Wyre Forest General Election result: Mark Garnier holds on to his seat for the Conservatives

The Tory held his seat with 29,859 votes over Labour's Matt Lamb with 16,525.

That means 58.3% of the vote was cast for Garnier, giving him a majority of 13,334.

With a majority of 12,871 from 2015, the Conservative candidate had been quietly confident of retaining his seat as counting began shortly after 10.30pm at the Wyre Forest Leisure Centre.

The seat has been the scene of huge swings over the years, particularly in 2001 when fury over the downgrading of Kidderminster Hospital saw independent candidate Richard Taylor win the seat comfortably.

However, there was no independent candidate standing this year.

Mr Garnier said: "It's fantastic we've secured 58% of the vote but I think the most important thing to remember is that when that great increased expectation comes at people, a member of parliament has to meet that expectation.

"I see this as an extraordinary honour, a very humbling honour to have secured that amount of votes.

"I don't just want to meet people's expectations, I want to exceed those expectations and work doubly hard to make sure that people who have voted for me, baring in mind a lot of people have voted for me for the first time, that they feel they have actually got what they were asking for.

There was a turnout of over 51,200 voters in the Wyre Forest at 66%, a 2% increase on the general election that took place in 2015.

Though disappointed Matthew Lamb managed to find some positive takeaway from the Labour defeat, he said: “Obviously it’s disappointing that we didn't win, we always try and win and the Labour party always campaign to win.

"At the end of the day I think it wasn’t a bad result, Labour’s vote has increased, last time we got just under 10,000 and this time we’ve got more than 16,000, so obviously that is a really positive move.

On the Wyre Forest Labour party's future, Lamb said: “We need to carry on campaigning, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m honest that there might be another general election very soon if these results are actually born out across the country.

“We need to hold Mark Garnier accountable to make sure he’s been returned as an MP, he need’s to stand up for the important things that people in Wyre Forest believe are important.

Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green party were all left failing to receive their deposits back after not meeting the voter requirements.

Liberal Democrat candidate Shazu Miah took 1,943 votes, Green party candidate Brett Caulfield took 1,025 votes, and UKIP’s George Connolly took 1,777 votes.