All change in England this day

Where to get the results for this year's English local elections

The 1st May 2025 marks the first opportunity for a substantial subset of the population to cast their ballots for or against the government of the day. It is Kemi Badenoch’s first local elections as Conservative leader. It is Keir Starmer’s first as Prime Minister. And it is Nigel Farage’s first as the leader of a party that is topping the opinion polls.

I’ve said it elsehwere, and you will no doubt hear it elsewhere. The most popular party in the country right now is on 25 per cent. Third place is taken by a party on 22 per cent. Fourth place is 13 per cent. Chaos has come calling. What all this means for the established parties - not least the Conservatives with over a thousand seats on the table today - is yet to be determined. The Britain Elects forecast anticipates the Tories to lose half of those seats. Read on as to what that might mean for the other parties.

Now, to the meat of the day. Here’s what you need to know for this year’s English local elections.

Where to get the results

The BBC and others will as always provide a surface-level ticker of total seat numbers across the counties. That’s helpful. But that doesn’t tell you everything.

To be exceedingly unhumble, only Britain Elects is providing the full bells and whistles ward-by-ward map, updated live as the night progresses, available over at the New Statesman website. We’ve been doing it since 2021. It’s been our pride and joy. And I am delighted at its popularity. Be sure to check it out when the results start coming in.

Paid subscribers to Britain Elects are also entitled to a live table (complete with exportable csv) of the ward results as we get them. Access to that is available here. (Now would be a good time to subscribe!)

But what results, and when?

It’s going to be a relatively quiet Thursday night. Runcorn and Helsby will be counting and likely declaring around 3am, which should give us something to chew over. But most county councils will be counting in the morning.

My Britain Elects / New Statesman forecast has the seat share breakdown by local authority. Here’s the cheat sheet.

There’s some fat margins for error here. The Tories are ranging from clinging on to half a dozen seats in Durham to a total wipe-out. It is not impossible too that Reform will secure majority control of at least one authority. I am more confident of the headline numbers than I am the council breakdown, to be true.

Whatever the case, the authorities that are counting on the night err more Reform friendly than the median. These include Boston and South Holland - some of the biggest Brexit-backing boroughs in the country. Half of Lincolnshire, half of Staffordshire, and most - if not all - of Northumberland should come overnight. Not exactly representative. But not nothing.

Mind you, we are also expecting the West of England mayoralty to come in the early hours. It is in this Bristol and Bath based conurbation where we have polling putting the Greens ahead by 4pts, and then behind by 5pts. A Labour defence with the Lib Dems not to be ruled out, it will be an interesting count.

As is the case with every local election, it’s going to be a tiring night. But knowing the hyper-sensitivites of Westminster to low turnout by-elections, these contests could define the next few years in a way “mid-term” elections usually don’t.

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At the close of poll (10pm), I’ll be jumping on YouTube and Twitter to talk about what’s up, what to watch out for, and what good/bad gossip I’ve gleaned over the lead up to election day. Keep an eye on the Britain Elects channels to tune in there.

The very best,

Ben