Labour have taken control of City of York Council after a dramatic day of election results which saw two party leaders and a Lord Mayor all lose their seats.

At just after 5pm yesterday, Labour won all three seats in Holgate ward – a result that carried them to 24 seats, giving them a knife-edge majority of just one.

The result was greeted with a huge cheer at York Racecourse, where the count was being held.

The Liberal Democrats finished on 19 seats, the Conservatives on three, and there was one independent. The Greens lost all their seats – including that of Green leader Andy D’Agorne.

Elated labour leader Cllr Claire Douglas pledged that now the job of providing a 'fresh start' for York can begin.

People would be expecting Labour to deliver, she admitted – and deliver they would. “It will be hard graft: but that is what Labour is about.”

“After eight years (of Labour being out of power in York) we are really keen to get on with the job of implementing our policies,” she said. "We can't wait to get started."

Those policies will include reversing the ‘blue badge ban’, providing free school meals for every child in York – and ensuring that all housing built on council-owned land will be ‘genuinely affordable’.

She also pledged that Labour would adopt the Local Plan drafted under the previous Lib Dem/ Green administration.

“We need a local plan as quickly as possible,” she said. “A plan that is not optimal is better than no plan at all.”

Cllr Douglas says she will be the first-ever woman leader of a unified authority in York.

She said 13 of the 24 Labour councillors are women.

“And I want there to be a majority of women on the Executive,” Cllr Douglas said. “Then women can feel confident that their voices are being listened to in York.”

A clearly disappointed Cllr Nigel Ayre, the Lib Dem leader, said: "Clearly, nationally, Labour has been at its highest poll rating for quite an amount of time, and that has played heavily into the result that we have seen here in York today.

“I think a lot of the people that we spoke to on the doorstep almost felt like they were voting in a general election. I think that has helped drive up the Labour vote."

He said his group's job would be to hold Labour to account.

"There were a lot of very bold promises made in this election," he said. "Our job will be to make sure that if they are not being delivered to the electorate, we are pointing out where they are not being delivered.”

Green leader Andy D’Agorne, who lost his own Fishergate seat in one of the early results announced yesterday and whose party failed to win a single seat, admitted: "This is not the way I would have wanted to end 20 years as a councillor.”

Conservative group leader Paul Doughty also lost his Strensall seat – although his group picked up one seat overall, to finish with three.

He said it would now be up to the three Conservative councillors to decide who should lead the group going forward.

In another shock result yesterday, Lord Mayor David Carr, who was an independent, lost his seat in Copmanthorpe.

It was taken by Chris Steward – a gain for the Conservatives.