North Down and Ards: DUP and Alliance hopeful of again emerging as the two largest parties

The council is one of the few local authorities in Northern Ireland to have an overall unionist majority at the time of the last council elections in 2019.

Then the DUP was the most popular party, with 14 out of the 40 seats. Combined with the UUP’s then eight seats and a single TUV seat, the three main unionist parties held 23 out of the councillor total seat tally.

Alliance won 10 seats then, and the Greens three, giving a centrist block of 13, while three independents and one SDLP took the remaining positions.

This year Alliance is hopeful that it will have 13 seats by Saturday afternoon, an increase of three. Stephen Farry, the party deputy leader and the MP for North Down, said he expected Alliance to gain at least two.

Number crunchers at Aurora Aquatic and Leisure complex, where counting continued until late last night, said they expected the DUP to win at least 13 seats overall. That could mean that the DUP and Alliance are the joint largest parties.

As of last night, 24 candidates were elected or deemed elected, with the DUP a seat ahead.

• DUP 8 (Robert Adair, Nigel Edmund, David Kerr, Naomi Armstrong, Stephen McIlveen, Colin Kennedy, Alistair Cathcart, James Cochrane)

• Alliance 7 (Lorna McAlpine, Alan McDowell, Vicky Moore, Karen Douglas, Chris McCracken, Hannah Irwin, Christine Creighton)

• Ulster Unionist 5 (Peter Wray, Richard Smart, Craig Blaney, Mark Brooks, David Chambers)

• Independents 3 (Steven Irvine, Wesley Irvine, Ray McKimm)

• SDLP 1 (Joe Boyle)

The Bangor West district electoral area (DEA) was topped by Christine Creighton (Alliance), with 1,175 votes; Bangor East and Donaghadee by Mark Brooks (UUP) 1,972; Bangor Central by Karen Douglas (A) 1,378; Netwonards by Steven Irvine (Ind) 1,463; Ards peninsula DEA by Robert Adair (DUP) 1,959. Three other DEAs including Holywood will be counted from this morning.

The overall turnout this year at 46.6% is up 3% on 2019, when it was 43.3%

Alliance gains appear to come from a reduced Green vote.

One notable expected outcome is that the incumbent councillor Carl McClean is expected to lose his Holywood seat. Mr McClean was an Ulster Unionist councillor, first elected in 2014 and then again in 2019, before defecting to the DUP earlier this year. His departure was significant because he was seen as politically moderate and of more traditional Ulster Unionist stock.