CONSERVATIVE group leader Stewart Miller has pledged that East Renfrewshire Council’s new leading party is willing to form a coalition.

Councillor Miller told the Barrhead News his party will discuss the matter with the SNP and Labour after overtaking the latter as the largest group in the region.

Seven Tory councillors were elected across five wards in last week’s local elections – one more than the party managed in the previous council elections five years ago.

The Nationalists are one councillor better off than in 2012, having secured five seats to push Labour, which won back just half of its eight seats, into third place.

Newton Mearns North and Neilston councillor Tony Buchanan will carry on in his capacity as SNP group leader in East Renfrewshire, while Paul O’Kane will lead the region’s Labour group for the first time.

Two Independent councillors – Danny Devlin and David MacDonald – will fill the remaining two berths in the council chambers.

The final administrative make-up of the local authority is expected to be confirmed in the next couple of weeks.

With no single party able to secure an overall majority, cllr Miller said his party is ready to listen to the views of rival councillors.

The Clarkston, Netherlee and Williamwood representative said: “We’ve got to speak to other groups for the benefit of the residents of East Renfrewshire.”

However, cllr Buchanan has dismissed any notion of his party forming a joint administration with the Tories.

He said: “We have a party line on it and I think our policies are somewhat different, so I would not expect that we would be entering into a coalition.

“Discussions will be ongoing over the next few weeks.

“At the moment, our policy is that we would not be looking to form a coalition with the Conservatives.”

The Conservatives now have a councillor standing in Barrhead for the first time since 1992 when Janette Muir was voted onto Renfrewshire Council before East Renfrewshire came into existence as a local authority four years later.

The Tories out-polled Labour two to one in East Renfrewshire and beat the SNP by almost 6,000 first preference votes in total.

Commenting on the result, the Conservatives' East Renfrewshire parliamentary candidate Paul Masterton said: “Following their third-place defeat here in the Scottish Parliament elections last year, Labour has now fallen even further behind.

“With the Labour party in terminal decline, only a vote for the Scottish Conservatives at the General Election on June 8 will defeat the SNP.”

Eastwood MSP and Scottish Conservative deputy leader Jackson Carlaw added: “Scotland is now a two-party state and Scottish Labour aren’t anywhere to be seen. For many, we are becoming the party of choice and not just a party of protest.”