CONSERVATIVE MP for Monmouth David Davies secured a sound victory, more than doubling his majority compared to five years ago.

The incumbent Conservative MP won the seat of Gwent’s largest constituency for the second time with 22,466 votes and 48.3 per cent of the total votes cast - an increase of 1.4 per cent on the 21,396 votes cast for him five years ago.

With his 2005 majority of 4,527 more than doubled to 10,425, Mr Davies said he was “ready to go back to work for the people of Monmouth”.

The count at Cwmbran's County Hall started just after 10.15pm, but the delivery of some ballot boxes was delayed because road works closed parts of the M4.

The final declaration from returning officer Steve Greenslade at 3.50am saw Mr Davies easily beat off Labour candidate Hamish Sandison, who came in second with 12,041 votes.

This was down more than 11 per cent on the 16,869 Labour votes cast in the constituency in 2005, and represented a 6.2 per cent swing from Labour to the Conservative party this time round.

Speaking after the result, Mr Davies said: “It’s a really good result. I’m very pleased with that. It’s a big majority which has more than doubled. There are a lot of people in Monmouthshire who have got real problems that have been in touch with me over the last few weeks and I want to get back to work for them as soon as possible.”

After exit polls indicated a hung parliament was likely, Mr Davies said he could not predict the overall result but added the country could be heading into “territory we have never been in before”.

Liberal Democrat candidate Martin Blakebrough said despite coming third, he was also pleased with his party’s performance in the constituency after its share of the vote increased by 6.6 per cent.

Mr Blakebrough received 9,026 votes compared with 5,852 in 2005.

Mr Blakebrough added: “Moving from 5,000 to 9,000 shows Monmouth is no longer a two party state. That’s really positive.”

Voting figures for Monmouth showed there was a 72.3 per cent turnout, with 46,626 people voting in the constituency. This was slightly down on the 2005 turnout figure of 72.4 per cent.