Former councillor is elected as Wolverhampton MP

A former Herefordshire county councillor has been elected as member of Parliament for a constituency in the Black Country.

Conservative Party member Stuart Anderson, who represented the Kings Acre ward from October 2017 until May this year, will now sit in the House of Commons.

Mr Anderson polled 19,864 ahead of Labour’s Eleanor Smith on 18,203, in the Wolverhampton South West seat.

Speaking before the election, he said he was standing in Wolverhampton because he has personal links to the city.

“I have friends in Wolverhampton and business contacts there I have made through working across the West Midlands,” he said.

The 43-year-old British Army veteran, who served on peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, transferred his skills to the private security industry.

He travelled extensively while conducting a variety of roles from briefing high-ranking officials, to providing diplomatic protection to a foreign prime minister.

His company eTravelSafety is based in Lower Bullingham and shares the same registered address as the Freedom Church.

His firm benefitted from £500,000-worth of funding last year from venture capital company Midven who invested in it through the Midlands Engine Investment Fund.