Sir Peter Bottomley believes he has already solved West Sussex's chronic school issues as he was re-elected in a comfortable Tory win.

He remains the only man ever to have represented the constituency of West Worthing having held his seat for 20 years but refused to acknowledge there were education problems that needed to be addressed.

With thousands of school spaces needed and with pupils receiving well below the national average in funding, there is undoubtedly Is to be dotted and Ts to be crossed, but not according to the Conservative party member.

'It's no secret,' he said, 'Most of it comes down to hard work and solving the major problems.

'We've solved the hospital problems when Labour tried to wreck it, we've solved the education problems with West Sussex County Council.

'We now need to solve the A27.'

Bottomley secured 30,181 votes, an increase of four percentage points from 51% last time round.

But the resurgent national Labour march was echoed at West Worthing with Rebecca Cooper more than doubling her party's efforts two years ago with 18,091 votes up from Jim Deen's 7,955 in the last General Election.

Liberal Democrat Hazel Thorpe won the race for third place with 2,982 with Greens' Benjamin Cornish gaining 1,614 and Ukip's Mark Withers withering from 9,269 in 2015 to just 1,635 this time.

Cooper said she would remain in politics and that the country and the county was witnessing a sea of change.

The count was overseen by armed police inside the building as security remains on high alert after the London Bridge and Manchester Arena rocking Britain in the past fortnight.

Earlier in the day, voting was tarnished by a grim event at a polling station in Tarring where a man hurled death threats at an Asian former Tory councillor.

Vino Vinojan was voting blue at the Tarring Priory Bowls Club in Church Road when he was set upon by his attacker, who pointed at him and shouted in his face, 'What happened to Jo Cox will happen to you', referring to the Labour MP's murder on the eve of the Brexit vote last summer.

The unsavoury incident was witnessed by former Worthing Mayor Bob Smytherman, who said the incident was disgraceful on a day of democracy.

Bottomley, trying to shake off any complacency, said: 'My aim was to get more votes and a bigger share of the votes, we've done both.

'It's not a safe seat - when I was selected to run here, the council was liberal controlled, the town was liberal controlled - they aren't now.

'Many people who regarded as natural Conservative voters vote with us, I can't say they vote for us, for a country that includes all - age, sex, disability, race, background, faith.

'A good political approach is like a good newspaper.

'You can't expect them to agree with everything you say but you expect them to go along with most of the things you do.'