Welcome to the April edition of Democracy Club’s regular newsletter. All past emails are accessible in an online archive.

English local elections are on Thursday

24 councils, six mayors, and an MP are being elected this Thursday, 1 May. Find out if you have an election and view your ballot paper and polling station at WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk.

Most people do not have an election; this is the smallest set of local elections since 1975.

Who’s standing?

Electoral history was made earlier this month, when candidate lists for 1 May were published and it was revealed that Reform UK are standing marginally more candidates than either Labour or the Conservatives. More than 8,600 candidates are standing overall - find out how many are representing each party on our blog.

Parish councils

1,274 parish councils are also up for election this year - though you’ll hear a lot less about them in the news. We’ve collected all the details and crunched the numbers to bring you an exclusive look at England’s ‘first tier’, where 65% of seats have been won without a vote being cast, and a whopping 21% will still be empty after May, because no candidates emerged to fight for them. Read the full release now.

The Electoral Commission and the polling station finder

Very big news for Democracy Club earlier this month, when the Electoral Commission published its corporate plan for 2025-2029. Front and centre was a proposal to take our polling station finder in-house over the next five years. We founded the finder over a decade ago, and the Electoral Commission has been involved in this project almost from the very start. We now believe that as well as offering long term sustainability, the Commission is in a better place than us to make improvements to the service. Read our statement and find out more about the plan.

Want more local election analysis?

Of course you do. In-depth local election previews have been published by the Local Government Information Unit and the Institute for Government. Both cite our data!

All the best,

The Democracy Club Team