East Midlands elects Labour's Claire Ward as first mayor with 50,000 majority

Labour's Claire Ward has won the East Midlands mayoral election, becoming the region's first elected mayor, with a significant majority of 50,000.
The former Watford MP had 181,040 votes (40.27%) with Conservative candidate Ben Bradley, who is MP for Mansfield and leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, on 129,332 votes.
An average of 27.6% of people across the 17 electoral areas in the East Midlands Combined County Authority Area voted.
The new mayor will have the opportunity to address regional issues. Some of Ms Ward's promises include securing better local transport, more investment in the local economy and setting up a homelessness taskforce.

[@user-ln3lh2pz8h]

Well done to Claire.
She was about 20 years ago the youngest MP in the Blair years.

[@joebroughton2334]

Quite a rising star in 1997. However, managed to come third in Watford in 2010 - behind the Conservatives, and the Limb Dums. She seems to have a different accent now - maybe I remembered things wrong,