Council elections in England were held on Thursday 3 May 2018. Elections were held in all 32
London boroughs
The London boroughs are the 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at t ...
, 34
metropolitan borough
A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of districts of England, local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan distric ...
s, 67
district
A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...
and
borough councils and 17
unitary authorities.
There were also direct elections for the
mayoralties of
Hackney,
Lewisham
Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in the London Plan as one ...
,
Newham,
Tower Hamlets and
Watford
Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne.
Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, and ...
.
With the exception of those areas that have had boundary changes, the seats up for election were last contested in the
2014 local elections.
A
parliamentary by-election in
West Tyrone took place the same day. Various other local by-elections also took place.
Seats held prior to the election
According to a BBC News estimate, taking into account boundary changes, the major political parties are effectively defending the following 'notional' numbers of council seats on election day:
*
Labour Party – 2,278 seats
*
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
– 1,365 seats
*
Liberal Democrats – 462 seats
*
UK Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...
– 126 seats
*
Greens – 31 seats
These numbers are how many seats each party won at the previous comparable election, generally in 2014, rather than which party held the seat on the eve of the election.
Some other news agencies, such as the
Press Association
PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency, and the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is part of PA Media Group Limited, a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and re ...
, compare against the party holding a seat on the eve of the election, leading to a different analysis of gains and losses.
There are also 48
Residents Associations' councillors, and 100 'other' / independent councillors.
Eligibility to vote
All
registered electors (
British,
Irish,
Commonwealth
A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
and
European Union citizens) aged 18 or over on polling day were entitled to vote in the local elections. A person with two homes (such as a university student having a term-time address and living at home during holidays) was able to
register to vote at both addresses as long as the addresses were not in the same electoral area, and was able to vote in the local elections for the two different local councils.
In certain councils, there was a trial system in place where photo ID was required to vote. These councils were:
Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population ...
,
Gosport
Gosport ( ) is a town and non-metropolitan borough on the south coast of Hampshire, South East England. At the 2011 Census, its population was 82,662. Gosport is situated on a peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, opposite ...
,
Woking,
Bromley
Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011.
Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, c ...
, and
Watford
Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne.
Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, and ...
. An estimated 4,000 electors were turned away from polling stations across these trial areas as a result of not having the appropriate form of ID.
Results
The number of councils controlled by each party following the election are shown in the table below. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats made modest gains in terms of their respective number of councillors, whereas the Conservatives made a net loss of 35 seats. UKIP lost nearly all of the 126 seats they were defending, with only 3 councillors elected.
Overall results
Results in London
The following table shows the aggregate results for the 32 councils that were up for election in London.
†Due to boundary changes, the figures for seat losses/gains are notional changes calculated by the BBC, and do not match up precisely to the London-wide results in 2014.
Results outside of London
The following table shows the aggregate results for the 118 councils that were up for election outside of London.
Only four councils switched from a majority for one party to another. The Conservatives gained
Redditch
Redditch is a town, and local government district, in north-east Worcestershire, England, approximately south of Birmingham. The district has a population of 85,000 as of 2019. In the 19th century, it became the international centre for the ...
from Labour, and lost control of three councils to the Liberal Democrats:
Kingston upon Thames
Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as ...
,
Richmond upon Thames
The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames () in southwest London forms part of Outer London and is the only London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas amalgamated under the Lo ...
and
South Cambridgeshire. The Liberal Democrats also gained
Three Rivers District Council from no overall control. Labour gained a majority on three councils that had been under no overall control (
Kirklees
Kirklees is a local government district of West Yorkshire, England, governed by Kirklees Council with the status of a metropolitan borough. The largest town and administrative centre of Kirklees is Huddersfield, and the district also inclu ...
,
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to ...
and
Tower Hamlets) while losing their majority on two (
Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...
and
Nuneaton and Bedworth). The Conservatives gained a majority on one council that had been under no overall control (
Basildon) while losing their majority on two (
Mole Valley and
Trafford).
Labour won the inaugural mayoral election for the
Sheffield City Region. Five other mayoral elections saw no change in the winning party: Labour held four and the Liberal Democrats held one.
Analysis
This was the first set of local elections since the
2017 general election. Most of the seats up for election had last been contested in the
2014 local elections.
Because the group of local councils varies with each cycle of local elections, the BBC and other analysts calculated a projected national vote share, which aims to assess what the council results indicate the UK-wide vote would be if the results were repeated at a general election. The BBC's estimate put Labour on 35% of the vote (up 8% since 2017), the Conservatives on 35% (down 3%), the Liberal Democrats on 16% (down 2%). In the
May 2017 local elections, the projected national voteshare was 38% for the Conservatives, 27% for Labour, 18% for the Liberal Democrats and 5% for UKIP. When votes were still being counted, media reports widely described the result as "mixed" for both Labour and the Conservatives. The results suggested that support for the parties had not moved much since the general election 11 months earlier. Some reports considered the results a relief for Theresa May and the Conservatives.
Ben Margulies, a research fellow at the
University of Warwick
, mottoeng = Mind moves matter
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £7.0 million (2021)
, budget = £698.2 million (2020 ...
, noted how the
United Kingdom Independence Party's collapse in vote share directly benefited the Conservatives as they committed to
exiting the European Union. Margulies stated that the Conservatives' position with the electorate will "remain perched on a precipice". Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, a politics lecturer at
Nottingham Trent University, argued that Labour had set their expectations too high and thus made the actual result look disappointing by comparison. David Cutts, a professor of political science at the University of Birmingham, described the Liberal Democrats' performance in the election as "underwhelming" in contrast to the media response, arguing that the party only made moderate gains in their strongholds from before the
Liberal-Conservative coalition and council areas that were seen as "Strong Remain" and "Strong Leave". Cutts argued that the
next local elections in England are a greater test of their stability as they feature substantially more strongholds.
London boroughs
All seats in the 32 London borough councils were up for election.
Metropolitan boroughs
Whole council
4 metropolitan boroughs had all of their seats up for election following boundary changes.
One-third of council
One third of the seats in 30
metropolitan borough
A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of districts of England, local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan distric ...
s were up for election:
Unitary authorities
Whole council
One
unitary authority
A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...
had all of its seats up for election following boundary changes.
Third of council
One third of the council seats were up for election in 16 unitary authorities.
Non-metropolitan districts
Whole council
Seven non-metropolitan districts have all of their seats up for election.
Half of council
Six non-metropolitan districts have half of their seats up for election.
Third of council
54 district councils had one third of their seats up for election.
Weymouth and Portland originally had elections scheduled for 2018, but the elections were postponed indefinitely following a decision to merge the council into a unitary Dorset Council from 2019 onwards.
These were the last elections to Daventry District Council, following the decision to abolish it along with Northamptonshire County Council and its 7 district councils into two unitary authorities in 2020.
Mayoral elections
There were five local authority mayoral elections and one metropolitan mayoral election.
Combined authorities
Local authorities
Notes
References
{{Portal bar, Politics, United Kingdom
2018 elections in the United Kingdom
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...
May 2018 events in the United Kingdom