Labour has maintained its tight grip on Manchester council - despite losing seats to the Lib Dems and the Greens at the local elections. Left with 88 councillors, the ruling party remains the largest Labour group in the country.
But the party has been wiped out in Woodhouse Park, where a third Green councillor won in the Wythenshawe ward. The Lib Dems gained two more members, beating Labour in Ancoats and Beswick and Didsbury West.
Newly-elected Lib Dem councillor Chris Northwood beat incumbent Majid Dar by 335 votes to become the city's first openly transgender councillor. Across Manchester, turnout increased slightly with 25.49 per cent of registered voters voting.
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It comes after new rules requiring voters to present photo identification came into force for the first time in all local elections across England. The number of people turned away from polling stations in Manchester is understood to be in the hundreds, but the majority were said to have come back and voted later.
Manchester's Labour council leader Bev Craig said it was too early to say what the impact of the new voter ID rules had been. But she said there should have been a 'surge' in voting as turnout typically increases as general elections approach.
Reflecting on the results, she said she is 'pleased' about Labour's performance in Manchester and across the country. She expressed disappointment over the three seats Labour lost in the city, but praised the candidates who came close.
She said: "Often people joke that Manchester is Labour dominated, but we live in a democracy. No Labour leader can expect to hold all the seats, all the time.
"It's always sad to see a colleague go, but the Labour group is buoyant. We've had a good result and we're committed to working with colleagues across Greater Manchester and the country to get a Labour government."
The closest contest was in Woodhouse Park where the Greens gained a seat from Labour by a margin of 146 votes. The winner, Anastasia Wiest, who is now Manchester's fourth Green councillor, said the result was 'really close'.
She said: "We were on tenterhooks literally right up until the last minute, I had no idea until we actually came and they read it out. It was very, very tense."
The newly-elected councillor takes over from Labour veteran Eddy Newman who was the ruling group's last remaining councillor in Woodhouse Park. The former MEP who was first elected to Manchester council in 1979 - the same day Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister - is standing down.
'Disappointed' by the result in Woodhouse Park, the former Lord Mayor of Manchester criticised the Greens' campaign in the Wythenshawe ward. He said that the Greens' local election campaign, which featured visits from the party's national leadership in the ward, had 'very little to do with party policies'.
He compared the campaign to those of the hyper-local independent parties such as in Middleton, Farnworth and Radcliffe. And he accused the Greens of 'wrongly' claiming that the Labour-run council does not work for the ward.
However, Manchester's Green leader Astrid Johnson said the campaign was 'positive'. She put the victory down to the party's visible presence in the ward.
She said: "We ran an entirely positive campaign about the work we're doing in the ward and how hard Greens work for their residents and they rewarded that with incredible trust and an incredible win."
The Lib Dems won a second seat in Ancoats and Beswick - their fourth in total - with Chris Northwood unseating Labour incumbent Majid Dar. Winning with a majority of 335, Chris is believed to be the city's first openly trans councillor.
Speaking after the results were declared, she said she felt 'overwhelmed' and 'honoured'. She described Ancoats and Beswick as 'very loving' and 'caring communities' which want to elect people who care about the place they live in.
As a trans woman, she said she has faced some hostility online during the election campaign. But she described the result as an 'historic moment'.
She said: "Manchester's a very metropolitan and diverse city. I think at the moment given the wider trans discourse can be quite hostile towards us, it's great that I'm able to stand up and say here I'm a whole person, I'm not just a trans woman.
"I care about my community and everything like that. That's something I'm able to do, but also reflect who I am as well as a new and more diverse voice on the council."
The Lib Dems also won in Didsbury West where former councillor Richard Kilpatrick won back a seat at the council, beating Labour by 213 votes. The seat was last won by Greg Stanton who stood for the Lib Dems four years ago.
However, after defecting to Labour in 2020, he decided not to run for re-election two months before the vote. Leslie Bell, who was selected by the ruling group to stand in the swing seat just six weeks ago, narrowed the majority in the ward which John Leech won by nearly 900 votes last year.
In his victory speech, Coun Kilpatrick thanked his Lib Dem colleagues for their support during the election campaign. He said: "For me, this is a local victory.
"This is a victory for someone who comes from the community, who works hard for the community and even after we lost this seat and I lost my seat back in 2021, I don't give up – the Liberal Democrats do not give up.
"We will continue to fight hard across Manchester. We've made two incredible gains today and we will be an opposition party here in Manchester.
"I want to thank all the voters in Didsbury West who consistently believe that this city is desperate for opposition, that this city and Didsbury itself deserves local representation and a hard working local team."
The final make up of Manchester council after the local elections is:
- Labour: 88
- Greens: 4
- Lib Dems: 4
Greater Manchester local election results 2023
Here are all the local election results where you live in Greater Manchester:
- Manchester: Full local election results
- Bolton: Full local elections results
- Bury: Full local election results
- Stockport: Full local election results
- Trafford: Full local election results
- Oldham: Full local election results
- Salford: Full local election results
- Rochdale: Full local election results
- Tameside: Full local election results
- Wigan: Full local election results
