A North East council has remained an overall majority despite big gains made by Conservatives and big losses for Labour.

Stockton Council is made up of 56 seats, with 53 up for grabs in this year’s election.

The final election result now sees Labour with 22 seats, Conservatives with 23 and eight Independent seats, as parties battled it out to control the council as Labour lost control in 2019.

The other three seats up for election in Hartburn will be decided on June 22, following the death of Reform UK candidate Mike Elliott, however, no party is billed to gain a majority with the requirement of 28 seats.

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Labour had been the largest party on Stockton Council for the past four years, although it lost eight seats and its majority in 2019.

But the Tories had success in byelections, winning four seats in polls in 2021 – holding two seats and taking one independent and one Lib Dem seat.

Following the results, Labour group leader Bob Cook said he was “disappointed” with some of the results.

He said: “We’re just two shy of what we were before. Disappointed with losing Ropner Ward obviously. We took Mandale so we’ve got 22.

“We always knew that a lot of the wards were untested because of the boundary review therefore it’s hard to try and predict what the results were going to be.

“We’ll know we to work on for next time to try to regain that majority on the council.”

Voters headed to the polls across the Tees Valley on Thursday with every seat being contested on four councils – Darlington, Middlesbrough, Stockton and Redcar and Cleveland – and a third of the seats being contested in Hartlepool.

When Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor for the Tees Valley, was first elected in 2017, all five council leaders in the area were Labour. But by the 2019 General Election no council was under overall Labour control.

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Voters headed to the polls across the Tees Valley on Thursday with every seat being contested on four councils – Darlington, Middlesbrough, Stockton and Redcar and Cleveland – and a third of the seats being contested in Hartlepool.

Results will be announced throughout the day on Friday (May 5).

More to follow.