LABOUR is back in Bolton after a victorious night at the polls which left the Liberal Democrats in tatters.

While it was a nightmare night for Tony Blair elsewhere in the country, Labour party members in Bolton were celebrating after once again becoming the largest party on Bolton Council.

The Lib Dems, who were in power until last night, went from being the biggest party on the council to being the smallest. They lost two seats to Labour and two to the Conservatives.

The make-up of Bolton Council is now: Labour 22 seats, Conservatives 21 and Lib Dems 17.

But with no party having an overall majority, it will be a few weeks before it is decided who will take control of the council.

Labour leader councillor Cliff Morris said voters in Bolton had concentrated on local issues rather than the controversies over Home Secretary Charles Clarke, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt.

He said Bolton voters were unhappy with the Lib Dems over the fortnightly household rubbish collections.

He vowed his party's first move, if it takes power as expected, would be to bring back weekly bin collections and said a new town centre swimming pool would also be at the top of his list of priorities.

The Labour Party won seats from the Lib Dems in the wards of Kearsley and Crompton. The Tories took their seats from the Lib Dems in the Horwich and Blackrod ward and in the Westhoughton North and Chew Moor ward.

As the results were announced last night, Cllr Morris said: "I can't believe it.

"If I am honest I would have thought that we would have been in second place after all the negative headlines Labour has had over the last few days.

"I am delighted that we are once again the largest party on Bolton Council.

"I think the Lib Dems tried to do too much in their two years and I think a lot of people blamed them for the situation with the bins."

The biggest shock came in the Kearsley ward where Lib Dem sitting councillor Bill Collison was beaten by Labour's Derek Burrows and in the Crompton ward where Labour's Sufrana Bashir-Ismail beat the Lib Dem councillor Vali Patel to become Bolton's first female Muslim councillor.

Lib Dem leader Barbara Ronson admitted it had been a disappointing night for her party.

She said: "We probably did do too much too soon, but we are an enthusiastic party and we wanted to get on with things. In the next few months people will really start to see the achievements of the Liberal Democrats as our policies start to come to fruition.

"We leave a legacy of a half a billion pound investment in the town centre and a large number of jobs that will be created with it."

But James Gilfillan, who was beaten in the Westhoughton North and Chew Moor ward by Conservative John Higson, said that the introduction of the fortnightly wheelie bin collections had cost him his seat.

He added: "It was the biggest issue for people in the area, but I do not think it was a mistake. There will be a big price for scrapping it both in council tax and recycling rates."

Despite gaining two seats, the Tories failed to realise their hopes of gaining gain control of the town hall for the first time since 1980.

Conservative leader Cllr Alan Rushton said: "It is extremely disappointing but we took two more seats so we are happy about that.

"It was an anti-climax and it was surprising that national issues did not have more of an effect on the result."

A total of 20 seats were up for election in Bolton a third of the council.

There was a turnout of just over 34 per cent for the election.

The highest turnout was in Heaton and Lostock with 45.8 per cent and the lowest was in Farnworth where 21.7 per cent of the electorate voted.