内容摘要：Ms Moody said she was "confident" that current officer numbers would be maintained.

Ms Moody said she was "confident" that current officer numbers would be maintained.

The Tories had run the council ever since it became a unitary authority in 2009 and had gone into the election with a one-seat majority.However, the party lost 30 of its seats including those held by several high-profile figures, among them deputy leader Ian Nellins and finance chief Gwilym Butler.

The Lib Dems' national leader Ed Davey was in Shrewsbury on Friday morning handing out ice creams as the party were optimistic about their chances.It was well-founded as they claimed 42 of the 74 seats.The party's co-leader on the council, Roger Evans, said: "We are delighted at the result.

"We have withstood the advance of Reform because we're there for the community and that's what we want Shropshire Council to be in the future."Reform, which had not previously been represented on the council, picked up 16 seats to become the official opposition.

They included a narrow 44-vote win over the Lib Dems in Clee.

The Tories in contrast won just seven seats, celebrating loudly in at least one of those when the result came through."Our objective was to reopen as soon as safely and practically possible after the fire."

The length of the shutdown infuriated airlines, which had to pay for the cost of refunding and rebooking customers as well as putting stranded passengers up in hotels and covering food expenses.Willie Walsh, the former British Airways boss and head of the airline organisation IATA said on Friday it was a "clear planning failure by the airport".

The BBC has since contacted the major airlines operating out of Heathrow's terminals to ask how much Friday's closure cost, but all approached have declined to comment or not responded.It is understood there are concerns within the industry however that there is no mechanism of recouping such costs from the airport responsible, when disruption to flights is out of the control of airlines.