Council by-election results

One can almost be guaranteed that every Thursday a part of Britain you never knew existed would be going to the polls to elect its local councillor. This page provides the results for them.

Andrew Teale's by-election previews:

This archive comprises by-elections for the principal tiered authorities of England, Scotland and Wales. Parish and town council by-elections are not accounted for. Principal tiered authorities include metropolitan, borough, district, unitary and county councils.

Please direct any spotted errors or corrections to our contact page.

Results:

See below for our archive of ward-by-ward council by-election results.

The archive at present covers by-elections from mid-2015 to to the present. It is currently unfinished with glaring omissions being council by-elections held en masse alongside the yearly cycle of national elections (there were 78 council by-elections alone, for example, held on the same day as the 2016 local, Scottish and Welsh elections). This is purely down to time constraints and will be added at a later date.

Council by-election ward results

Some notes:

  • Scottish council by-elections where the winning party is not the same as the party/candidate who attained most (first preference) votes is not an error. The figures we report in this archive are first preference votes. Vote transfers will be accounted for at a later date.
  • A significant proportion of council by-elections are held in multi-member wards, and so seeing vote share changes which give off the impression a party, instead of gaining a seat as reported, but is in fact holding, is not necessarily a report in error. It is a consequence of the ward being multi-member and split between more than one party.
  • Vote share changes in multi-member wards use the top vote method.
  • A council by-election where an Independent candidate (candidate independent of party affiliation as of initial election) is ‘defending’ – though not necessarily standing to defend – and an alternative Independent candidate gaining, is not, unless stated through vote share changes, an Independent hold. It is an Independent gain. Independents independent of other Independents gaining a seat from an alternative Independent is an Independent gain. It makes sense, honest.

Please be sure to cite Britain Elects as the source of this aggregate when using elsewhere.