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A key member of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet team has announced she is quitting.

Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary Teresa Pearce says she is resigning to focus on her constituency.

She will step down after next month's local elections and is expected to be replaced by Roberta Blackman-Woods.

Ms Pearce’s departure means Mr Corbyn now has to undertake another reshuffle - the fourth major shake up of his frontbench team since he became leader in 2015.

Her resignation comes as Labour prepares for a tough round of local and mayoral elections at the beginning of May.

Ms Pearce said her role was meant to be temporary while her colleague Grahame Morris recovered from an illness.

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“I have been in an acting role for Grahame as he was ill. It is now clear he is not coming back to the role for some time and it needs to be a permanent position.

“Roberta is ideally placed and I give her my full support,” she said.

An analysis by Plymouth University’s election centre said Labour could lose as many as 50 council seats in May’s local elections.

The centre said the Tories could gain 50 seats, the Lib Dems win 100 and UKIP lose 100.

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth said the local elections would represent a key test for Labour.

He said projections by election expert Professor John Curtice that there could be a 12-point swing from Labour to the Conservatives in the contests were “pretty depressing”.

“We have to be winning seats. We cannot be falling back on the scales that have just been suggested.

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“Generally, we have got to be winning in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire, those types of places, because they contain a lot of the marginal constituencies that decide general elections.

“Towns like Hucknall, Beeston - these may be towns you might not have heard of, these are marginal towns in marginal swing constituencies, we’ve got to be doing well in them,” he told the BBC’s Sunday Politics.

Mr Ashworth did not deny Labour had built up a £4million war chest to fight a snap election.

“We have been on an election footing since Theresa May became Prime Minister,” he said.