Mike Starkie pictured on stage at Whitehaven Sports Centre PIC: Oliver Hodgson
Mike Starkie, has been re-elected to serve as Copeland's mayor for another four years.
The result was announced at around 2:30am Friday 3rd May at Whitehaven Sports Centre by Copeland council’s Pat Graham.
Mr Starkie received 10,008 votes, enough to see him comfortably re-elected leading marginally in front of of Labour candidate Linda Jones-Bulman and Conservatives candidate Ged McGrath.
The first box arrived at Whitehaven Sports Centre from Monkwray Junior School at 10.10pm and verification began immediately, with 65 local people scanning through the votes before they could be counted. The last box was dropped off shortly after 11pm, with the verification process going on until almost 1am.
There were 53,012 people eligible to vote in the election but a turnout of just 33.54 per cent saw 17,786 votes as people took to the polls.
All the candidates for the Copeland Mayoral Election belived Brexit had had substantial impact on the election and it is possible that is why there was such a low turnout.
Copeland MP Trudy Harrison, who was supporting Mr McGrath, echoed this in an interview with BBC Look North
.