Ochiltree, Skares, Netherthird and Craigens was one of 32

electoral wards The wards and electoral divisions in the United Kingdom are electoral districts at sub-national level, represented by one or more councillors. The ward is the primary unit of English electoral geography for civil parishes and borough and distri ...

East Ayrshire Council East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

. Created in 1999, the ward elected one councillor using the

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

electoral system. The ward produced strong results for both the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

(SNP) and Labour Co-operative who both polled over 40% at every election. The SNP held the seat from 1999 to 2003 and Labour Co-op held the seat from 2003 until 2007. In 2007, the ward was abolished and replaced by the multi-member Cumnock and New Cumnock ward as council elections moved to a proportional voting system – the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

– following the implementation of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004.

Boundaries

The Ochiltree, Skares, Netherthird and Craigens ward was created in 1999 by the Third Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements from the previous Drongan, Ochiltree, Rankinston and Stair, Cumnock South and Old Cumnock and Cumnock West and Auchinleck wards. The ward took in a rural area around the villages of

Ochiltree Ochiltree is a conservation village in East Ayrshire, Scotland, near Auchinleck and Cumnock. It is one of the oldest villages in East Ayrshire, with archaeological remains indicating Stone Age and Bronze Age settlers. A cinerary urn was found in ...

and Skares as well as the southern part of

Cumnock Cumnock (Scottish Gaelic: ''Cumnag'') is a town and former civil parish located in East Ayrshire, Scotland. The town sits at the confluence of the Glaisnock Water and the Lugar Water. There are three neighbouring housing projects which lie just o ...

including the neighbourhoods of Netherthird and Craigens. In 2007, the ward was abolished as the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 saw proportional representation and new multi-member wards introduced. The majority of the area covered by the Ochiltree, Skares, Netherthird and Craigens ward was placed into the new Cumnock and New Cumnock ward and an area in the south of the ward was placed in the Doon Valley ward.

Boundaries

Councillors

Election results

2003 election

1999 election

References