The ballot boxes have been packed up, and the local elections are over for another year. While much of the media coverage focused on the London contests, elections were held across the country, including some hard fought and very tough campaigns.
For the Liberal Democrats, overall we gained four councils and 75 councillors, with Three Rivers, Richmond, Kingston and South Cambridgeshire becoming majority Liberal Democrat administrations.
We kept control of Eastleigh, South Lakeland, Sutton, Cheltenham and Watford where we kept the elected Mayor, with Peter Taylor replacing Dorothy Thornhill.
In the ‘Greater North’ the election fight was tough against Labour with also a resurgent Tory party to deal with. Pendle is now Conservative run and in a number of places colleagues lost seats or failed to make the gains they had worked so hard for.
I want to put on record my personal thanks for all for their hard work over the years.
However it was fantastic to see that Liberal Democrats also gained seats in places including Sunderland, Sheffield, Hull, Haringey and Barnsley - where we elected a councillor for the first time in many years.
Seats gained from the Conservatives included Winchester where we are just a couple of seats short of winning control.
Congratulations to those who won their seats and commiserations to those who didn’t win this time round.
We look forward to working with our newly elected Liberal Democrat councils and councillors and making good use of these results to push for Liberal Democrat values within the LGA.