THE Conservative Party held on to their seat in Eddisbury In one of the more least surprising results of the General Election in Cheshire.

There was an air of inevitability in the air throughout the evening in the Winsford Lifestyle Centre.

While the Tories surprised many by doing what virtually no-one said they would – creating a majority government – their footing in Eddisbury was never in question.

Held by Conservative Stephen O’Brien, who will take up a new role with the UN, for more than 16 years, it would have taken a brave soul to predict this Tory stronghold would be lost.

In the end the result was indeed a foregone conclusion, with Tory candidate Antoinette Sandbach picking up 24,167 votes – more than double her closest rival – Labour’s James Laing, with 11,193 votes.

“I’m really delighted, and thank you very much to the voters of Eddisbury who have put me in this great position of responsibility,” Ms Sandbach said.

“I want to take everything I’ve listened to on the doorsteps down to Westminster with me so that I can feed that back.”

Earlier in the evening, Ms Sandbach reiterated that she has a hard job to follow Mr O’Brien, who has served the constituency since 1999.

She said: “Stephen has obviously been really hard working MP that has been elected by this constituency for over 16 years and he’s served it incredibly well.  

“I will need to earn my own respect and I will need to go out there, and work hard and earn my own respect from the people of Eddisbury and I will do that.

"I will work hard for them.”

While the Conservatives were never really in danger, the Labour Party certainly gave it a fair effort.

Mr Laing told the Guardian his party had ‘taken the fight to the Tories in their heartland’, though sadly their efforts were in vein.

UKIP, like many other constituencies around the UK, were able to pick up a respectable amount of votes, bagging 5,778.

While their divisive leader Nigel Farage has now departed the party following his failure to be elected in his own constiituency, Eddisbury’s UKIP candidate Rob Millington said the party will ‘continue to go one from strength to strength’.

One of the biggest stories of the General Election is the bloodbath the Liberal Democrats faced, seeing their number of seats across the UK cut from 57 to 8, culminating in the resignation of their party leader, Nick Clegg.

Eddisbury Liberal Democrat Candidate, Ian Priestner, admitted to being a ‘disappointing night’ for the party, and lamented the amount of people who failed to cast a vote.

The total turnout was turnout of 69.1 per cent (47,530).

The Green Part y Candidate, Andrew Garman, picked up 1,624 votes, while Cannabis is Safer Than Alcohol Party (CISTA) candidate George Antar, picked up 301.