A Labour group leader has told of his disappointment following the local election results, but says he is talking with other groups about what happens next.

Councillor Bob Cook, leader of Stockton’s Labour group, said: “I’m meeting other groups today to see what their thoughts are. We’ll probably know later today at some point what’s happening, what we can work out.

“That’s all I can say at the moment. It’ll be decided with the other groups.”

The Labour group lost overall control of the council in 2019 and, with Conservative gains in last week’s local elections, it is now no longer the largest party in the authority. Labour retained 22 seats, the same number as before, but lost Ropner to Conservative candidates Shakeel Hussain and Sufi Mubeen, while taking Mandale & Victoria from Independents Maurice Perry and Bob Woodhead.

Cllr Cook said: “I think we’re all upset that we lost Ropner. It’s been one of our seats for many a year. We have our group meeting on Wednesday so I’ll need to listen to people’s thoughts.

“We lost Ropner which was disappointing but that’s the way of politics, isn’t it? You win some and you lose some. I’m sure we’ll work to win that back in the future.”

He put some of the results down to changes in electoral boundaries, which created new wards and altered many others, adding and taking away seats from different areas. His opponent Conservative group leader Cllr Tony Riordan said he felt it had levelled the playing field.

“Obviously the Boundary Commission didn’t help because it put extra seats in some of the Conservative wards,” added Cllr Cook. “It put extra seats in the south of the borough. So they’ve had a number of seats without actually having to fight for them really.

“Before we started we lost two seats, one in Newtown and one in Billingham North. I think we did well to gain Mandale & Victoria.”

The Stockton Council election count at Thornaby Pavilion Picture: GARETH LIGHTFOOT

The Stockton Council election count at Thornaby Pavilion Picture: GARETH LIGHTFOOT

Asked whether he felt the Conservatives’ message had cut through with gains for seven Tory candidates, he said: “It seems that they were running a fairly negative campaign. They didn’t really come out until maybe a week before the election with what they were going to do if they got elected. They never really said that.”

It appears the Thornaby Independent Association (TIA) and Ingleby Barwick Independent Society (IBIS) will hold an important role in deciding the future leadership of the council. Cllr Cook said he had worked to achieve consensus in the last minority administration, “making sure the council agree on what we put through so we don’t have too many arguments”, though there had been no formal partnership.

“It depends on who they work with,” he said today. “It’s different this time because we’re not the biggest group so we’ve obviously got to work with groups if they want to work with us.

“I’m meeting the TIA and IBIS this week so we’ll see what they’ve got to say.”

Cllr Kevin Faulks, leader of the IBIS group which holds three seats, said: “I’m not giving anything away yet. People want meetings with us.

“We’ll just have to wait and see. We haven’t made our minds up what we’re going to do, but we’ll be having talks with Bob and the chief executive wants to speak to us and see what way we want to go with the council.

“We’ve already had a big IBIS meeting. I’m hoping to let people know where we’re going over the next 24, 48 hours.”

But he said “I can’t see how we’d support the Tories” after he was unhappy with things said about his group during the election campaign. He added: “It’s just been the worst campaign I’ve known for people attacking us. Criticising us all the time, and then they want us to join them.”