CONSERVATIVE Robert Syms held his seat quite comfortably in the end.

It may have been a night of high drama nationally, with Labour making gains that seemed unthinkable when the snap election was first called, but there only ever looked like being one winner in the Poole Constituency.

However, while Mr Syms romped to victory, becoming the town's elected MP for the sixth time in a row, the big surprise locally - echoing the national landscape - was the huge leap forward made by Labour.

Mr Syms, who polled 28,888 votes - a majority of 14,209 - may have cause for concern, after Labour's Katie Taylor came second with 14,679 votes.

Addressing his supporters after the declaration was made at Poole's Lighthouse Theatre around 4am, Mr Syms, conceded: "I'm unsure quite what will happen by the end of the evening, but politics have just got more interesting. It is going to be a long night.

"I hope we'll be able to form another government but it isn't entirely clear at the moment.

"Thank you very much to all those who supported me in this campaign, there are interesting times ahead."

Meanwhile, Katie Taylor, Labour, said: "It is really clear that the Labour Party can be successful in this town.

"I think the days of Poole being a safe Conservative seat are over.

"I very much feel that our campaign hasn't ended today, it actually begins tomorrow."

Turnout for the Poole Constituency this year was 67.72 per cent, an increase over the 65.51 per cent turnout in 2015 - so voter apathy certainly failed to materialise.

Earlier in the night, as the spectre of a hung Parliament started to dominate, Mr Syms had remained confident.

Speaking after the first seat - Newcastle Central - was declared a Labour hold, he told the Daily Echo: "I think the exit poll is probably not going to be accurate, because all the feedback I'm getting from the campaign is that we've actually been doing quite well and we might well gain seats.

"Until we get two or three hours of results we just won't know, at that point we will see if we've got a bigger or a smaller majority.

"The key point early in the evening is that while UKIP has gone down, so have the Liberals and the Greens. So it has been a really tight squeeze on third parties. UKIP will help us, but the Liberal and Green votes will help the Labour Party. We are back to two party politics."

Mike Plummer, Lib Dems, polled 4,433 votes, while the Green Party's Adrian Oliver received 1,299.

Marty Caine, of the Collective Thinking Party of Britain, rounded things off with 551.