Nail-biting wait for architectural historian in last seat to declare

Architectural historian Emma Dent Coad is enduring a nail-biting wait to discover whether she has taken Kensington from the incumbent Tory, Victoria Borwick.

It is the last seat in the country to declare and reports suggest there could be just 35 votes in it.

This afternoon Dent Coad, who was Labour leader of the local council, a prominent champion of the built environment and an occasional writer for BD, tweeted that she expected a third recount at 6pm tonight.

As a member of Kensington & Chelsea council’s planning committee she has helped force developers back to the drawing board when their designs don’t meet high standards.

The election’s biggest scalp in the built environment world was housing minister Gavin Barwell who lost his Croydon Central seat. His majority of 165 was converted into a Labour majority of 6,652.

Ex-Allies & Morrison partner-turned-Labour MP Helen Hayes was voted back in to her Dulwich and West Norwood constituency with a thumping majority of 28,000.

But in nearby Vauxhall planning campaigner George Turner, standing for the Lib Dems, failed to unseat the sitting Labour MP, Kate Hoey, who controversially backed Brexit. Turner single-handedly took the Shell Centre redevelopment to the High Court and now runs the investigative blog Our City.

In Wales, architect David Darkin, who was standing for Labour in Carmarthen East & Dinefwr was beaten into second place by Plaid Cymru’s Jonathan Edwards.

Communities secretary Sajid Javid, culture secretary Karen Bradley and minister Tracey Crouch whose brief includes listing buildings all hung on to their seats.