WORCESTER Green Party's chairman has opened up on his anguish over dumping hopes of a rainbow coalition - saying he tried "everything possible" to clinch a deal.

Councillor Louis Stephen insists he will play a tough bargaining game with the new Labour leadership at Worcester City Council, despite allowing it to take power.

He has also paid a warm tribute to Conservative Councillor Marc Bayliss, the ousted ex-leader, saying the Tory made "compromise after compromise" to try and make it work.

After days of cross-party negotiations fell apart, a new minority Labour administration now rules the roost at the Guildhall after the city's two Green politicians agreed to side with them.

The last two weeks have proved a fraught one for Councillor Stephen, newly-elected to the Battenhall ward, who pushed for an unusual multi-party deal.

"If you look at the policies we've agreed with Labour, none of it is really radical," he said.

"The tone of all our cross-party negotiations was really, really positive and actually between us we all built up quite a rapport in my view.

"I actually want to commend Marc (Bayliss), he made compromise after compromise and really did want to find a way to make it work.

"We got to the point where we'd even agreed nine people in the cabinet with just four Conservatives - it would have made them a minority in that cabinet, but he still agreed to it, so he really does have my respect.

"Labour did try as well, but at one point during the negotiations we got to a point where we reached this impasse - I wasn't happy about that.

"I really did hang myself out there, I won't pretend it was uniformly popular with the Green Party (a potential Tory-Labour deal with a Conservative leader)."

He also told the Worcester News he eventually felt pushed to back one side or the other once the cross-party talks fell apart.

"I played the best hand I had but once it became clear a deal was not possible I felt we had to support one party," he said.

"I did everything possible to avoid that because we knew that would be very difficult for us.

"We will see how things go over the next 12 months, but we will hold Labour to account on our policies."

Councillor Bayliss, who has accused Labour of putting a "roadblock" on a genuine power-sharing deal, has also spoken of his "regret" at the Greens' decision.

During the negotiations Councillor Adrian Gregson pushed for a Labour leader under any rainbow deal, despite the 17-strong Tories being the largest party.

"Far from being the tail that wags the Labour dog, the Greens will soon realise they aren't even the flea on the Labour pooch's tail," said Councillor Bayliss.

The 16-strong Labour group will now need to rely on the Greens to push through policy.

* EXCLUSIVE: Worcester City FC Perdiswell stadium dream in tatters? Greens tell Labour they want a different site

* ELECTIONS 2016: The background story behind the Labour-Green council deal

* ELECTIONS 2016: So what does Worcester Green Party want from Labour?