Stoke-on-Trent: Labour seizes back control of city council

Labour is back in control of Stoke-on-Trent City Council after winning the 23 seats it needed to take it from the Conservatives.

Cheers rang out at Fenton Manor Sports Complex as candidates won seat after seat from independents.

Labour was last in charge in the city in 2015 and had targeted the council as a key authority to win.

The Conservatives had been running the council as a minority administration.

The election turned that on its head, with Labour claiming 29 seats to the Conservatives' 14 and one independent.

Leader of the Labour group Jane Ashworth said she felt "honoured to be given the opportunity to lead a city".

She said she believed there had been "discontent and disheartenment" with the Conservative administration in Stoke-on-Trent.

"I think we found tonight that people who'd voted for all the different parties in the last few years have returned to Labour," she added.

Former Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North Baroness Anderson - Ruth Smeeth - said moments after her party took control: "People have come home to the Labour Party."

She said voters had told candidates the "Conservative party had betrayed them - that's what we were getting on the doors".

There was still a "huge amount of work to do for the general election", Baroness Anderson said, but she added: "From tomorrow, my city is red.

"Tonight is the first stepping stone to taking my city," she said defiantly, having lost her seat to the Conservatives in 2019.

After the count, Stoke-on-Trent South Tory MP Jack Brereton read a statement on behalf of former Conservative leader Abi Brown.

The party had been hurt by "a collapse in the independents", he said, adding that in many wards the Conservatives had maintained their vote share.

The Labour Party is very, very happy here - its message of change seems to have got through to voters.

It has poured the resources into Stoke-on-Trent and it was a crucial place to win seats.

Sir Keir Starmer and a lot of the top Labour team have been here campaigning and it certainly seems to have paid off.

Many seats have been taken from the independents, who for years have been a force to be reckoned with across the city.

But the attention from the Labour Party has worked - and now it's back in power after eight years.

The Conservatives also lost control of Tamworth Council, which went to no overall control.

Tories lost six seats although they remain the biggest party with 14.

"Nationally and locally we've had a very difficult 12 months and I think the electorate have responded to that and voted as they see fit today," their leader Jeremy Oates said.

"We've had a number of issues to tackle so I did not quite see it coming to this extent, but that's the cycle of politics."

The chair of the Labour group in Tamworth, Chris Bain, said the result was astonishing.

"This will send shockwaves throughout the Conservative Party in the whole of Staffordshire, so we are delighted with this result," he said.

"We are a serious party of government and a serious party in councils."