Lib Dems make gains in council seats for fifth consecutive year. (Warwick & Leamington Liberal Democrats)

Warwick & Leamington Liberal Democrats <info@warwick-leamington-libdems.org.uk>

Lib Dems make gains in council seats for fifth consecutive year.

May 5, 2006 3:54 PM

Liberal Democrats have achieved a higher vote share than in the General Election a year ago - coming ahead of the Labour Party for only the second time.

BBC projected national share of the vote:

Conservatives 40%

Lib Dems 27%

Labour 26%

Liberal Democrats gained:

• Richmond-upon-Thames (from the Conservatives)

• South Lakeland

• St Albans

We lost overall control of Islington but we are the largest party with 50% of the seats (and will effectively retain control with the casting vote of the Mayor). We made a net gain of one council as we also lost Milton Keynes , but we are still the largest party there. We also won half the seats in Rochdale and became the largest party on other councils such as Oxford, Brent, Camden and Woking (where we missed overall control by two votes).

The Liberal Democrat Mayor of Watford (Dorothy Thornhill) was re-elected with 51% of the vote. Liberal Democrats now have overall control of 31 principal local authorities.

Polling Station We gained around 350 seats over the last four years - and we made a slight increase on this total yesterday (+13 according to the BBC at 1.30 pm Friday, with results from 169 out of 176 councils), taking our total number of Councillors to around 4,800.