UK local elections 2024 LIVE: Confident Labour win Sunderland and declare Hartlepool

There’s a lot going on tonight, but helpfully this helpful graphic should help you pinpoint what to keep an eye out for and where the key races may be.

In one of the quickest confirmed council results of the night, Labour has held Gateshead after winning the first two seats to be declared.

Keir Starmer’s party also fancy their chances in Thurrock, with increasing belief they can take the council from no overall control.

Thurrock Council had been controlled by the Conservatives from 2021 to 2024, but it reverted to overall control earlier this year.

The Conservatives are defending 13 seats in the Essex council tonight, compared to Labour’s four.

A Labour spokesperson said it is ‘exactly the kind of place we need to be winning to gain a majority in a general election’.

They added: ‘The people of Thurrock have sent the Conservatives a message that they want change.’

Labour have gained control of Hartlepool Council, it has now been confirmed.

Labour sources had been bullish about their chances earlier in the night, and the results have backed them up.

The party gained eight seats – six fromt the Conservatives and two from the Independents to bring their total on the council to 24.

Labour have retained control of Ipswich Borough Council.

Labour retained control of South Tyneside, but lost at least seven seats to independents.

The party needed to win four seats of the 14 seats it held going in to polling day, and while it achieved that, its majority will be reduced.

In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Labour won 12 of the first 19 seats to be declared early on Friday morning.

The party held 46 of the 78 council seats going in to polling day and needed to win 10 of the 27 being contested to retain control.

The Liberal Democrats had won four, Greens two and independents one, with eight seats still to declare.

The final result in Sunderland was Labour 18, Liberal Democrats four and Conservatives three, with Reform UK beating the Tories in 16 of the 25 seats being contested.

Candidates from Southend, Blackpool and Peterborough eagerly anticipate the final vote.

The first council to declare its full result this morning was Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, where the Conservatives won nine and Labour one of the 10 seats being contested, meaning no seats changed hands.

The Conservatives could not have lost control of the council whatever the result, as it started the night with 27 of the 30 seats.

Cabinet minister Chris Heaton-Harris said the results in Sunderland showed “if you vote Reform, you get Labour”.

The Northern Ireland Secretary told the BBC: “It’s a very straightforward equation for people at the next general election.

“If they want to vote Reform, they’ll end up with Labour MPs, and they’ll end up with a Labour government, and then they’ll end up, probably, with everything they didn’t want to vote for based on the profile of Reform voters.”

Labour activists and members of other parties are keeping a keen eye on the count in Blackpool for the by-election tonight.

Labour claim they have gained control of Hartlepool Borough Council tonight.

The council is currently of no overall control, with a coalition of Conservatives and Independents running the administration at the moment.

A Labour Party spokesperson said:

Winning back Hartlepool council is a groundbreaking moment after the disappointing results we saw here in 2021.

Keir Starmer pledged to change the Labour Party after that result, and today’s win shows that this changed Labour party is ready to deliver the change that communities like Hartlepool are crying out for.

Making gains here shows that the Party is on track to win a general election and is firmly back in the service of working people.”

Labour and Reform activists appear to be in a good mood in Sunderland tonight.

Labour has kept control of Sunderland City Council and is taking seats from the Tories, while Reform has beaten the Conservatives into third place in a number of wards.

A big story tonight could be the performance of Reform UK, as the party looks to take voters from both the Conservatives and Labour.

Polling guru Sir John Curtice told the BBC that its good early results in Sunderland should take into account the nature of the area.

‘Above all this is a very Eurosceptic part of the country,’ he adds. ‘It is also somewhere where UKIP has done well in local elections in the past.

‘We have now seen Reform outpoll the Conservatives in each of the ward results we have got in for Sunderland so far.’

He added that the party had managed field candidates in every ward in the city.

‘Perhaps a vital question is what is going to happen in the majority of wards where Reform is not present,’ he added.

Reform UK’s leader Richard Tice said his party was outperforming the Tories in Sunderland.

‘Outstanding early results in Sunderland,’ he said. ‘We expect to beat Tories in majority of 25 seats in Sunderland.’

In the first few seats declared, Reform UK came second behind Labour.

Labour won the first four seats to be declared at Sunderland, to ensure the party retains control of the council.

The party entered polling day with 47 of the 75 seats on the council, and holding four of the 12 it was defending ensured it retained its majority. A total of 25 seats were being contested.

Our first result of the night has come from the north east, where Labour have kept control of the Sunderland City Council.

It is perhaps unsurprising on both counts – Sunderland has a reputation for counting votes quickly, and Labour has controlled the council for 50 years.

With more than 2,600 council seats up for grabs, it can be easy to lose track of where you should be looking for the results to come in.

We’ve put together this list of battles to keep an eye on – these include councils where the Tories might be looking nervously over their shoulders and mayoral elections that could be a bellweather for the Conservative’s General Election hopes.

