Enough has been written by more experienced observers than me to make it worthwhile to rehash the arguments already made about this year’s local election results.

It is clear that the overall headline is positive, and we should be proud to have made our eighth successive year of local election gains. It is equally clear that in many parts of the country, the hard work of our candidates and campaigners did not pay off. We are right to have a frank internal debate about that.

We are up against powerful populist machines, in Reform UK and the Green Party. The tectonic plates of politics are shifting beneath our feet. Liberalism is under threat now more than ever, and it is incumbent on us to fight for our beliefs. Nowhere is this truer than in the North of England.

In Newcastle, where I am the Group Leader, the result was declared so late on Friday that most people missed it. Despite surges from Reform and the Greens, we made gains to become the largest group, on 25 (out of 78). We topped the poll in the Newcastle upon Tyne North constituency, setting us up as real challengers for the next general election.

This was the hardest campaign I can recall fighting. We lost some good people who did not deserve to lose. In Newcastle, I believe we had the best ground game of anyone: we put out more literature- citywide, local and targeted- than anyone else; we knocked more doors than others; we were ruthlessly pragmatic in targeting. But that is what was required to deliver what we did, in the face of the seemingly organic popularity of other parties.

Being proud, local, community champions is the bedrock of our campaigning success, and a necessary part of winning as a Lib Dem. But in this era of multi-party politics, we must also offer a vision for change: that is what the electorate are crying out for, after years of stagnation. So many people’s concerns were national. We have to capture people’s imaginations for what a proudly liberal future could be.

In the centre of Newcastle stands Grey’s Monument, commemorating Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, and the passing of the Great Reform Act 1832. He was also responsible for the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. Those were the challenges of that time: we need answers to the challenges of our time.

We have to be bold, and offer a radical, liberal alternative to Northern and urban areas. That could be:

• transformative infrastructure investment, like a rolling programme of rail electrification, reopening disused lines, and supporting new light rail connecting communities across urban areas;
• boosting councils’ ability to build new social housing, refurbish existing stock, and purchase empty and derelict buildings, by rewriting the rulebook on how councils fund housing;
• Radical reform of council tax and business rates, tacking the cost of living and boosting local economic growth from the high street to the business park;
• Developing a carbon credits market for local government, to turbocharge the net zero transition.

I give full credit to my local team for championing these ideas as ways to deliver positive change. The ideas are out there to create the radical, liberal alternatives that could energise voters to seriously consider the Lib Dems as the right choice for a positive future.

I fully acknowledge that this looks at some of our national challenges at least partially through a local government lens, but that is the world I inhabit, and I fundamentally believe that strong local government can deliver transformational national outcomes.

But perhaps more importantly, we should acknowledge that the clock is ticking down to the next general election. The results in the ballot box are the only poll that really matters in the end. And so local elections across the country next year are the best way to demonstrate that we have an alternative to the extremes of left and right, and that the electorate are willing to back our hardworking community champions everywhere, particularly in the North.

If we learn and adapt, we can deliver the liberal change our communities are crying out for. I would build a monument to that.

* Colin Ferguson is the Lib Dem group leader in Newcastle, and Leader of the Opposition