The 2022 United Kingdom local elections took place on Thursday 5 May 2022. These included elections for all London borough councils, and for all local authorities in Wales and Scotland. Most seats in England were last up for election in 2018 and in Scotland and Wales in 2017. The elections coincided with the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election. In 91 cases, most of them in Wales, council seats were uncontested, each having only one candidate. Three seats in Scotland remained unfilled as no one nominated to fill them.
The local elections took place amid the Partygate scandal, in which it was found that numerous parties had been held at 10 Downing Street during national COVID-19 lockdowns, and COVID-19 social distancing laws were breached by numerous individuals. Public dissatisfaction over the events led to a decline in public support for Boris Johnson, the government led by him, and the Conservatives as a whole.
Across Great Britain, the governing Conservative Party had a net loss of 485 seats in comparison to 2017 in Scotland and Wales and 2018 in England, whilst Labour gained 108 seats (22 in England, 20 in Scotland, and 66 in Wales). The Liberal Democrats and the various Green parties made gains of 224 seats and 87 seats, respectively, which exceeded those of the Labour Party in England but were also seen to a more modest extent in Scotland and Wales.
Background In total, 4,411 council seats were contested in England, including irregular by-elections.
Most seats in England up for election in 2022 were last elected in 2018. The exceptions are local authorities which have undergone recent boundary reviews. In the 2018 local elections, the Labour Party made gains in London at the expense of the Conservative Party, who in turn made gains in the rest of England at the expense of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). Few councils changed overall control. Overall, UKIP lost 237 of the 243 seats it had held before the elections. According to the BBC's analysis, the results reflected a national political situation with Labour and the Conservatives "neck-and-neck".
Overall results Across Great Britain, the Conservatives had a net loss of 485 seats in comparison to 2017 in Scotland and Wales and 2018 in England, whilst Labour gained 108 seats (22 in England, 20 in Scotland, and 66 in Wales). The Liberal Democrats and the various Green parties made gains of 224 seats and 87 seats, respectively, which exceeded those of the Labour Party in England but were also seen to a more modest extent in Scotland and Wales. The Scottish National Party (SNP) gained 22 seats in Scotland whilst Plaid Cymru had a net loss of 6 seats in Wales.
Party Councillors Councils WonAfter+/-WonAfter+/- 1,4037,1594853512611 3,0736,10010874885 8682,76522416273 1595688700 4534532201 2022026043 242424111 27200 646 2,1902381 colspan=3 661321
England
By party + Results of the 2022 council elections in England Party Councils Councillors Mayors Number Change Number Change Number Change 65 3 2,265 22 4 1 35 10 1,078 336 1 1 29 3 colspan="4" 16 3 712 194 1 1 1 24 24 1 1 0 143 25 0 0 116 63 0 0 51 7 0 0 2 2 0 Joy Andrews in Pickering, North Yorkshire. 0 1 1 0 Wayne Dixon in Middleton Park, Leeds. BBC website includes him as an independent. 0 1 1 0 0 0 3 0 Total 146 4,393 7 +1
Councils
County councils County councils are the upper tier of a two-tier system of local government, with the area each council covers subdivided into district councils with different responsibilities. These are first-past-the-post or block voting elections, with a mixture of single-member and multi-member electoral divisions. County councils are elected in full every four years, with the last election having been in 2021. However, due to consultations about possible unitarisation, elections for three county councils were postponed to 2022. The government has announced plans to replace the councils with unitary authorities pending Parliamentary approval.
Elections to the new Somerset Council took place on 5 May 2022 for a unitary authority to run concurrently with the district councils until their abolition in April 2023. In a similar way, members of North Yorkshire Council were elected at the same time, with its councillors to serve as county councillors for one year and then to serve an additional four-year term as unitary councillors. Cumbria's two new unitary authorities were elected as "shadow authorities" which would go live after gaining their powers in 2023.
London boroughs
Elections for all councillors in all thirty-two London boroughs were held in 2022 in line with their normal election schedule. All twenty-five London borough councils which have not had a boundary review since before 2013 were elected based on new boundaries. The previous elections to London borough councils were held in 2018, which saw Labour win its second-best result in any London election and the Conservatives return their lowest-ever number of councillors in the capital. In 2018, Labour won control of Tower Hamlets council which had previously been under no overall control, but did not gain control of Barnet, Wandsworth or Westminster councils, which the party had targeted. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats gained control of Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames borough councils from the Conservatives.
