Dan Price elected as county's police and crime commissioner

Labour's Dan Price has been elected as Cheshire’s police and crime commissioner (PCC) after beating incumbent Conservative John Dwyer.

Mr Price, an engineer by trade, received 86,279 votes, 48.1% of the total cast, while Mr Dwyer took 65,836, which equated to 36.7%.

He said the public were "fed up of the lies and the scandals" and wanted "change", adding that he would get on with delivering his priorities, such as bringing in more police officers, as soon as possible.

Mr Dwyer, who was the country's first commissioner to serve in non-consecutive roles after being elected in 2012 and 2021, said the result "reflected the national picture".

Liberal Democrats' Paul Duffy came third in the election, with 27,342 votes.

'Integrity and honesty'

Mr Price, who was a Warrington Borough councillor until he stood down in 2019, is vice chairman of Great Sankey Parish Council.

He said alongside increasing police numbers, his priorities also included a focus on community policing, introduction of new technology and force modernisation.

He said he was "hugely honoured" to have been elected and said he would "get on with delivery of my priorities that the public have so clearly supported as soon as possible”.

He added that he believed "fundamentally [that] the public are fed up of the lies and the scandals [and] they want change".

"They want politicians who serve with integrity and honesty and selflessness and that’s exactly what I intend to do," he added.

Mr Dwyer said he believed if the focus of the election had been "on local issues alone, I’m sure I would have won today, because we performed so well in the three years I’ve been in post".

“People are disillusioned with the Conservative Party and I think what we’ve seen with the low turnout is that people just haven’t bothered," he said.

"They’re fed up with politics and I think I paid a penalty as a result of it.”

Analysis by BBC Cheshire political reporter Kaleigh Watterson

This is the second time Conservative John Dwyer has been defeated by Labour in this role, having held the post from 2012-16 and again from 2021-24.

One of the main talking points in this campaign was Mr Dwyer’s comments about schoolgirls “wearing very short skirts” which were criticised – particularly by the other two candidates during a debate for Politics North West – with calls from some for him to stand down earlier this year.

The turnout for this election is often quite low, probably not helped by the fact that the Cheshire PCC elections do not coincide with when the two larger councils in Cheshire hold their four-yearly all-out polls.

And this time around it was no different – coming in at just 21.3%, which was lower than the previous two elections.