The table contains links to the results of the non-county borough elections held from 1945 until these authorities were absorbed into the post-1973 re-organisation of local government. The data have been compiled largely from local newspaper reports. The information that we currently have for some of these authorities is either missing or very patchy. If […]

Rallings/Thrasher have been collecting and commenting on byelections since the early 1980s. Following encouragement from Cris Derby, then editor of Local Government Chronicle, we began a regular column for the magazine in July 1983. More recently, we’ve written on this topic for Local Government First. We’ve also used these data to build the Sunday Times’ […]

Users may select particular councils and view compositions (allow time for the file to load properly).  Type the council name into the text box and the seats for each year appear.  The default view is for 50 lines but that may be altered.  The output may be sorted by the different column headings. Click here to […]

In this section we will post various files that provide information about the political composition of local councils. Council compositions by year is a workbook containing separate worksheets for each year from 1964-2015. The years before 1973 cover only the London boroughs established in 1964. Thereafter, each local authority is listed for each year regardless […]

These data are organised by year of election.  Within each spreadsheet are separate sheets containing overall and authority-level votes, vote share, candidates, seats won etc.  The meaning of the categories and method of calculation is explained in the relevant spreadsheets found in the Themed Tables section. 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 […]

Some of our current work relies upon the voluntary efforts of enthusiasts and volunteers. This part of the website will hopefully grow as more people develop an interest in local elections and politics.

These pre-1991 Handbooks come in different formats while those pre-dating our first book of results in 1985 have been put together for the website and were not published in conventional book form. Local Elections Handbook 1990 volume 1 Local Elections Handbook 1990 volume 2 Local Elections Handbook 1989 volume 1 Local Elections Handbook 1988 volume […]

Following the annual round of local election results in England and Wales the Centre publishes the Local Elections Handbook, a comprehensive record of election results for each local authority. You can download these results up to and including the 2011 edition. Handbooks in hard copy for the period 2012-2015 can be purchased from the Centre. […]

All three main parties have taken steps to recruit more women candidates to contest local elections, with varying success. This graph shows the picture since local government reorganisation in England and Wales in the early 1970s. Most of the explanation for the ‘noise’ relates to the type of local authorities conducting an election in a […]

It is important to read the notes contained within each spreadsheet. These explain the meaning of the different categories and labels. This spreadsheet contains party vote, share, wards and seats contested for each election since 1973.  Data are calculated by type of authority (county, district etc) with separate sheets for each year: Summary data by year and […]