THE Conservative Party almost swept the board in Westbury with three out of the four seats going to the blues.

Husband and wife team John and Marion Clegg were elected to serve the newly formed Westbury Ham and Westbury Laverton wards.

The couple both earned the highest number of votes, each winning 512.

This will be Cllr John Clegg's third term as a district councillor, although he was not on the last council, and he was pleased his wife retained a seat.

Cllr Marion Clegg was elected with Conservative colleague Russell Hawker for the Westbury Laverton ward, but their success was marred for many by the news Horace Prickett (Lib Dem) lost a seat on the council.

Mr Prickett was the council's portfolio holder for service delivery, and had been responsible for the implementation of many key recycling initiatives in west Wiltshire.

Elisha Manesseh a labour candidate who is a familiar face around Westbury and who has previously served on the town council, won the remaining seat in Westbury Ham.

Turnout was an issue which concerned many councillors, with turnout for the Westbury Ham ward 24.9 per cent.

Russell Hawker said he was pleased to get in, but the turnout worried him. He said: "This is the third election people in Westbury have had to vote on in 15 months and I think perhaps they had just had too much of it."

Voting for the two district council seats in Dilton Marsh saw another long serving district councillor ousted.

Alison Irving was chairman of the district council but lost her seat to two Conservatives.

With a stronger turnout than Westbury of 39.5 per cent, Dilton Marsh now has two conservative representatives on the district council in Julian Bower and Mary Conley.

Ethandune, the ward covering Bratton, Coulston, Edington and Heywood, returned conservative candidate Julie Swabey, who was elected for her first term as a district councillor.