Saltcoats and Stevenston (ward)

Saltcoats and Stevenston is one of the nine wards used to elect members of North Ayrshire Council. Re-established in 2022, the ward elects five councillors using the single transferable vote electoral system and covers an area with a population of 21,925 people.

The ward was originally created in 2007 and elected four councillors before it was abolished in 2017. It was a Labour stronghold with the party holding half the seats. However, the re-established ward has been split between Labour and the Scottish National Party (SNP) with both parties holding two of the five seats.

Boundaries
The ward was initially created following the Fourth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements ahead of the 2007 Scottish local elections. As a result of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, local elections in Scotland would use the single transferable vote electoral system from 2007 onwards so Saltcoats and Stevenston was formed from an amalgamation of several previous first-past-the-post wards. It contained all of the former Saltcoats East and Stevenston South wards, the eastern halves of the former Saltcoats North and South Beach wards, the southern half of the former Stevenston North ward and a small part of both the Ardrossan North and Kilwinning West wards. As the name suggests, Saltcoats and Stevenston covered the adjoining towns of Saltcoats and Stevenston on the Firth of Clyde coast in the west of mainland North Ayrshire. Following the Fifth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements prior to the 2017 local elections, the ward was abolished in favour of two three-member wards for each town – Saltcoats and Stevenston. However, this was reversed after the introduction of the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 which coincided with the introduction of the Scottish Elections (Reform) Act 2020 which allowed for the creation of five-member wards. The 2019 Reviews of Electoral Arrangements proposed that Saltcoats and Stevenston be re-instated covering a slightly larger area than the original and electing five members instead of four.

2011 by-election
A by-election arose in the Saltcoats and Stevenston ward following the resignation of the Labour Party's David Munn, and Jim Montgomorie held the seat for Labour on 25 August 2011.