North Yorkshire County Council: Conservatives retain control

Counting began at about 10:00 BST across North Yorkshire following Thursday's poll

The Conservatives have retained control of North Yorkshire County Council after winning 45 out of 72 seats.

Labour gained six seats, taking its total to seven, while the UK Independence Party (UKIP) won its first two seats in the county.

The Liberal Democrats won eight seats, one less than in 2009, and the number of independent councillors dropped from 14 to eight.

The Conservatives will elect a new leader of the council next week.

Conservative councillor and current leader John Weighall, who held his Bedale seat with 53% of the vote, said the result was "probably better than we dared hope".

"I'm very, very pleased indeed. The one thing we were hoping would happen was that local issues would come to the fore rather than national ones, and that is what happened," he said.

Sam Cross, the new UKIP councillor for Filey, said: "I'm part of the biggest growing party in the UK, lots of people are joining.

"Whereas other parties' membership is falling, and people have no confidence in the politicians any more, they have full confidence in me as an independent, and they have full confidence in the UK Independence Party."

Roy Hutchings, secretary of the North Yorkshire Labour Party, said he was delighted with its seven seats after managing to win only one in 2009.

He said: "We actually regained councillors that we lost in 2009 which is very important.

"Labour in North Yorkshire is mostly Scarborough and Selby to be absolutely honest, and the rest of the county has not had a Labour representative at any level.

"It tells us how important Labour is to people who perhaps are not as affluent as in some parts of the county."

Full results have been published on the BBC website and on the council's website.