A former regional daily editor has been elected as a councillor on his erstwhile patch.

John McLellan, who edited the Edinburgh Evening News, will serve as a Conservative member of the City of Edinburgh Council following Thursday’s vote.

John was one of four councillors elected in the city’s Craigentinny/Duddingston ward, and polled more votes than any other candidate.

He was the only Conservative candidate standing in the multi-member ward, but received 2,521 votes, representing a 23.7pc share out of eight candidates standing.

Also elected were the Scottish National Party’s Ian Campbell, Labour’s Joan Griffiths and Alex Staniforth, of the Scottish Green Party.

The turnout in Craigentinny/Duddingston was 47.8pc.

The SNP now have 19 councillors in Edinburgh, one more than John’s party.

Labour have 12 members, the Greens eight and the Liberal Democrats six.

John had two spells as editor of the Edinburgh Evening News between 1997 and 2002 and then from 2004 to 2009, and is now the director of the Scottish Newspaper Society.

He told HTFP: “It was a privilege to serve the city as an editor and it is a privilege to be able to serve it as a councillor. With my SNS duties it is certainly going to be a very busy time but I’m very much looking forward to it.”

Elsewhere, Marcus Johnstone, a former journalist at Lancashire newspaper series The Citizen, was not so lucky.

The Labour county councillor in Lancashire was the only person in the country to lose their seat to a UKIP candidate, in the Padiham & Burnley West ward.