The 2022 Welsh local elections are due to be held on 5 May 2022 to elect members of all twenty-two local authorities in Wales. They are being held alongside other

local elections in the United Kingdom There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom (commonly called 'general elections' when all seats are contested), elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, local electio ...

. The last elections were held in 2017.

Background

In the last local elections in 2017, 1,271 seats were elected. The Labour Party won 468 seats, independent candidates won 309 seats,

Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom. Plaid wa ...

won 208 seats, the

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 ...

won 184 seats and the Liberal Democrats won 63 seats. Other parties including the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...

won 22 seats. The 2022 Welsh local elections were initially scheduled for 2021, to give councillors a four-year term, but they were delayed to 2022 to avoid clashing with the 2021 Senedd election. The 2021 Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act permanently changed the term length for councillors from four years to five years. Ahead of the 2022 elections, eleven of the twenty-two councils in Wales were under no overall control with no single party holding more than half of the seats. Labour controlled seven councils, Independents controlled two councils, and the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru each controlled one council.

Eligibility to vote

To be able to vote in the 2022 local elections in Wales a person must be aged 16 or over on the day of the election (also called "polling day"), be registered to vote, registered at an address in Wales, and not be legally excluded from voting. Person's wishing to vote must also be one of the following: * a British citizen * an Irish or EU citizen * a qualifying Commonwealth citizen * a citizen of another country living in Scotland or Wales who has permission to enter or stay in the UK, or who does not need permission

Process

The 2022 elections will be the first conducted following the passage of the 2021 Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act which makes a number of changes to local elections in Wales. Previously, only British, Irish, Commonwealth and European citizens aged over 18 could vote, whereas under the new law all legal residents of Wales who are aged 16 or over on polling day are eligible to vote in the local elections. Councils can choose whether to conduct elections under

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

or the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

Principal councils

Elections will be held for all councillors in all 22 local authorities, all of which will be conducted under new boundaries.

Councils

References