Labour retains control of key southern towns but is losing councillors

Labour has performed better than expected in local council elections around England. Of the 80 councils who have announced their results overnight, 41 have delivered Labour victories.

While the party has lost 25 seats so far, this has only resulted in the loss of control of one council – Dudley – where now no party has overall control.

Labour has retained control of key southern seats Crawley, Southampton, Norwich and Hastings, as well Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and Sunderland.

There are 44 councils still to announce their results. Councils still left to announce did not begin counting votes until this morning, so results are not expected until this afternoon.

When many were predicting much more considerable losses for Labour – of up to 200 council seats – the party is currently exceeding these expectations.

Emma Reynolds, MP for Wolverhampton North East, said the results were “not good enough”, saying the party should aim higher than the results seen.

“We have made done well in some areas, but l don’t think we should be content with either standing still or going backwards in other areas. We should be making significant gains at local elections at this stage in the parliament cycle.”

The Conservatives have performed worst than their party had hoped for, so far only gaining five seats from their previous position. The Conservatives dominate English politics – while Labour were suffering poor predictions, many Tories had hoped for a stronger performance against their opposition.

UKIP has seen the biggest proportional wins, winning 28 seats, gaining 20 of these from other parties.