Conservatives retain control of Staffordshire County Council as Labour suffer crushing defeat

The Tories won 51 of the 62 seats while Labour dropped to 10 councillors.

One independent, Jill Hood in Stone, was also elected.

It means Philip Atkins' Conservatives won an historic third term.

He said the victory as a 'vote of confidence' in his administration.

He said: "This is confirmation of the good work we have been doing locally. The economy is the most important thing providing jobs for people and ensuring people who need us the most, vulnerable adults, children, the disabled, get the support they need.

“The General Election in my view has not interfered with the local election. Theresa May needs a strong and stable mandate to deal with Brexit, that’s what people on the doors have been telling us.

“I certainly anticipated we would gain a number of seats from the feedback we were getting.

“We distributed around 370,000 leaflets between our 62 candidates .

“The feedback we got was that this was very much an election on local issues."

Labour suffered big losses in Stafford, Cannock Chase, and Tamworth.

In Stafford and Stone, the Conservatives won seven of the nine seats with Labour picking up just one seat and independent Jill Hood won her ward in Stone Urban from Tory Philip Jones.

Labour's Stafford Central Maureen Compton is the party's sole representative in the county town.

There was a turnout of 33.86 per cent in the borough.

There was further heartache In Cannock Chase where the Tories won five of the seven seats available and Labour the remaining two.

Notable casualties were Labour's George Adamson, the leader of Cannock Chase District Council, and Christine Mitchell who lost their seats in Hednesford and Rawnsley to the Tories.

Mr Adamson came third while the Green Party's Paul Woodhead came fourth.

Sue Woodward, who is now the only Labour councillor in Burntwood and Lichfield, said it had been a 'terrible' day for the party and blamed the national issues.

The Labour leader said: "It is very difficult for councillors to buck the national trend. People vote on the national picture.

“This is a message to our leadership they need to listen to what people are saying.

“Not just within the Westminster bubble and not within that M25 circle, but across the whole country.

“We’ve fought a really tough campaign.

“We were working really hard but when the General Election was called I thought it’s going to make it much tougher to get the electorate thinking on local issues when they have got 24/7 media coverage on the national picture."

In South Staffordshire, Conservatives won a clean sweep of all eight councillors.

In Burntwood and Lichfield, the Conservative won seven out of eight seats with just Mrs Woodward’s Burntwood North ward staying with Labour. Elsewhere the Tories won all six seats in Tamworth while in Staffordshire Moorlands they picked up six seats compared to Labour’s one.

In Newcastle-under-Lyme, the Conservatives took six seats while Labour won three.

While in East Staffordshire the Conservatives triumphed with six councillors to Labour’s two. A new cabinet and shadow cabinet will be confirmed on May 25.