The Conservatives have held on to their Greater London Assembly seat in Croydon and Sutton.

Voters handed Tory incumbent Steve O’Connell a third term in City Hall after increasing his majority to more than 11,000.

As the results trickled in at today’s count at Kensington Olympia, it looked for a time like Labour challenger Marina Ahmad might oust her Conservative rival, as other south London GLA seats turned from blue to red and Labour’s Sadiq Khan hurtled towards the mayoralty and City Hall.

But in the end the Conservative’s “doughnut” strategy of campaigning hardest in the outer borough’s bore fruit in Croydon and Sutton, as voters there decisively backed Mr O’Connell and his party’s losing candidate for mayor, Zac Goldsmith.

Mr O'Connell stretched his majority of Labour from 9,418 to 11,614.

Before the result was announced, Mr O’Connell said he would have been “disappointed” if he was not able to win a third term – recognising the tough challenge that Ms Ahmad had posed.

But as the last votes were counted and verified, and a four-point lead established by Mr O’Connell  opened up to six, Ms Ahmad appeared resigned to the reality of an unsuccessful campaign.

Following the annnouncement, Mr O'Connell said: "I'm just elated. I feel very happy and relieved. I'm delighted with a majority of 11,500, but it's still close. 

"Marina's campaign was a strong one. It was a good campaign.

"I'm delighted to increase my majority on what is quite a difficult day for Conservatives in London."

After promising to work with "whoever the Mayor is", Mr O'Connell was questioned on the campaign run by Conservative mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith, who has been accused of using divisive, "dog-whistle" tactics.

Mr O'Connnell said: "“I think in truth Zac had a lot of positive qualities that I did not think came out in his campaign. And there probably was too much negativity."

Ms Ahmad, who accused Mr Goldsmith of "taking us back in history" with his campaign, said she was "incredibly proud" of her own efforts.

She said: "I feel incredibly proud of the campaign we ran. I don’t think anything went wrong. We fought a fantastic campaign.

"What we need to do is take a very long hard look at the figures. The big issue here is that the Lib Dem vote has absolutely collapsed in Sutton."

Claiming her early lead in today's count was a result of Croydon ballots being counted first, Ms Ahmad said: "We know we did exceptionally well in Croydon and a huge part of that was people in Croydon wanting Sadiq to be the mayor. It’s as simple as that.

"London has voted with its feet. And  I’m proud to say Croydon was part of that."

Amna Ahmad, the Liberal Democrat candidate, appeared upbeat desite finishing in a distant third.

She said: "To be honest I think we had a really positive response we went out and talked to people.  Any candidate will  tell you how difficult it is to run a campaign across two boroughs – but I think we have done brilliantly.”

The full results of the Croydon and Sutton GLA election are:

Stephen O'Connell (Conservative) - 70,156

Marina Ahmad (Labour) - 58,542

Amna Ahmad (Liberal Democrat) - 18,859  

Peter Staveley (UKIP) - 18,338

Tracey Hague (Green Party) - 13,513

Madonna Lewis (All People's Party) - 1,386

Richard Edmonds (National Front) - 1,106