OUTGOING police and crime commissioner Jeff Cuthbert has blamed a lack of support from the UK Government for the low turnout in the elections. 

Just 15.63 per cent of voters in Gwent cast a vote in the ballot to decide who should oversee the area’s police force and help agree its budget each year including the amount local households should pay through the precept that is tacked on to council tax bills. 

Elsewhere there was little enthusiasm for the elections with turnout across Wales just 17 per cent, while voters in England also had local elections to take part in at the same time. 

Mr Cuthbert, who remains in post until Wednesday, May 8 when he will retire and his successor Jane Mudd takes office, said the elections have struggled to grab the public’s attention as candidates don’t benefit from a free mail shot from the Royal Mail. 

“Unlike Parliament or Senedd elections we do not get benefit from a free leaflet drop,” said Mr Cuthbert who was twice elected as a Labour candidate, in 2016 and 2021, when the elections were held alongside Senedd elections. 

“People then get at least one leaflet from the candidates. It is unfair and it doesn’t help democracy if people are not aware of the candidates, they may have a generic view of each candidate, but not their manifesto.” 

Mr Cuthbert also said given the police and crime elections were being held as a standalone poll for the first time since the posts were introduced in 2012 the low turnout, similar to the 15 per cent 12 years ago wasn’t surprising. 

But he disputed people haven’t engaged with the office of police and crime commissioner, or criticism that he had failed to reach out to communities during his eight years in post. 

Plaid Cymru candidate Donna Cushing, who finished third with 9,864 votes, said before the result was announced that she believed Mr Cuthbert had to also take responsibility for a failure for the election to cut through with the public. 

The Caerphilly Borough councillor said: “A lot of people didn’t know what the PCC is there for. I think a lot of that is the previous PCC did not get out there, get their message across that’s what I would have wanted to do.” 

Conservative dandidate Hannah Jarvis said she was both “disappointed” and “delighted” at the result. 

Though Ms Jarvis, who was also the Conservative candidate in 2021 when she again finished in second place, said the result is encouraging for the general election which must be held by the end of January. 

Despite missing out Ms Jarvis, who attended the count for the result at Caerphilly Leisure Centre, said she was happy the Conservatives had increased their vote percentage across Gwent. 

She said: “I’m so grateful to the 21,919 voters who put their faith in me and I’m of course, disappointed not to have won, but I am delighted to have increased the Conservative vote share across Gwent and to have secured the backing of Monmouthshire residents.” 

Though the total number of votes cast in last week’s election was lower than in 2021, when Senedd elections were held on the same day, the Conservatives share of the vote increased by just over three per cent. 

Monmouthshire was the only one of the five council areas where the Conservatives topped the poll on Thursday in the election which was run under the first past the post system.  

Ms Jarvis said: “Many lifelong Labour voters turned to the Welsh Conservatives at this election, to protest their dissatisfaction with Welsh Labour, which shows Labour should not take the electorate for granted and that there’s everything to play for in Wales at the general election.”