette: “I am extremely happy and I am overjoyed. My residents are the only thing that matters to me.

“My plan is to keep fighting for the residents and this is vindication that people are prepared to acknowledge that someone is willing to represent the residents above the national narrative.”

She added: “I am ecstatic and I shall carry on extremely hard for the residents without the shackles that come with the party machinery.”