Western Isles count delay

The Western Isles has dropped out of the race to be the first Scottish constituency to declare its General Election results.

Intense attention was being focused on the islands’ speedy announcement just hours after the polls close tomorrow night.

If Labour snatches the seat from the SNP then Nicola Sturgeon’s aspirations could take a battering.

With a tight UK result predicted, the local outcome was set to give the first inkling of the accuracy of the polls of the last six weeks, indicating whether the SNP could wield serious influence at Westminster.

Sea-change in election forces Western Isles count delay

6 May 2015

But now the only sea-change heralded in the Hebrides is a switch from a fast boat to a slower vessel to transport two ballot boxes from Barra pushing back the count by up to 90 minutes.

The isles’ result will be delayed until between 2.30am-3am, much later than expected.

Declarations will be churning out from a raft of other areas such as East Kilbride, Strathaven, Glenrothes, Kirkaldy, and Lanark on top of numerous English regions well before then.

A spokesman for Western Isles returning officer Malcom Burr said last minute revised timings were forced because the “operator transporting the ballot boxes over the Sound of Barra will be using a different boat than originally intended and the crossing will take longer.

“This will have a knock on effect on the timings and the declaration is now expected between 2.30am-3am.”

After being landed by the boat, a chartered plane will fly ballot boxes to the counting centre in Stornoway.

Firstly, the boxes from Barra and Vatersay will be shipped across the Sound of Barra strait to Eriskay by boat.

From there, they will be loaded into a vehicle driven to a central gathering point in Benbecula, collecting South Uist boxes on route.

All the Southern Isles boxes will be transferred onto an aircraft at Balivanich airport and flown to Stornoway.

The plane has been hired for a cost of around £7,000.

It is expected that the first ballot boxes - from the Stornoway town area - will come in around 10.15pm.

Counting of ballot boxes from rural areas of Lewis and Harris will start around 11.40pm.

The airlifted boxes from the Southern Isles should land before 2am on Friday morning.