Last Thursday night, Worthing's Conservative group leader, Brian Lynn, claimed a moral victory for his party because, despite losing control of Worthing Borough Council to the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives had received a greater number of votes cast.

Councillor Lynn may be surprised to hear some support from me, one of the winning Lib-Dem candidates, but his point - that the present first-past-the-post system can deny parties and voters a wholly fair result - is a true one.

That this time around it is the Conservatives who have suffered does not change my conviction that the system is flawed and needs to be changed.

In fact, the Conservatives, with 44.9 per cent of the vote and 41.7 per cent of the seats, were not the worst victims of the current system.

The Labour Party, with 7.6 per cent of the votes and no seats, and the Green party, with 3.5 per cent of the vote and again no seats, suffered far more from the inequity of first-past-the-post.

If the whole council was elected equitably on Thursday night's votes, we would have a council of 16 Liberal Democrats, 16 Conservatives, three Labour and one Green - the council the people voted for.

It is sad for people in wards such as Goring that the ward is so "safe" for one party a vote for any other will always be wasted.

In Goring, 724 people, almost one-third of the votes cast, were for a Liberal Democrat. Under any fair system that should entitle us to one-third of the Goring council representation, yet that number could have doubled without any chance of a Liberal Democrat councillor being returned. So Liberal Democrat voters in Goring - and Conservative voters in Broadwater - are once again without representation.

Coun Lynn should not assume his party is always the victim of inequity.

Only one of the five winning Tory candidates (20 per cent) was a woman, compared to the Liberal Democrats' three out of seven (43 per cent), so the Tories still have some work to do on equality.

Fairer voting systems are already used in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and in European elections.

The results of May 2 show the people of Worthing deserve the same opportunity to make their votes count and their voices heard.

-James Doyle, Selden ward councillor, Liberal Democrats