Ukip hasn’t being doing that well in local by-elections of late, so Thursday’s win in Doncaster will have brought the party some cheer.

They took a seat from Labour in the Edenthorpe, Kirk Sandall and Barnby Dun ward.

Their candidate, Paul Bissett, had previously represented both Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the council. Here’s the result:

The same ward returned a Ukip councillor at the local elections in May.

It means Ukip now has two people on Doncaster council. Labour, which runs the council, has 48. Nonetheless Doncaster will be the location for Ukip’s party conference this autumn.

There were seven other local by-elections this week, but only two saw seats change hands – and both were Liberal Democrat gains.

One was in Conservative-run Maidstone, where they won a seat from the Tories by just six votes:

The other was on Northumberland county council, currently in no overall control, where the Lib Dems took a seat from an independent:

The rest of the contests saw no changes. Labour held seats at Reading, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Blackpool, all councils they already run.

In Blackpool Ukip pushed the Tories into third place:

Labour also held a seat in Walsall, where an intriguing story has unfolded over the past two months. At the local elections in May, Labour won 30 of Walsall’s 60 seats. Shortly afterwards, one of the party’s councillors died, reducing the number to 29. The person in charge of the council until May’s elections, the Conservative Mike Bird, then held a vote to see if he could retain the leadership. He won by a single vote, thanks to the support of an alliance of Lib Dems, Ukip and two independent councillors.

Now Labour is back up to 30 councillors, it will surely try and mount an attempt to take control.

Finally for this week, an independent candidate held a seat on the Tory-run Windsor and Maidenhead council.

Four by-elections are currently scheduled for next Thursday.