After two decades of effective control, the Tories have lost Gloucester City Council.

And while HQ in Innsworth may be breathing a sigh of relief after what happened next door in Cheltenham, the hard light of Friday proved to be difficult as it emerged that the Liberal Democrats had taken 17 of the 39 seats on offer, a result which – bar some unlikely inability to make the right deal – will ease the party into the driving seat for the next four years.

The final results from the count at the University of Gloucestershire's Oxtalls Campus signals an end to two decades of Conservative rule at the council.

In total, the Tories held onto 11 seats in the North Warehouse's Civic Suite, while Labour and the Independents took seven and four respectively.

The new balance of power will see the Lib Dems dominate the local authority and clearly the result marks another prize scalp for the party.

However, despite climbing from two seats in the previous administration, Labour statisticians will take heed from their crop of just seven wins: looking back to Labour's general election win in 2005, the city council then had a presence of eight councillors. 

By coming third in this poll (and despite the success we see nationally), Labour's status on the council - coming as an echo if its fortunes in the simultaneous police and crime commissioner election - will give the party cause for concern.

Recent history reveals how much the pendulum has swung over Gloucester: the council was a Lib-Lab joint administration in 1996-2004 (with just two councillors winning), saw no overall control from then until 2015 and in that year became Tory-led, by a small majority, until 2021, after which the party's majority increased.

Given Gloucester's national prominence as a Bellwether seat, and despite the middling news for Labour, the latest change of power will not dampen speculation for the growing certainty of national political change.