United Kingdom local elections, 2005

United Kingdom local elections, 2005

2004 ← 5 May 2005 → 2006

38 English county and unitary councils 26 Northern Irish district and borough councils   Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Michael Howard Tony Blair Charles Kennedy Party Conservative Labour Liberal Democrat Leader since November 2003 21 July 1994 9 August 1999 Percentage 40 28 25 Councils 24 6 3 Councils +/- +7 -1 +3 Councillors 1193 612 493 Councillors +/- +152 −114 +40

Elections for local government were held in the England and Northern Ireland on 5 May 2005 along with the 2005 general election across the entire United Kingdom. In addition, the Isle of Wight held a local referendum on the issue of a directly elected mayor.

England Results

Party		Councils		Councillors
		Change	Total	Change	Total
	Conservative	+7	24	+152	1193
	Labour	–1	6	–114	612
	Liberal Democrat	+3	3	+40	493
	Green	0	0	+6	8
	Residents Associations	0	0	–3	8
	Liberal	0	0	-3	2
	Health Concern	0	0	-5	1
	UKIP	0	0	-1	0
	Other	0	0	–26	96
	No Overall Control	-9	4	—	—

Source: BBC local election results for England

Mayoral elections

Four direct mayoral elections were held.

Local Authority	Previous Mayor		Candidate elected		Details
Doncaster		Martin Winter (Labour)		Martin Winter (Labour)
Hartlepool		Stuart Drummond (Independent)		Stuart Drummond (Independent)
North Tyneside		Linda Arkley (Conservative)		John Harrison (Labour)	Details
Stoke-on-Trent		Mike Wolfe (Independent)		Mark Meredith (Labour)

County councils

All shire county county council seats were up for re-election.

Council	Previous control		Result		Details
Bedfordshire		Conservative		Conservative hold
Buckinghamshire		Conservative		Conservative hold
Cambridgeshire		Conservative		Conservative hold
Cheshire		Conservative		Conservative hold
Cornwall		No overall control		Liberal Democrat gain
Cumbria		No overall control		No overall control hold
Derbyshire		Labour		Labour hold
Devon		No overall control		Liberal Democrat gain
Dorset		Conservative		Conservative hold
Durham		Labour		Labour hold
East Sussex		Conservative		Conservative hold
Essex		Conservative		Conservative hold
Gloucestershire		No overall control		Conservative gain
Hampshire		Conservative		Conservative hold
Hertfordshire		Conservative		Conservative hold	Details
Kent		Conservative		Conservative hold	Details
Lancashire		Labour		Labour hold	Details
Leicestershire		Conservative		Conservative hold
Lincolnshire		Conservative		Conservative hold	Details
Norfolk		Conservative		Conservative hold
North Yorkshire		Conservative		Conservative hold
Northamptonshire		Labour		Conservative gain	Details
Northumberland		Labour		Labour hold
Nottinghamshire		Labour		Labour hold
Oxfordshire		No overall control		Conservative gain
Shropshire		No overall control		Conservative gain	Details
Somerset		No overall control		Liberal Democrat gain
Staffordshire		Labour		Labour hold
Suffolk		No overall control		Conservative gain	Details
Surrey		Conservative		Conservative hold
Warwickshire		No overall control		No overall control hold	Details
West Sussex		Conservative		Conservative hold	Details
Wiltshire		Conservative		Conservative hold	Details
Worcestershire		No overall control		Conservative gain

Unitary authorities

In three unitary authorities the whole council were up for election and one had a third of the council up for election.

Council	Proportion up for election	Previous control		Result		Details
Bristol	1/3		No overall control		No overall control hold
Isle of Wight	All		No overall control		Conservative gain	Details
Isles of Scilly	All		Independent		Independent hold
Stockton-on-Tees	All		Labour		No overall control gain

Northern Ireland district and borough councils

Main article: Northern Ireland local elections, 2005

All seats were up for election in the 26 districts of Northern Ireland. The many parties and the use of the single transferable vote meant that most councils ended up in no overall control. The DUP gained majority control of three councils: Ards, Ballymena, and Castlereagh.

Results summary

Party		Councillors		Votes
		Change	Total	% share	Total
	Democratic Unionist	+51	182	30	208,278
	Sinn Féin	+18	126	23	163,205
	Ulster Unionist	-39	115	18	126,317
	SDLP	-16	101	17	121,991
	Alliance	+2	30	5	35,149
	Independent	-14	20	4	27,677
	Green (NI)	+3	3	1	5,703
	Progressive Unionist	-2	2	1	4,591
	United Unionist	0	2	0.3	2,064
	Newtownabbey Ratepayers	0	1	0.3	1,897
	Socialist Environmental	0	0	0.2	1,321
	Conservative	0	0	0.2	1,164
	Workers' Party	0	0	0.1	1,052
	Socialist Party	0	0	0.1	828
	NI Women's Coalition	-1	0	0.1	738
	UK Unionist	-2	0	0.1	734

Source: ARK research and knowledge group

References

Preceded by United Kingdom local elections, 2004

United Kingdom local elections

Succeeded by United Kingdom local elections, 2006