Why Manchester has no local elections this year

It will be a quiet May 1

Thousands of voters will be heading to the polls on May 1 — with tight contests at every level of English politics on-the-line.

Polling stations will be full of voters choosing councillors, mayors, and an MP in a few weeks time. But there won’t be any in Manchester in 2025.

That comes after a bumper year for democracy in the city in 2024. The general election, which was held on July 4, was the third poll Mancs voted in.

Labour won big that evening and formed a government for the first time since 2010, with Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. In Manchester, all six MP seats were won by Labour, as expected.

That completed the party’s Mancunian hat-trick, having seen Andy Burnham re-elected as Greater Manchester mayor on May 2 with 63pc of the vote.

On the same day, Labour also won many seats in the Manchester City Council elections, with leader Bev Craig re-elected in her ward of Burnage. But Labour did lose deputy leader Luthfur Rahman to the Workers Party, a shock result in Longsight.

However, that high political drama won’t make a return in 2025, because there are no elections taking place in Manchester this year.

That’s because MPs are elected on terms of no more than five years, and the government has not called an early election after less than a year in office. There also has not been a death, resignation, criminal conviction, recall petition, or bankruptcy of any of the city’s six MPs, which would trigger a by-election to replace them.

Similarly, Andy Burnham serves a four-year-long term, so he is not due up for re-election until May 2028.

Council elections are a bit more complicated, though. Manchester is divided into 32 wards, with three councillors elected in each ward.

Councillors are elected on staggered terms, so there is an election in three years out of every four. The remaining year is called a ‘fallow year’, when no elections take place.

So, after a bumper democratic year in 2025, that’s why Manchester has no elections in 2025.

But the authority has confirmed when the next poll will be. It said: “There are no elections scheduled for 2025 - the next election is due to take place on May 7, 2026.

“2025 is a fallow year for Manchester City Council, as councillors are elected for a four year period and there are three councillors per ward, this means every four years no elections take place at a local level in Manchester.”