Local elections 2023: Labour replace Tories as Bolton's biggest party

Labour has replaced the Conservatives as the largest party on Bolton Council but it did not do enough to secure overall control of the local authority.

Labour gained five councillors from 2019 and now has 26, while hyper-local groups also gained ground, but the Tories, who previously ran a minority administration, lost seven to be on 17.

The party won in Rochdale, Manchester, Salford, Trafford, Bury and Tameside.

However, in Oldham, its win included the council leader losing her seat.

Independent candidates fared very strongly in Bolton, gaining three additional seats.

Eleven of the town's 60 councillors are now independents, while the Liberal Democrats' position was unchanged, with them still having six councillors.

No party has had overall control in Bolton since Labour ceded its majority five years ago.

In Salford, Labour remained dominant, with 49 of the city's 60 councillors, with the remainder being eight Tories, two Lib Dems and one independent.

The party comfortably retained Manchester and Trafford, winning in 30 and 31 seats respectively, while in Tameside, it took two seats from the Conservatives and one from the Green Party to hold 51 of the 57 seats.

It also added three seats to its majority in Rochdale, with the Middleton Independents losing two seats while the Conservatives lost one.

The party also kept hold of Bury, taking two extra seats, one from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats each, and comfortably held Wigan, with 61 seats.

However, in Oldham, its overall victory included losing three seats, one each to the Conservatives, Lib Dems and an independent.

One of those losses was Amanda Chadderton, who became the third council leader in three years to lose their seat.

In Stockport, the Lib Dems were the largest single party, but fell short of a majority by two seats.

Analysis by Kevin Fitzpatrick, Greater Manchester political reporter, BBC News

It was a night not even the optimists in Bolton's Labour party had been predicting as they replaced the Conservatives as the borough's largest party.

The Conservatives' leader suggested a year of chaos in the national party had made the swing against them inevitable.

Bolton's famous for its hyper-local parties and they generally held their own while the Horwich and Blackrod First Independents shot up from two councillors to six.

Bolton was the only Conservative-led council in Greater Manchester and will be seen as a key battleground at the next general election.

As Labour begins discussions about leading a new minority administration, this result will have pleased them and worried the Tories in equal measure.

Asked whether he expected to lead Bolton Council, Labour's Nick Peel told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he would ask the independent parties and the Liberal Democrats not to "prop up a lame duck Tory administration that has now been rejected".

"If they do that, then yes, I do expect to form an administration," he said.

Mr Peel added that the result had been "bittersweet" for his party.

"We made nine gains but we just lost two to the independents in Horwich, so it's a net increase of seven," he said.

"Clearly where it was a Labour versus Conservative battleground, we've done very well, [but] where we were up against independents, less so.

"We were aware of this during the campaign and failed to get our message across that it was the independents who were propping up a Conservative council."

It was a resoundingly successful night for Horwich and Blackrod First Independents, who gained seats from both Labour and Conservatives to win all six seats up for grabs in that area.

Group leader David Grant said the people of Horwich had "shown they will not go along with the rhetoric of the main parties".

"They have put faith in localism as they have seen it work with the two previous councillors and wanted to see what we could do with six," he said.

"This will give us a platform to get investment into Horwich and Blackrod and give us a bigger say."

Mr Grant said that in four years, Labour had not had discussions with his party and that "the ball is in their court if they want to speak to us".

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