LABOUR enjoyed a good night in several of the North-East elections held yesterday.

The party held Gateshead, South Tyneside, Sunderland and Newcastle, where the Liberal Democrats gained two seats.

Sunderland produced an unsurprising result with Labour retaining all but one of its seats.

But the British National Party (BNP) showed signs of serious opposition in two wards, beating the Conservatives in Town End Farm and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in Southwick. The Conservatives gained one seat from Labour in St Peter's Ward.

Councillor Colin Anderson, the leader of Sunderland City Council, said: "It's a really wonderful night for Labour and for Sunderland.

"We were defending four seats vigorously, and we won two easily and the other two without a problem."

But he expressed concern over the BNP, saying: "The BNP vote was a surprise, but not entirely unexpected.

"In terms of democracy it's of some concern."

Coun Anderson hinted that the low turnout might lead to postal votes being considered for forthcoming elections.

"The vote was slightly up - people seemed a bit more interested, but we will have to seriously consider postal votes," he said.

The North-East appeared to have defied the national trend towards low turnouts.

Although many areas around Britain recorded poor returns, Gateshead and South Tyneside witnessed high levels of interest.

Gateshead Borough Council estimated a turnout in its first postal vote of 57 per cent, better than the General Election and recent ballot box council elections, which saw turnouts in the region of 30 per cent.

In neighbouring South Tyneside, an estimated 52 per cent of voters turned out.

Today, Middlesbrough will learn if former Cleveland detective Ray Mallon has been elected as its mayor with a turnout of 41 per cent.

Nationally, Labour seemed to have suffered some early setbacks, but the Conservatives appeared well short of the breakthrough they needed to give them a realistic hope of forcing Tony Blair from power at the next General Election.

On a night when the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were hoping to capitalise on disillusionment with the Government, and pick up substantial numbers of seats, there were early gains for the Tories in the capital.

But as results from around England started to come in, BBC1's Vote 2002 programme calculated at 11pm that Labour had a 34 per cent share of the overall vote, the Tories 34 per cent, the Liberal Democrats 27 per cent and other parties five per cent.

Compared with last year's General Election, that meant Labour was down eight per cent, the Liberal Democrats were up 8.2 per cent, the Conservatives were up 1.3 per cent, and others were down 1.5 per cent.

The British National Party - widely feared to emulate French far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen and chalk up significant gains - failed to make an early impact.