The 2022 elections saw Labour gain all three of Barnet, Wandsworth and Westminster councils which they had unsuccessfully targeted in 2018. The Conservatives gained control of Harrow from Labour as well as winning the new position of mayor of Croydon, with Croydon's council under no overall control, having previously been control by Labour. Lutfur Rahman gained the position of mayor of Tower Hamlets from Labour, with his Aspire party winning a majority of seats.
Council Seats Party control Details Previous New Barking and Dagenham 51 Details Barnet 63 Details Bexley 45 Details Brent 57 Details Bromley 58 Details Camden 55 Details Croydon 70 (Conservative minority) Details Ealing 70 Details Enfield 63 Details Greenwich 55 Details Hackney 57 Details Hammersmith and Fulham 50 Details Haringey 57 Details Harrow 55 Details Havering 55 (Conservative/independent coalition) (HRA/Labour coalition) Details Hillingdon 53 Details Hounslow 62 Details Islington 51 Details Kensington and Chelsea 50 Details Kingston upon Thames 48 Details Lambeth 63 Details Lewisham 54 Details Merton 57 Details Newham 66 Details Redbridge 63 Details Richmond upon Thames 54 Details Southwark 63 Details Sutton 55 Details Tower Hamlets 45 Details Waltham Forest 60 Details Wandsworth 58 Details Westminster 54 Details All 32 councils 1,817
Metropolitan boroughs There are thirty-six metropolitan boroughs, which are single-tier local authorities. Thirty-three of them elect a third of their councillors every year for three years, with no election in each fourth year. These councils hold their elections on the same timetable, which includes elections in 2022. Birmingham City Council holds its elections on a four-year cycle from 2018, so was due to hold an election in 2022. Due to boundary changes, three councils which generally elect their councillors in thirds elected all of their councillors in 2022. They then returned to the thirds schedule, apart from St Helens Council, which moved to all-out elections every four years starting in 2022. Several other boundary reviews were delayed to 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The scheduled elections in Liverpool in 2022 were cancelled and instead the city moved to all-out elections from 2023 on new ward boundaries.
Elections for all councillors Council Seats Party control Details Previous New Birmingham 101 Details Bury 51 Details Rochdale 60 Details St Helens 48 Details 4 councils 260
Election for one third of councillors By-elections or uncontested wards can cause the seats up for election to be above or below one third of the council. Council Seats Party control Details up of Previous New Barnsley 21 63 Details Bolton 20 60 (Conservative minority) (Conservative minority) Details Bradford 30 90 Details Calderdale 18 51 Details Coventry 18 54 Details Dudley 25 72 Details Gateshead 22 66 Details Kirklees 23 69 (Labour minority) Details Knowsley 15 45 Details Leeds 35 99 Details Manchester 32 96 Details Newcastle upon Tyne 27 78 Details North Tyneside 20 60 Details Oldham 21 60 Details Salford 20 60 Details Sandwell 24 72 Details Sefton 22 66 Details Sheffield 28 84 (Labour/Green coalition) (Labour minority) Details Solihull 17 51 Details South Tyneside 19 54 Details Stockport 21 63 (Labour minority) (Lib Dem minority) Details Sunderland 25 75 Details Tameside 19 57 Details Trafford 22 63 Details Wakefield 21 63 Details Walsall 21 60 Details Wigan 26 75 Details Wirral 23 66 (Labour minority) (Labour minority) Details Wolverhampton 20 60 Details All 29 councils 655 1,932
District councils
Election of all councillors
Some councils which elect all their councillors every four years did so in 2022. Gosport usually elects its councillors in halves, but all seats were up for election due to new election boundaries. St Albans usually elects by thirds but all seats were up on new boundaries. Harrogate was due to elect all its councillors, but the election was cancelled due to the unitarisation of North Yorkshire, with councillors' terms being extended to April 2023, after which the district councils in North Yorkshire ceased to exist.
Council Seats Party control Details Previous New Gosport 28 Details Huntingdonshire 52 (Lib Dem/Independent/Labour/Green coalition) Details Newcastle-under-Lyme 44 Details South Cambridgeshire 45 Details St Albans 56 Details All 5 councils 225
Election of councillors by halves
District councils which elect their candidates in halves did so in 2022.
Council Seats Party control Details up of Previous New Adur 14 29 Details Cheltenham 21 40 Details Fareham 16 31 Details Hastings 16 32 (Labour/Green coalition) Details Nuneaton and Bedworth 17 34 Details Oxford 24 48 Details All 6 councils 108 214
Election of councillors by thirds District councils which elect by thirds that held elections in 2022. Carlisle, Craven and South Lakeland had been due to have a third of councillors up for election but these were cancelled due to the creation of Cumberland, North Yorkshire, and Westmorland and Furness Unitary authorities.