Delighted with magnificent Alliance council election results

6.33.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 10th May 2011

Today I said that I am delighted with the party's showing in the Council elections. At the last council election Alliance won 30 seats and after this election they now have 44.

"I am absolutely delighted with our results. Not only have we won an extra 14 council seats, we also very significantly increased our vote across Northern Ireland from the last Council election. This is our best local election result since 1981 in terms vote share.

"We now have more seats than the UUP and the SDLP in the greater Belfast area where half the population lives, and we continue to hold the balance of power in Belfast. We also did so well on Castlereagh that the DUP do not now have a majority on the Council.

"We have won new seats on councils like Down, Craigavon and Ballymena where we were not previously represented for a period of time.

"Compared to the last local government election in 2005 we have made gains in the following areas:

· Ards East

· Ballymena North

· Belfast Laganbank

· Belfast Victoria

· Castlereagh Central

· Castlereagh East

· Coleraine East

· Coleraine Skerries

· Craigavon Central

· Down Newcastle

· Larne Town

· Newtownabbey Ballyclare

· Newtownabbey Macedon

· Newtownabbey University

"I want to thank everyone who voted for Alliance and backed our movement for change, and I also want to pay tribute to all our candidates and our teams right across Northern Ireland on their excellent results.

"This has been a terrific election for Alliance. We have had superb results right across Northern Ireland. Alliance ran a radical and positive campaign focused on delivering change. You only have to look at the attention our election broadcast gained to see how Alliance captured the imagination of the public. People right across Northern Ireland responded extremely well to our campaign and that has been demonstrated in our greatly increase number of Councillors and our significantly increased vote share."