Local Council elections in England

Elections will be held on Thursday 1st May 2008 in 137 English Local Authorities, all 22 Welsh Unitary Authorities as well as for Mayor of London and members of the London Assembly.

Listed below are all councils in England holding elections on 1 May 2008.

Welsh Unitary council elections, 2008

36 METROPOLITAN BOROUGHS

Barnsley Birmingham Bolton Bradford Bury Calderdale Coventry Doncaster Dudley Gateshead Kirklees Knowsley Leeds Liverpool Manchester Newcastle-upon-Tyne North Tyneside

Oldham Rochdale Rotherham Salford Sandwell Sefton Sheffield Solihull South Tyneside St Helens Stockport Sunderland Tameside Trafford Wakefield Walsall Wigan Wirral Wolverhampton

19 UNITARY AUTHORITIES

One third of council seats up for election

Blackburn with Darwen Derby Halton Hartlepool Hull Milton Keynes North East Lincolnshire Peterborough Plymouth Portsmouth Reading

Slough Southampton Southend-on-Sea Stoke-on-Trent Swindon Thurrock Warrington Wokingham

78 DISTRICT COUNCILS

One third of council seats up for election unless where indicated

* one half

+ boundary change, all out

Adur* Amber Valley Barrow-in-Furness + Basildon Basingstoke & Deane + Bassetlaw Brentwood Broxbourne Burnley Cambridge Cannock Chase Carlisle Castle Point Cheltenham* Cherwell Chorley Colchester Craven Crawley Daventry Eastleigh Elmbridge Epping Forest Exeter Fareham* Gloucester Gosport* Great Yarmouth Harlow Harrogate Hart Hastings* Havant Hertsmere Huntingdonshire Hyndburn Ipswich Lincoln Maidstone Mole Valley

Newcastle-under-Lyme North Hertfordshire Norwich Nuneaton & Bedworth* Oxford* Pendle Preston Purbeck Redditch Reigate & Banstead Rochford Rossendale Rugby Runnymede Rushmoor South Cambridgeshire South Lakeland + St Albans Stevenage Stratford-on-Avon Stroud Swale Tamworth Tandridge Three Rivers Tunbridge Wells Watford Waveney Welwyn Hatfield + West Lancashire West Lindsey West Oxfordshire Weymouth & Portland Winchester Woking Worcester Worthing Wyre Forest

Elections have been cancelled in Bedford, Shrewsbury & Atcham, South Bedfordshire, Penwith, Macclesfield, Crewe & Nantwich, Ellesmere Port & Neston, Congleton and Chester due to formation of new unitary councils [see below]

New Unitary Authorities

In December, the Government announced its final decisions on recent proposals for some local government restructuring.

From 1 April 2009, it announced that five whole county unitary authorities - Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire, Wiltshire - will be set up, thus abolishing the current two-tier structure (county and district councils)

In 2008, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced it was cutting Cheshire in two, creating two separate unitary authorities to be called "Cheshire East" and "Cheshire West and Chester".

Elections to the new unitaries in Durham and Northumberland will be held in 2008 and sit in shadow until formally coming into force in May 2009. There were no district council elections scheduled this year.

There will also be elections for the shadow unitaries in Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester. As a result, elections in five districts have been cancelled.

In the new unitaries in Cornwall, Shropshire, Bedfordshire and Wiltshire, elections will be held in 2009 when they will formally assume the duties.

A handful of districts in these areas were expected to hold elections this year. Orders have now been passed cancelling those elections.

4 NEW SHADOW UNITARIES

Cheshire East Cheshire West and Chester

Durham County Northumberland County