Labour's Ros Jones - who held onto her role as mayor of Doncaster by 698 votes - tells the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg the result shows Keir Starmer's government needs to listen to voters.

"I think the results here tonight will demonstrate that they need to be listening to the man, woman and businesses on the street and actually deliver for the people with the people," she says.

Has the prime minister been listening so far, Kuenssberg asks.

"On certainly two or three occasions, I would say no they haven't actually realised," Jones says, pointing to cuts to winter fuel payments, changes to welfare, and raising employers' National Insurance.

Cabinet minister Peter Kyle responds, saying the government is "getting an awful lot of things right and making an awful lot of things better".

Seven of nine council areas in the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral race have now declared. Reform's Andrea Jenkyns has come on top for all of them.

Declarations are expected after 06:00 BST.

It's been a long night for vote counters across England, with several very (very) tight election contests:

• Labour has won mayoral races in North Tyneside, the West of England, and Doncaster, with Reform a close second in each contest
• A full recount is taking place in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election after initial counts put Reform ahead by just four votes
• Reform is predicted to win Greater Lincolnshire's mayoral race - its candidate is the former Conservative minister Andrea Jenkyns

• Across England, Reform has won more than half of the first 100 council seats to be declared - but there are many more to come

Here's some reaction from Reform UK's Arron Banks, who just lost to Labour's Helen Godwin for the West of England Combined Authority mayoralty.

"This was our least likely place to win and we came up 6,000 votes short," he says.

"There is a tidal wave going on in the UK at the moment. We have seen Reform victory after Reform victory.

"It looks like Bristol liked Banksy after all. And we beat the Greens."

Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert

All three mayoral positions that Labour have won tonight have been won on low shares of the vote.

The party won just 30% in North Tyneside and just 25% in both the West of England and Doncaster.

In all three contests, the first three candidates got more than 20% of the vote.

We can now bring you the divide of votes in the West of England mayoral race, which Labour won just moments ago.

It won with 25% of the vote, with Reform nipping at its heels at 21.1%

The Greens' share of the vote was 2 points down on 2021, trailing Reform on 20%.

Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert

Labour have narrowly managed to hold the Doncaster mayoralty.

However their share of the vote is down 11 points since 2021. The 2.5 point drop in the Conservative vote is a relatively good result for the Conservatives as compared with most of the elections reported tonight.

Again, they squeeze past Reform, who finish second.

We'll have more details in our next post.

Labour's Helen Godwin has just been announced as the winner of the West of England mayoral race, beating Reform's Arron Banks, who came second.

We could be getting a flurry of updates in the next few minutes - we've just heard the Doncaster mayoral result could be announced in the next 10 minutes.

We're hearing that the result of the West of England mayoral contest will be announced in five minutes' time.

Stay with us as we bring you that result as it's announced - and remember you can watch live at the top of the page.

Reform leader Nigel Farage is celebrating the close contest in Runcorn and Helsby - which, as a reminder, is still to be called.

"Reform UK have won the Runcorn & Helsby by-election by 4 votes! Labour have demanded a recount. We are very confident we have won," Farage writes.

The Reform candidate running for West of England mayor, Arron Banks, says that while no-one knows what the result will be, Reform is doing better than expected.

"It reflects what is going on right across the country," he says. "There's a wider feeling of discontent with both major parties and a breakdown of two-party politics."

He jokes that he said to the Green candidate Mary Page they were "kind of the rebel alliance".

Aidan McNamee
Data journalist, BBC Verify

With Reform UK apparently only four votes ahead, Runcorn and Helsby could see one of the smallest majorities since 1945 - and the narrowest of any by-election.

The narrowest by-election win was in the 1973 Berwick-upon-Tweed by-election, where the Liberals won by only 57 votes.

Since 1945, the record for tightest majority in any parliamentary election is two votes - this has happened twice: when the Liberal Democrats won Winchester in 1997 and when the SNP won North East Fife in 2017.

Further back, the closest ever result came during the 1886 election in Ashton-under-Lyne when a dead tie forced the returning officer to cast a winning vote for the Conservative candidate.

The last time this happened was in the 2017 Northumberland county council election, where Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had to draw straws for overall control of the council.

With a recount underway, we'll have to wait and see if Runcorn and Helsby sets a new parliamentary record.

Lucy Ashton
Reporting from Doncaster

In a twist, it seems the Conservatives have re-entered the race at Doncaster racecourse - site of the Doncaster mayoral count.

For most of the night, we thought it was quite close between Labour and Reform, but since the counting of the postal votes, there seems to be a surge for the Conservatives.

So it seems that this have gone from a very, very tight race between two parties to a tight race between three parties.

There is also a slight quirk in that two candidates have the surname Jones - incumbent Labour mayor Ros Jones and Reform candidate Alexander Jones.

It's making it quite hard for us because we keep hearing "Jones" mentioned but we don't know which they're talking about.

Damian Grammaticas
Reporting from Widnes

A Reform UK official tells the BBC the first count put their party four votes ahead of Labour.

They add that Labour asked for the full recount that’s now happening.

Separately, two other party officials confirm that Reform UK were four votes ahead of Labour on the first count.

Kaleigh Watterson
Reporting from Widnes

So a recap of what's happened in Runcorn and Helsby this evening and this morning.

A full recount has been confirmed. This is after some papers were rechecked earlier.

Sources from parties said there were just four votes in it.

The counting team, the gathered press and the candidates and their teams are going to be here in the DCBL Stadium for a fair bit longer now.

It's also worth noting that we still haven't seen the Labour and Reform candidates here. And there was talk of Nigel Farage arriving too, but again, we've not seen him.

As for me, I've decamped to the press room to open my emergency Skittles. Election nights always require some extra snacks as you never know what could happen!

With just four votes apparently separating the frontrunners in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, officials say there is to be a full recount.

This means the official result will be significantly delayed.

Damian Grammaticas
Reporting from Widnes

I've just been told something interesting from one of the parties involved - it's being said there are just four votes separating the Runcorn and Helsby race.

This hasn't been officially confirmed, but indications are that Reform are four votes ahead of Labour in this by-election.

Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert

On the basis of the three councils declared so far, the BBC is predicting that Reform will win the Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty.