A NEW councillor has told of his delight at finally being elected at the third attempt after two unsuccessful bids.

The third time proved to be a charm for Labour''s Martin McCluskey as he became an elected member for ward five after unsuccessfully standing in the last two Westminster elections.

Councillor McCluskey was beaten by the SNP's Ronnie Cowan in both the 2017 and 2019 UK Parliament elections.

He told the Tele that it was an 'honour' to be chosen to serve the people of Gourock.

Mr McCluskey said: "It was a great feeling.

"To be elected to serve people who are your neighbours and friends, people that you've grown up around, is the biggest privilege you could ever have.

"That was my whole motivation in standing for the last two elections, I wanted to serve the people that live here in this community.

"To finally be able to do that is a privilege and I'm very excited."

Mr McCluskey picked up strong support at the ballot box as he comfortably made it over the line.

He told the Tele: "I couldn't believe that I got in on first preference votes alone, that was one of the things that didn't quite sink in until afterwards.

"All the way through the campaign there was an expectation we'd be relying on second, third or fourth preferences to get in."

The new councillor says he intends to waste no time in cracking on with the job and has already been in touch with Municipal Buildings bosses about he highlighted during his campaign.

He added: "There are three areas I'm focusing on right away.

"The first I would broadly label as 'fixing things' - the job of a local councillor a lot of the time is to sort the broken park gate or the lawn that hasn't been cut in ages.

"If you don't get that stuff right you aren't getting any of it right.

"The second area is the regeneration of Shore Street.

"That was something I spoke about a lot during the campaign and I've already started emailing officers to arrange meetings to sit down with them and discuss it.

"I was clear with people during the campaign that I don't expect quick fixes for big issues so I'm getting down to the work of understanding the history of it.

"I didn't waste any time doing that, I got my computer right away and that was the first email I sent.

"The third thing is the health service.

"I've spent a lot of the time since the 2017 election talking about local health services and that's not something I'm going to stop doing.

"There are big issues around service changes and new health centres in Gourock and elsewhere in Inverclyde.

"They're important things that the Labour group has to pick up on over the next few years."