There has already been a shock for Labour in the elections for local councils in Wales before the majority of the votes have been counted.

Most of the votes cast in the local government elections in Wales will be counted on Friday morning when the ballot boxes which contain the votes for the Welsh Assembly are also opened.

However, one of the five councils due to have their results declared on Friday night was Wrexham which provided a premature shock for the Labour Party.

The result of the poll in Wrexham caused Labour to lose its control of the local authority.

It means Labour now has exactly half of the members in the local council.

Deselected members

They had 34 seats in the old council but finished the night down eight, to 26.

Three former party members who were deselected after failing the new test for representing communities on the council returned to the authority as independent Labour candidates against official party choices.

The council's leader Neil Rogers has said he was disappointed to lose eight seats and overall control.

There will be an urgent Labour party meeting to consider strategy on the new council.

Other seats such as Newport and Torfaen remained Labour.

The rest of the Welsh local council results, along with those in Scotland, will be declared on Friday.