THERE were no General Election surprises in Newton Abbot as sitting MP Anne Marie Morris romped home for the Tories.

Ms Morris, who has held the seat in Westminster since 2010 after pinching it from Lib Dem Richard Younger-Ross, picked up 28,635 votes – nearly 6,000 more than in 2015.

She managed to fight off Labour candidate James Osben who bagged 11,475, Lib Dem Marie Chadwick who scooped up 10,601 votes and the Green Party’s Kathryn Driscoll with 926.

The announcement of her win, which will see her represent the area for another five years, was made at just before 2.20am at the town’s leisure centre.

A victorious Ms Morris said: ‘I am very very pleased and I feel so privileged.

‘It is an incredible role to fill.

‘It is the only thing I think I have ever done in my overall life career that I feel has enabled me to give so much back and just the ability to deliver so much to so many people in so many different areas whether its railway and infrastructure, the University Technical College, you can make a difference and as I have discovered as a back bencher you can do quite a lot.’

In her victory speech Ms Morris thanked the voters for backing her and promised to keep to all of the pledges she made during the campaign.

Talking about her opposition she said: ‘I think it was a good healthy fight.

‘No candidate wants to have no opposition and no credible opposition and I think the Liberal Democrats and Labour did extremely well.

‘We need to have a party that runs the country and at least a good opposition to run with it and I think we have seen today a move in that direction – which is good.’

Second place James Osben said: ‘It is amazing. The result is probably better than what we could have expected, yes it would have been amazing to win but we weren’t necessarily expecting that given the previous results and I think everyone else thought the odds were against us but actually we have proven that isn’t the case – certainly not anymore.’

Mr Osben congratulated Ms Morris on her win and added: ‘I hope she does better things in this term of parliament to improve her record.

Lib Dem Ms Chadwick, humble in defeat, said: ‘I am feeling really great and really positive.

‘I think it is fair to say that the Lib Dem’s were squeezed here by the national message.

‘On one hand people want Theresa May to deliver a strong Brexit, whether she can do that or not is another matter but you know what, people are also very cross with their public services being underfunded time and time again and I think we have been stuck in the middle but what has been really positive is that actually Teignbridge constituency still has a lot of very good local Liberal Democrats

‘We are going to work really hard and you know what, I am not sure it will be that long until the next election.’Following last night’s election result, the chairman of Newton Abbot Conservative Association, Cllr Chris Clarance, was ecstatic. He said: ‘This was a great result. Anne Marie’s efforts in retaining the seat were outstanding, especially in light of what has happened nationally.‘I think this reflects her support for Brexit, and this has boosted her credibility. She will want to make a success of the Brexit procedure and no doubt she will be back at work on Monday, for her third term as an MP.’‘The Newton Abbot association has a small, but very much together team. They have all worked hard to achieve this result and I want to pass on my sincere thanks to every one of them.’