Local elections
The next local election is scheduled to take place in 2027.
The most recent location election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2026.
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 2027, 2028, 2030 and 2031 on a continued cycle.
Following an electoral boundary review, all 60 councillor seats were contested at the 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 controls the council and decides on how local services are run. Your local councillor will represent your views for the ward (area) you live in.
Election notices
When an election is called, we issue notices to inform the public that it's taking place. We'll update this page when we issue notices for the next election.
Key deadlines
Key dates for the next election are shown in the table. We'll update this table when we have information about the next election.
| Service area | Date |
|---|---|
| Deadline to register to vote | To be announced |
| Deadline to submit your application for a postal vote or a postal-proxy vote | To be announced |
| Deadline to submit your application to vote by proxy | To be announced |
| Deadline to apply for free voter ID | To be announced |
| Day of poll | To be announced |
More about the next election
- Photo ID and changes to voting in elections - 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.
- Look out for your poll card - find out when they're being delivered.