Local elections will be held by councils up and down the country in 2025 – but Leeds will be one of the authorities where local elections will not take place this year.
The reason there will be no elections in Leeds is that each of the 33 council wards is represented by three councillors who are each elected to serve a four-year term.
As the elections section on the council website explains: “Their terms are staggered so that we only select one councillor in each local election.
“This system is called voting by thirds because a third of councillors are elected each year, over a four year cycle. Due to this, once every four years, there are no local elections. This is called a fallow year. The next fallow year in Leeds is 2025.”
WLD reader and former MP and councillor Michael Meadowcroft added further context.
He said the “off” year was originally the year of the elections for the West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council. The term of office for councillors was increasing from three years to four following local government reorganisation in 1974 in order to accommodate county council elections in the “spare” year.Â
This was when the boroughs of Morley and Pudsey and the urban districts of Aireborough, Horsforth, Aireborough, Otley, Wetherby, Garforth and Rothwell were joined with Leeds into a new, much enlarged, city council.Â
Mr Meadowcroft recalls a new Metropolitan County Council was formed to cover the new metropolitan districts and the old West Riding. Following the inaugural elections for both levels in 1973 the county council had elections in 1977, 1981 and 1985.
In 1986 the metropolitan counties were abolished by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, hence the “blank” years every four years ever since.
The only reason a Leeds council election would be called in 2025 is if a by-election is held due to the departure of an existing councillor, like in Farnley & Wortley last October.
The 2025 local elections will be held across the country on 1 May 2025. All seats on all 21 county councils in England and ten unitary authorities in England will be up for election.
Two existing combined authority mayors and two existing single authority mayors will be up for election. In addition, the inaugural election for the mayor of Greater Lincolnshire is expected to take place on 1 May 2025, along with the inaugural election for the mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire.
Reuters Factcheck, meanwhile, reports that Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s planned council reorganisation will likely lead to the postponement, not cancellation, of some local council elections in the UK this year.
Editor’s note: This article was amended at 12.13pm on Tuesday, 7 January 2025 to add Mr Meadowcroft’s observations.
No council elections in 2025 by the so-called democratic Labour council! Nothing at all to do with the fact that any Labour prospective councillors will not be re-elected and that, hopefully, this despicable organisation will no longer be controlling our once proud city.
Philip, your comment is proof – if any were needed – that some people will only believe what they want to believe. Have you even bothered to read the article?
Take your head out of the sand and give it a wobble please mate. And stop deliberately spreading disinformation while you’re at it.
It is not misinformation labour are going out there way to minimise local elections that is the truth
Spreading misinformation? Sorry, what is your name again? At least my comments are made in my own name unless your parents named you Spocks Brain…..misinformation indeed! Have a lovely evening.
Instead of deflecting with personal digs, Phillip, maybe try addressing the actual content of the article. It explains the long-standing election cycle clearly—no conspiracy required.
Election cycle scrap it . We can vote when we want. I wasent sent enything about some elections, and complained about it. The system is bent and corrupt, it has been for far too long and most people no it . Sucking up to labour commie dictators will not help. We have a bent clown sausage in No 10.
Convenient isn’t it. No election. Running scared of rejection by those pensioners who have not yet died of the below zero temperature.
Or small businesses closing down through
tax increases. Or the farmers on the brink of suicide. Or the massive popularity of Reform Party. Or rejection by a third of Labour Party voters. Or the gigantic amout of waste in the NHS. Or the foreign aid sent to rich countries.
Or the massive increase of serious crime.
Or the cover up about racist grooming gangs.
The list is endless.
Yes Labour have fallen lucky in Leeds this year, be interesting to see what they do across the rest of the country.