Local Council By-Elections January 2026

This month saw 21,185 votes cast in 10 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. Six council seats changed hands. For comparison with December's results, see here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Dec	+/- Jan 25	Avge/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	10	3,190	15.1%	-4.4	-6.2	319	-1
Labour	9	3,146	14.9%	+5.5	-2.2	350	-2
Lib Dem	10	3,790	17.9%	-2.7	-3.9	379	+1
Reform	10	5,369	25.3%	-5.7	+14.8	537	+2
Green	7	2,988	14.1%	+5.9	+8.4	427	0
SNP*	2	1,693	8.0%	+2.5	-1.6	847	0
PC**	0						0
Ind***	4	339	1.6%	-3.0	-12.0	85	0
Other****	6	407	1.9%	+0.6	+1.5	68	0

* There were two by-elections in Scotland
** There was one by-election in Wales
*** There was one Independent clash
**** Others in January consisted of Advance (161, 57), Derbyshire Community Party (50), Flint's People's Voice (79), Scottish Family Party (35, 25)

Happy new year! At least it is for some of the parties in this month's round up. Looking at the polls, the Conservatives are enjoying a very modest recovery. But that is yet to filter through to council bye-elections. Not a terrible outing by their recent standards, but that vote average keeps trending lower. And this is in a set of contests that have historically favoured the Tories. They can squeeze some comfort from how Labour did even worse, though they bounced by from December's catastrophic showing and still out paced them on the vote average. As well as seats lost. So a pretty miserable start to 2026 for them.

As the Liberal Democrats routinely outperform the big two parties these days, they walk away with a decent showing and a net gain of one seat. Though that vote tally is largely thanks to a couple of big wins. Reform, unfortunately, is the party most consistently able to pull off good results, and this month was no exception. Two seats gained and top of the pops, yet again. But this month is the sharpest vote share decline they've registered so far. I'm inclined to put that down to doing really well in December when the other parties could barely be bothered. Lastly, and entirely coincident with my joining them, the Greens scored their highest ever aggregate vote share. Undoubtedly it would have been higher had the party stood in more seats, but with nearly 200,000 members to shout about it's likely more seats will get contested this year.

One thing that didn't get mentioned in the annual round-up was something I was keeping an eye on. I.e. With the rise of Reform and increasing prominence of the Greens, are we seeing fewer independent and 'other' challenges? And the answer was, in 2025, yes. In 2023 there were 122 independent and 97 'Other' candidates contesting 209 elections. In 2024 211 and 112 respectively who stood in 384 polls, reflecting the huge number of councillors who were elected to parliament and subsequently resigned. And last year it was 174 and 92 in 350 contests. A big drop. Is this sign of a trend? Only by waiting and watching will we find out.

February is also going to be a quiet month with 10 by-elections scheduled. No Reform, Green, or SNP defences, and six of them were last won by Labour. I imagine the year isn't about to get happier for Labour in local government.

15 January
Gosport, Bridgemary, Ref gain from LDem
York, Heworth, Lab hold

20 January
Amber Valley, Codnor, Langley Mill & Aldercar, Ref gain from Lab
Derbyshire, Horsley, Grn gain from Ref

22 January
Cheshire West & Chester, Willaston & Thornto, Con hold
Cotswolds, The Rissingtons, LDem gain from Grn
Fife, Glenrothes West & Kinglassie, SNP hold
Flintshire, Leeswood, Ref gain from Lab
South Norfolk, Central Wymondham, Con hold

29 January
East Dunbartonshire, Bearsden South, LDem gain from Con

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