Overnight results

With the first counts in this year's local elections complete it has been a good night for the Lib Dems.

And that goes both nationwide and here in the North West.

On the new council of Cumberland we won four seats - notionally two are holds and two gains.

We gained two seats in Salford, giving us a council group there for the first time in a decade.

In Stockport we gained two seats and moved closer to overall control, with 28 seats to Labour's 25 on a 63 seat council.

We gained a seat in Oldham - the first time we have made a gain there since 2010

In Preston we won three seats - all holds but as last year we lost two of those three to the Conservatives, a definite improvement.

We also held both our seats in Bolton.

In Sefton we held both seats we were defending and the same applies in Wirral.

Lib Dems became the opposition on Sefton and joint second on both Oldham and Halton.

There are many more results to come today!

Elsewhere

Further afield we made gains in many places including taking control of Hull council from Labour. We gain 5 seats in West Oxfordshire - the Conservatives losing control of that council in David Cameron's old patch - and became the largest party in Portsmouth. We increased our majority in Eastleigh and made gains in Merton.