Ukip will field just three candidates in Thanet at next month's council election - four years after seizing control of the authority.

The party's success was largely on the back of the efforts to get the then leader Nigel Farage elected MP in the South Thanet seat.

It won 33 of the 56 wards, ousting the Conservatives who were in control.

Four years on, the local party's inability to find candidates willing to stand reflects its demise in what was once considered a stronghold.

Ukip's grip on the council ebbed and flowed almost from the first day, with splits and defections and the decision of 12 members to break away and sit as independents.

That led to the party relinquishing control to the Conservatives last year.

Chris Wells, the former Ukip council leader, is not standing and neither is the former deputy leader Lin Fairbrass.

Thanet was the first and only authority Ukip has run and the party fielded a full slate of candidates in 2015.

Cllr John Townend (Cliffsend and Pegwell Ward) said: “It is very sad in some ways but we achieved what we set out to in terms of Brexit.”

At the centre of Ukip’s problems was its decision not to support a bid to re-open Manston airport - a key manifesto pledge it made during the election campaign.

The tipping point came with a row over the council’s Local Plan and its indication that the Manston airport site could be used for other purposes.

Ukip's decline as a force in the county saw it lose every one of its 17 county councillors in 2017 - a year after the EU referendum.

The 12-strong group that broke away last year and is now registered as the Thanet Independent Group is fielding candidates in 20 wards.

• Full details of the candidates standing in May's poll are to be published tomorrow.