THE political make-up of the Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole conurbation was shaken at its roots in last week’s elections.

Mirroring a national trend, the Conservatives lost out in the conurbation going from controlling all three of the former councils to not having a majority on the new unitary authority.

At the other end, the Liberal Democrat vote increased by more than 50 per cent compared to 2015 while independents saw theirs increase six-fold.

As part of the merger of the three councils, the number of councillors was reduced from 120 to 76, requiring 39 seats for any group or alliance to secure control of the new Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.

By the end of Friday, the Conservatives only had 36.

While they would appear to have the strongest position to negotiate a controlling alliance, the group of independents which almost completely wiped the party out of Christchurch have ruled out working with them.

Instead a Liberal Democrat-led coalition is being formed, although it would require the support of almost every other non-Conservative councillor.

The party was the big winner in last week’s voting with its candidates securing 46,930 votes compared to less than 30,000 across the three preceding councils.

Most of its 15 seats are in Poole and its former leader on the abolished borough council Cllr David Brown said they would be talking with other councillors to put together a council-controlling group.

Speaking after Friday’s count, he said: “We will be talking to like-minded groups over the coming days to discuss how we move forward.”

Over the weekend the group has held talks with representatives of the Christchurch independents who have eight seats having been part of a surge in voting for independents.

In 2015, 5,552 votes were cast for candidates not attached to any political group while the figure was more than 29,000 this year.

Another key player in any coalition will be Poole People having had seven of its candidates elected and increasing its votes total from 7,527 to more than 11,000.

Labour won three seats in Bournemouth having been given just under 30,000 votes compared to 25,000 four years ago.

Its spokesman Patrick Canavan said: “The group has agreed to continue to explore the possibility of a cross-party arrangement that can take control of the new authority.”

Despite doubling its councillor representation to two, the Green Party’s vote share fell by 6,000 to 15,703 this year.

The Conservative vote fell from 78,432 to 67,504 although the biggest drop in votes was for Ukip which fell from more than 32,000 in 2015 to less than 7,000, although it still won the same number (one) of seats.

The Conservative group met on Tuesday to consider its plan for the coming days.

Talks are expected to continue over the coming days as group’s jostle to secure a controlling majority ahead of the new council’s first meeting on May 21.