The Iain Dale spin doesn't make clear he is talking about what is effectively a large parish council. Hard to put it better than David Boothroyd did in the thread:

    Some confusion here because there are no elections to South Ribble Borough Council in May. The statement refers to the Penwortham Town Council, which is the almost powerless body which looks over the civil parish of Penwortham.

    In 2007, when there were elections to the Borough council from Penwortham wards, Labour did not contest three of them - Howick and Priory, Broad Oak and Whitefield wards. In the 2003 borough elections, there were also no Labour candidates in either of these wards. There was not a full slate of Labour candidates in South Ribble in 1999 either.

    This is perhaps not surprising as Penwortham is a wealthy suburb of Preston where Labour has never performed well in local elections.