LABOUR Party leader Ed Miliband visited Worcester yesterday to send a clear message to the city’s party about potentially taking over the council.

During a hastily arranged gathering of party members and campaigners at Charlie’s Cafe in Sidbury, he paid tribute to their results in the local elections.

It came after one of the most dramatic counts in the history of Worcester City Council left no party in overall control.

The Conservatives have 17 councillors but a night of upsets left Labour on 15, the Liberal Democrats on two and the Green Party gaining one in the city for the first time.

“What we’ve seen is a good result for Labour but my message here is clear – there is a lot more work to do,” Mr Miliband told your Worcester News.

“In Worcester the council is hung and it’s up to the wisdom of the people in the local party to use that opportunity and see where it goes next.

“We’ve done well but the public can rest assured we’ve got a lot more work ahead of us looking to the future and both in Worcester and nationally, we will be fighting every step of the way to get our message across.”

He urged the party to talk with the Liberal Democrats and Greens over wresting control of the city council from the Conservatives, saying he expected the phone lines between them to be “red hot” over the coming days.

He was also keen to stress the “vital importance” of Worcester in the next general election, and said to everyone gathered in the cafe: “We can win Worcester, we’ve got to believe that.”

During the trip, the visibly-tired leader tucked into a bacon sandwich at the cafe and spent about 15 minutes talking to the party’s members about their strategy in the city and nationally.

He had earlier been in Birmingham, and was heading to Southampton straight after the stop in the Faithful City.

Nationally, Labour gained more than 700 seats, taking control of major councils including Cardiff and Birmingham based on a 39 per cent share of the vote.

The Conservatives lost more than 370 seats, who were polling seven per cent less than Labour.

The Liberal Democrats shed more than 250 local authority members, leaving the party with fewer than 3,000 nationwide, the worst since it was formed in 1988.