United Kingdom local elections, 2005

United Kingdom local elections, 2005

5 May 2005
All 34 non-metropolitan counties, 3 out of 46 unitary authorities, 1 sui generis authority, 4 directly elected mayors and all 26 Northern Irish districts
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Michael Howard Tony Blair Charles Kennedy Party Conservative Labour Liberal Democrat Leader since 6 November 2003 21 July 1994 9 August 1999 Percentage 40% 28% 25% Swing 3% 2% 4% Councils 24 6 3 Councils +/- 7 1 3 Councillors 1,193 612 493 Councillors +/- 152 114 40   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Ian Paisley Gerry Adams David Trimble Party DUP Sinn Féin UUP Leader since 30 September 1971 13 November 1983 8 September 1995 Councils 2 0 0 Councils +/- 2 Councillors 182 126 115 Councillors +/- 51 18 39
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results.

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.

Despite losing the general election held on the same day, the Conservatives made strong gains at Labour's expense, providing some comfort to the party. Conservative leader Michael Howard resigned soon afterwards and was succeeded by David Cameron, who had a decent platform to build on in his challenge to lead the Conservatives to a general election victory; the party had increased its share of council seats and importantly its share of seats in parliament.

Summary of results

Party		Councillors		Councils
		Number	Change	Number	Change
	Conservative	1,193	152	24	7
	Labour	612	114	6	1
	Liberal Democrat	493	40	3	3
	DUP	182	51	2	2
	Sinn Féin	126	18	0
	UUP	115	39	0
	SDLP	101	16	0
	Alliance	30	2	0
	Independent	20	14	0
	Green	8	6	0
	Residents	8	3	0
	Green (NI)	3	3	0
	Liberal	2	3	0
	PUP	2	2	0
	United Unionist	2		0
	Health Concern	1	5	0
	Newtownabbey Ratepayers	1		0
	NI Women's Coalition	0	1	0
	UKIP	0	1	0
	UK Unionist	0	2	0
	Other	96	26	0
	No overall control	n/a	n/a	4	9

Source: BBC local election results for England^[1]

England

Northern Ireland

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.

References

• Local and Mayoral elections 2005. House of Commons Library Research Paper 05/93