THE Liberal Democrats managed to keep their hands on Waverley Borough Council last week after scraping a win at the key by-election. The narrowest of margins separated the Lib Dem and Conservative vote for last Thursday's by- election for Haslemere's Critchmere and Shottermill seat. Before the by-election, both parties had 27 seats each with Independents holding on to two of them. The seat up for grabs was held by Lib Dem Michael Allen who died earlier this year following a long illness, but the strength of the Tory vote last week made it extremely vulnerable. However, the Lib Dems could breathe a sigh of relief when candidate Peter Nicholson grabbed 1,421 votes - just 35 votes more than Robert Knowles, the Conservative candidate. Amazingly the majority was smaller than the number of spoilt votes with 63 being ruled out. The result gives back the Lib Dems 28 seats keeping them in power, preventing the Conservatives from snatching control of the council. This meant that at the council's annual meeting on Tuessday, the Lib Dems were again able to appoint Gillian Ferguson as leader and Celia Savage as deputy leader.
