CONSERVATIVE Michael Enea says he will not stand again in a Senedd election after losing out on the Newport West seat to Jayne Bryant.

Ms Bryant retained the seat for Labour with 14,259 votes, despite strong opposition from Mr Enea, who came in second with 10,353.

Mr Enea and the Conservatives centred their campaign around the need for a relief road to relieve traffic congestion on the M4, and their votes increased from 8,042 in 2016.

But, speaking after the result, Mr Enea said: “We’re extremely disappointed with it. We hit the target which we thought would have us in the ball park (more than 10,000 votes), but in the end Labour increased their votes too, and we weren’t where we needed to be.

“I am encouraged, it shows we’re increasing those votes.

“I won’t be standing again – it was a good life experience, but I’ll head back to local politics, which I’m looking forward to.”

Reacting to her win, Ms Bryant said the result showed euphoria around an M4 relief road prior to the election wasn’t “what people thought on the doorsteps”.

“I felt when we were speaking to people on the doorstep, what was coming up was people understood my position that the pandemic had changed things [around the relief road],” she said.

Turnout figures were slightly down on 2016. 43.3 per cent of the constituency voted, down from 44.7. 36.8 people voted in 2011.