Dr Nik Johnson of the Labour Party has been elected Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, and will replace incumbent Conservative Mayor James Palmer.

While Palmer won the most first preference votes he did not have a majority, so the counting went onto the second preference votes. After the second round of counting, Johnson had enough votes to win the election.

The mayoral election uses a supplementary vote system where voters rank two candidates in order of preference, so the second preference votes of the two most popular candidates were counted and added to the initial count of first round votes.

In his victory speech, Johnson said: “It’s a bit of a surprise. I want to say thank you for all the hard work that has been undertaken across the region, making sure that democracy is delivered here in Cambridgeshire today.”

“I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to make change,” he said of his aims, “it’s what I’d like to see in all politics - the three Cs of compassion, cooperation and building a community.”

Johnson is an NHS doctor and local councillor. In his speech he said “I’ve been doing local politics for almost a decade but I’m at heart and always will be an NHS doctor and I’m very proud of that role.”

Voting for the Mayoral candidacy took place in the local elections on Thursday (06/05). The City and County Councils were also elected, as was the police and crime commissioner.

There were three candidates for Mayor of Cambridgeshire this election. Liberal Democrat candidate Aidan Van de Weyer was knocked out after the first round of vote counting as he received the fewest first preference votes.

In the last mayoral election in 2017 Palmer of the Conservative Party won after the second round vote, while the Liberal Democrat candidate came second and the Labour candidate last in third.

The total turnout in the mayoral election across all six Cambridgeshire councils was 36.99%.

Meanwhile, Conservative Darryl Preston has been elected the Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner. The counting again went to the second round of votes, which found Nicky Massey of Labour coming second in the election.

In an interview with Cambridge Independent during the campaign, Preston said he would reduce crime “by recruiting many more police officers”, prevent crime by “[investing] in early intervention schemes and other initiatives”, and create safer roads by “[cracking] down on speeding to reduce accidents”.