Brown's drubbing | Tide turns in Wales | Red Box blog | Analysis | Graphic: the election battlegrounds

The Conservatives won outright control of Bury council for the first time in 22 years, giving David Cameron and his party a vital breakthrough in the North West.

Before last night’s poll, the council chamber was on a knife-edge, with Labour holding off Tory control by just three seats.

There were jubilant scenes at the count in Bury town centre as the Tories finally succeeded in taking one of its target councils.

Mr Cameron is expected to visit the borough this morning, to mark the Tories’ first real advance in the region since he took over the leadership.

Despite Labour optimism that the local party could cling to its 20 seats in Bury, it lost 3 seats to the Tories. This gave the Conservatives a total of 26, the exact number needed for overall control of the council.

As Tory councillors and supporters hugged each other and punched the air, Bob Bibby, the Conservative leader of the council, said: “Gordon Brown has been like pennies from heaven. He has helped the cause tremendously. As a result, the number of people going out to vote has reduced greatly. This has been the quietest election I have ever known.

“On the doorstep, people told us they would not vote for Gordon Brown because of the tax situation and the rising cost of petrol and the car tax. And we have had some very, very good local policies in Bury, such as giving elderly people a discount on their council tax.”

During last year’s local elections, the Conservatives had hoped to win overall control of Bury, part of Greater Manchester and one of their key targets in the North, but they managed only small gains, denting the prospects of the party across the North of England as a whole.

Mindful of this disappointment, local activists had played down their chances of success yesterday. However, they mounted a robust campaign that included visits from Mr Cameron and William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary and a key fundraiser for the party’s regional war chest.

Tory canvassers reported disillusionment with Labour on the doorstep. Voters told party workers that they were fed up with Mr Brown’s Government, and unhappy about the abolition of the 10p tax band and rising levels of immigration.

Local issues were also important. The prospect of a switch to fortnightly refuse collections and a multi-million redevelopment of Bury town centre were uppermost in voters’ minds.

Labour activists, however, insisted that national politics had not dominated the campaign. Privately, they hoped that the Government’s unpopularity would not determine the outcome of the election.

Labour’s strategy was to remind traditional supporters that the local election was not a referendum on Mr Brown’s short period in office.

Located nine miles north of Manchester, Bury has a population of 180,000 and is famous for its black pudding and Sir Robert Peel, the former Prime Minister and founder of the police force.

Until the 1997 general election, both Bury North and Bury South were held by Conservative MPs. However, as Tony Blair swept to power, both Bury constituencies were taken by Labour and remain in Labour hands.

David Chaytor, the Labour MP for the key marginal Bury North, said: “We always knew that it was going to be very difficult for us. The Government has had an exceptionally hard time over the last six months. All the Western economies are facing unprecedented economic difficulties. That has put the squeeze on the voters.

“We were always preparing for a Conservative majority because the Tories have had 22 years to prepare for it but I believe that [across the country] the Conservatives will certainly not win enough votes to give them a springboard for a Conservative government in 2009 or 2010.”

David Nuttall, the Tory prospective parliamentary candidate for Bury North, added: “The results in Bury will have been due to a mixture of reasons. There will have been Labour supporters who feel so disenchanted with Labour that they have stayed at home. And there has been a positive move towards the Conservatives because people have realised that the party has changed under David Cameron. They see him as a far more forward thinking, modern leader than Gordon Brown.

“We are also finding among younger people, who are perhaps not our natural supporters, that they see the Conservative Party is changing. We are attracting their votes and many are voting Conservative for the first time in their lives.”

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• All that glitters is not sold in Wright’s world
• Believe it or not, Big Brother is your friend