ANDOVER'S Liberal Democrat party suffered a further blow today after losing two Test Valley Borough Council seats in St Mary's ward.

Councillors Nigel Long and Katherine Bird were heavily defeated by Conservative candidates John Cockaday and David Denny at the Borough Count this afternoon, with incumbent Tory Councillor Iris Andersen retaining her seat.

Both Bird and Long slightly increased their votes from the previous election in 2011, receiving 806 and 724 votes respectively.

However a surge of Conservative support saw Cllr Andersen double her vote, receiving over 1,600 in total, while Cockaday and Denny both received over 1,200 votes each.

The results means the Conservative party now hold all three seats in St Mary's and will presumably take control over all of Andover's wards at Test Valley - pending the results at Winton.

The news follows on from a disastrous night for the Liberal Democrats both locally and nationally as they finished fourth behind UKIP and Labour in North West Hampshire and lost over 49 parliamentary seats across the country.

However Mr Long remained positive despite the result and wished his Tory counterparts good luck.

He said: "These things happen.

"Hopefully Iris will have a really good year as Mayor of Test Valley.

"At least it will give me a chance to get more jobs done around the house."