BBC News
Published
The Conservatives have continued to sweep aside Labour in its traditional north-eastern English heartland.
The party lost control of Durham County Council, which it has run since 1925, losing 15 seats as the Tories took 14.
This follows the Conservatives winning the Hartlepool parliamentary by-election and receiving 73% of the vote in the Tees Valley mayoral election.
But, elsewhere, Labour has kept hold of its mayoralties in London and Greater Manchester.
Most of the results of Thursday s local elections in England are now in.
The Liberal Democrats have won St Albans council, Hertfordshire, which was previously under no overall control.
And the Conservatives have taken Derbyshire s Amber Valley Borough Council from Labour.