Conservative Peter McCall is Cumbria's next Police and Crime Commissioner.

He has won the race to succeed Richard Rhodes, beating his nearest rival by more than 10,000 votes.

In his victory speech he promised to work for all Cumbrians.

Mr McCall won a total of 41,345 votes, beating Labour's Reg Watson who received a total of 30,437.

The two candidates came top of the first round of votes with 32,569 and 22,768 votes respectively. As neither candidate received more than 50 per cent of the overall vote second preference votes were counted and Mr McCall won 8,771 against Mr Watson's 7,669.

The county went to the polls yesterday to pick who will hold the position for the next four years.

There were three other candidates, who were all eliminated after the first round of votes. Loraine Birchall of the Liberal Democrats received 16,053 votes, Mary Robinson, who stood as an independent candidate and won 13,851 votes and Michael Pye for Ukip who got 9,370.

The winner will replace Richard Rhodes, who was elected in 2012 and steps down on May 12.

The final result was be announced in Kendal Leisure Centre today.

There was a 25.61 per cent county turnout for the vote. This is an increase on the 15.6 per cent turnout in 2012.

It was 33.55 per cent in Carlisle and 14.64 per cent in Barrow.

Turnout in Allerdale was 19.97 per cent, Copeland 17.65 per cent, Eden 23.25 per cent and South Lakeland 36.53 per cent.

Mr McCall said: "There is a job of work to be done, I look forward to getting on with it.

"I feel with my army background that I am ideally placed with the right mixture of leadership and the ability to get things done to represent the people of Cumbria in the future of policing in the county."