After a dramatic night at the Bolton Council local elections 2016, political reporter Liam Thorp assesses what this year’s results mean for the political landscape of the town.

THE most surprising thing about UKIP’s successful election night is that it really wasn’t a surprise at all.

If you had asked me before Thursday night for my pre-vote predictions, I would have told you that I felt the party were likely to take the Little Lever and Darcy Lever and Kearsley seats from Labour and push them close in one or two others.

Yes it is easy for me to say this after the results are in — but I assure you this was my thinking beforehand and it was echoed by politicians across the board.

The fact that chairman Paul Richardson — who was the first UKIP Councillor elected in Greater Manchester in 2014 — was actually disappointed that his party hadn’t secured a third seat of the night after a close-call in Breightmet, shows how far his group have come in just two years.

Perspective, as always, is important here and it is certainly not panic stations for the Labour group who retain a very solid control of the council with a number of heartening majorities, plus a morale-boosting gain in Hulton indicating that large swathes of this town still fully support them to run the show.

But there is something for them to address here — after losing his Little Lever seat on Thursday night, David Evans told me that “there are issues to be looked at” and with his party surrendering all three ward positions to UKIP in just two years, it is hard to disagree.

I am not sure leader leader Cliff Morris’s assertion that people had simply voted UKIP because of the upcoming EU referendum will wash with some voters.

So what has gone on? Well it must be noted that in Paul Richardson, Sean Hornby and now Rees Gibbon, Little Lever residents have elected people they know well, who are established characters in the community and in local votes in particular, this can urge people to mark an x next to such a name on the ballot.

Since their perspective elections, Cllr Hornby and Cllr Richardson have certainly continued to provide a visible and active presence in the area and I don’t doubt that this will have encouraged voters to help them make it a clean sweep and — along with their seats in Hulton and now Kearsley — cement a very solid platform from which to build in Bolton.