Local elections: How the night unfolded in numbers

From the fastest council count in England to the thousands of cups of tea it takes to get through, here is how election night unfolded in numbers.

Labour comfortably won the by-election in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough by a majority of 9,590, leaving Bobby Smith of Give Me Back Elmo - who stood out in the line-up of candidates dressed as Elmo from Sesame Street - in last place with 58 votes.

However, there were council seats where double or even single digit margins made all the difference, such as for Labour's Duncan Enright in Witney.

He conceded defeat at first, revealing he had "lost by 70 votes or so". Within an hour he tweeted, external: "Miscount in Witney East, result now in, I win by 70!"

In Cannock Chase, Labour held on to an outright majority by one seat, thanks to winning the Brereton and Ravenhill ward by three votes.

Meanwhile in Thurrock, UKIP gained six seats but missed out on being the largest party by just one vote in the final ward declared.

The Conservatives' own voters - and a mix-up - nearly cost them a seat in Wolverhampton.

An "error" saw the party field two candidates in the same ward. The winning Conservative candidate, Udey Singh, received 1,045 votes and was elected to the Tettenhall Regis seat, with Labour's Chester Morrison in second on 970. The other Conservative, outgoing councillor Mark Evans, polled 415 votes. If he had taken just 65 more from his fellow Tory it would have lost the party one of the two seats they were defending.

Sunderland has a reputation for being first to declare election results. In 2015 the Houghton and Sunderland South constituency was the first result announced for the sixth general election running. In the 2016 local elections, it was the city council's Pallion ward, won by Labour's Amy Wilson, that came first.

Her victory was revealed about 63 minutes after polls closed.

The first ballot box arrived at Sunderland's count at about 22:05 BST, with the last results declared at 00:09.

Polling stations were open for 15 hours for voting on Thursday. That meant a lot of stationery, not to mention refreshments for the people staffing them, as Coventry City Council revealed, external.

It takes hundreds of staff in many areas to be able to run the elections and count the ballots, as BBC WM's Rob Mayor revealed from Walsall, external.