Liberal Democrats have most gains in English Council Elections

Elections were held in 124 English councils on 5 May. Final results for 120 are available. The others are expected over the weekend.

Council results
Party	Councils		Seats
	Total	+/-Net change	Total	+/-Net change
Labour	57	−1	1,291	−23
Conservative	36	0	769	−38
Liberal Democrat	4	+1	342	+39
Independent	0	0	76	−3
UKIP	0	0	58	+26
Green Party	0	0	33	0
Residents	0	0	18	+5
Liberal	0	0	4	−1
Respect	0	0	0	−5
No Overall Control	23	0	0	0
After 120 of 124 councils

Some Highlights

Lib Dems gain seat in Sunderland

Lib Dems gain two seats and hold seven seats in Hull

Former MP Leech elected as Councillor

Former Manchester Withington MP John Leech has been elected as councillor for Didsbury ward. He will be the sole voice of opposition on Manchester City Council.

John said:

In 2005 I promised not to give up on the residents of Manchester Withington. I haven't and I'm not going to. I will continue to fight for south Manchester as I always have done. I'm not going anywhere.

I couldn't be happier to be back on the council and back in a position to help local residents.

Tim Farron said:

John is one of the hardest working people I've ever known and I am absolutely thrilled that his much needed voice is back on Manchester council. Where you work, you win. I am absolutely delighted that he is back where he belongs. This is a well deserved, long awaited and overwhelming triumph.

Being elected to Manchester council is an absolute privilege that I have never, and wouldn't ever, take for granted.

Mark Hunter storms to victory in Stockport

Lib Dems gain seat in Rochdale from Labour

Lib Dems win every council seat in Southport for the first time since 1858

Lib Dem gain from Labour in Bury

Janneke Calle	Green	139
Paddy Heneghan	Labour	1463
Nicholas Jones	Conservative	280
Steve Wright *	Liberal Democrats	1733
Angela Zwierzanski	UK Independence Party	229

Effective electorate: 8561.
Spoiled votes: 8
Poll: 45.0%.

Liberal Democrats gain Holyrood Ward from Labour

Liberal Democrat success in Liverpool

By Kris Brown | Sat 7th May 2016 - 11:45 am

I tend not to write pieces for political websites as I don't consider myself a great writer and often shy away from the challenge.

However, I couldn't resist an opportunity to talk about, and thank our many volunteers, for the excellent results we had in Liverpool on Thursday night and Friday morning.

First, a bit of context. When I became Chair at the end of 2014, the Liberal Democrats in Liverpool were facing an enormous challenge. Once the largest Lib Dem groups in Europe could soon face having just one councillor left with Erica Kemp CBE. As brilliant as she is, I'm sure she wouldn't have enjoyed the council on her own. So we put in place a strategy to identify a number of different wards where we could hold and finish a strong second - not just spread our resources too thinly across the city. We decided that a huge door-knocking effort would be to key to success alongside lots of hard hitting leaflets. The result was holding on to Richard Kemp CBE with an increased majority and a good result in our target wards going forward.

A year on, nearly 11,000 doors knocked and hundreds of thousands of leaflets delivered we have reaped the rewards of our strategy.

Richard Kemp secured 21.1% of the Mayoral vote (up from 6% previously), finishing second and cutting into the 'gutter politics' Labour Mayor's vote, and finishing well above the Greens.

In the City Council elections we gained Woolton, Allerton and Hunts Cross from Labour and held on to Church Ward (the ward we held on with Richard in 2015) with a 1,400+ majority.

Cllr Malcolm Kelly, Cllr Mirna Juarez and Cllr Andrew Makinson should all be proud of their campaigns.

In the Police and Crime Commissioner election Chris Carubia finished a strong third with a big increase in our vote and held on to the £5000 deposit!

In the wards where we made gains, it's clear that a number of things made the difference. Door-knocking was key to feeding Connect with accurate information. We identified lots of Tory voters who we could squeeze to ensure victory. Our literature was superb. Andrew Makinson should win an award for the excellent newspapers and leaflets he designed.

Treating postal vote polling week seriously was so important and for a whole week we did nothing else but knock on postal voters.

This weekend I'm sure our team will want to rest and try to return to a state of normality. However, in a couple of days I will be meeting with our executive to decide on how best we can use our resources to ensure we stay in the European Union in the upcoming referendum.

I can't thank our candidates, members and volunteers enough for all their hard work. I know that if we keep up the same momentum we can make more gains in city council elections in 2018.

* Kris Brown is Chair of the Liverpool Liberal Democrats. Kris was also agent for Richard Kemp (Mayoral candidate), Chris Carubia (PCC candidate) and the majority of city council candidates

++Lib Dems GAIN Watford - Tories wiped out!

The final result from Watford today:

25 LD,

11 Lab,

0 Con.

Lib Dems gain 7,

Lib Dems hold control of Eastleigh

Lib Dems win all 13 seats in Eastleigh constituency. New council:

38 Lib Dem

6 Con.

Lib Dems gain Portsmouth's Nelson ward from Labour

Lib Dems gain two seats to win over half of the seats contested in Portsmouth

Portsmouth final council results

Lib Dem 8

Cons 4,

Lab 2,

UKIP zero.

Lib Dems "over the moon" in Gosport

THREE Liberal Democrat gains saw the party grow in Gosport.

Now the party has nine councillors, after plucking two wards from the Conservatives and one from Labour.

New councillors Dawn Kelly, Richard Earle and Angela Prickett were victorious as the Tory majority shrank.

Lib Dem leader Peter Chegwyn said: 'I'm over the moon.

'It's a fantastic night for us.'

Great election results for LDV team members

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th May 2016 - 9:39 am

Two members of the LDV team were standing for election on Thursday.

Joe Otten has faced the electorate two years running. He was up for election at the end of his four year cycle last year and Sheffield had all-ups this year after new boundaries came in.

The result was impressive:

The three Liberal Democrats were 2000 votes ahead of their nearest Labour rivals. That's a vote of confidence if ever there was one.

Joe wasn't so lucky in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, but he put up a good, liberal, sensible fight and retained his deposit. He narrowly missed out on 3rd place behind Labour, UKIP and the Tories.

Meanwhile in St Albans, Chris White retained his seat with more than half the vote.

Well done to both of them. They are both fantastic councillors and it's great to see their hard work rewarded with such a hefty public endorsement.