Local elections
The next local election is scheduled to take place on Thursday, 4 May 2023.
People who run your council are called councillors. They make important decisions, such as how the council budget is spent and which services are prioritised.
Each councillor is elected for a 4-year term of office and there are 3 councillors representing each council ward in the borough. Councillors are elected every year, over a 4-year cycle (with no elections in the fourth year). This means at each election a third of councillors are elected. Upcoming election years are 2023, 2024, 2026 and so on.
Following an electoral boundary review, all 60 councillor seats were contested at the most recent local election in 2022. This meant that electors were able to vote for up to 3 candidates in their ward instead of just one.
At a local election, people will vote to choose who they would like to be their local councillor. The political party with the highest number of councillors usually gets to control the council and takes decisions on how local services are run. Your local councillor will represent your views for the ward (area) you live in.
- Elections Act 2022 - changes to voting - remember you need photo ID to vote at a polling station
- Terms of office for councillors.
- View your local councillors
- Find out if elections are happening for your local council - you can add your postcode to the Electoral Commission website searcher and it will tell you if elections are happening in your area.