This is when we can expect the results from some of the key battles to be announced:

• Broxbourne council – 12.30am on Friday
• North East Lincolnshire council – 2am on Friday
• Thurrock council – 3am on Friday
• Reading council – 3.15am on Friday
• Peterborough council – 4am on Friday
• Blackpool by-election – 4.30am on Friday
• Tees Valley mayor – 12.30pm on Friday
• East Midlands mayor – 2.30pm on Friday
• London mayor – 1.30pm on Saturday
• West Midlands mayor – 3pm on Saturday

Polling guru Sir John Curtice has said the Tories will be looking at a pair of mayoral elections to get a glimpse of what a General Election could hold for them.

He told an Institute for Government event this week the Tories were emphasising two mayoral battles in West Midlands and Tees Valley, where they are currently in charge, ‘because they think they might manage to win the contest and therefore they’ll be able to cover whatever disasters happen elsewhere’.

He added: ‘Because of the personal votes of these two, (these contests are) going to be the least reliable indicator.

‘Equally, conversely here in London, Sadiq Khan will not do as well as the Labour Party would do in a general election because Sadiq has a negative personal vote. But this city is now so strong Labour, he’s going to win anyway.’

Turnout in local elections tends to be lower than in national polls and this may be the case again this time round.

The head of the Association of Electoral Administrators, which organises local elections, has said people working at the polls had a ‘quiet’ day.

Initial feedback from our members is this polling day has been quiet in many areas, without major issues.

The dedication and hard work electoral administrators and their suppliers have put into planning and running these elections – against the backdrop of the uncertainty of when the general election will be called – needs to be acknowledged.

While today’s polls are now closed, the work is far from over. Results will be declared overnight and into the weekend.

As counting takes place and we await the first results, perhaps now is a good time to take a look at probably the most popular sight on election day – dogs at polling stations:

The mood among the senior Conservatives is not one of optimism, with suggestions they could lose hundreds of council seats.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has sought to temper expectations, telling Sky News’ Politics Hub: ‘We are expecting to see significant losses. That often happens in local elections.’

Tory peer and polling expert Lord Hayward said: ‘I expect the Tories to lose upwards of 400 seats.’

But he suggested that Mr Sunak’s position was not in immediate jeopardy.

‘In recent days I have been left with the very clear impression that, amongst Tory MPs, the ‘let’s have a leadership election’ balloon has been substantially deflated,’ he said.

However, ‘an audible, very small, group will disagree and probably do so early’.

While most of the counts tonight are for council and mayoral elections, the outlier is in Blackpool South, where residents have voted for a new MP.

The vote in the constituency was organised after the former Tory MP Scott Benton resigned.

He had been subject of a recall petition after he was suspended for 35 days following allegations he told undercover reporters he would be willing to lobby ministers on behalf of gambling firms in return for money.

It means the coastal constituency is up for grabs once more, five years after it swung Conservative in the 2019 General Election.

George Osborne has claimed Rishi Sunak could face ‘Armageddon’ if results go against him tonight.

Speaking on the Political Currency podcast, the former Tory Chancellor told his co-host Ed Balls, that the mayoral elections in West Midlands and Tees Valley will be crucial bellweathers.

If Andy Street loses in the West Midlands that’s pretty bad for Sunak. It might well provoke a lot of talk about a leadership contest.

I think if they lose Teesside, which is not at the moment on the cards, but if Ben Houchen loses it will be Armageddon because at that point people will say we are absolutely now heading for a massive landslide defeat.

And there will be people in the Conservative parliamentary party saying ‘change course, change leader’.

Counting is continuing across the country, with volunteers hard at work in Southend-on-sea (top), Peterborough (middle) and Sunderland (bottom).

The two frontrunners to be Mayor of London have tweeted out their thanks to voters who came out and had their say in the capital today.

Under rules brought in by the Tory Government everyone wanting to vote in today’s local elections, as well as future General Electiosn, must take phot ID with them to a polling station.

The change may have caught some people out, including Tom Hunt who misplaced his form of identification despite being the Conservative MP for Ipswich.

The 35-year-old was forced to seek an emergency proxy and blamed his dyspraxia, a condition that affects sufferers’ organisational skills.

You can read the full story here:

The ballots are already being counted in the Blackpool South by-election, where candidates are vying to replace Tory MP Scott Benton who resigned earlier this year.

The constituency had been a safe Labour seat before Benton’s election in 2019, where the Conservatives received 49.6% of the vote and won with a majority of 3,690.

However, the omens aren’t looking good for another Tory victory tonight, with forecasts suggesting it will swing back to Labour.

The Liberal Democrats, who are always competitve during the local elections, seem to be in a good mood before the results come in.

The party’s leader Sir Ed Davey said:

The message across the country today was loud and clear. Voters want an end to this appalling Conservative government.

People are sick of the Conservative party’s endless infighting, unaffordable mortgages, an NHS in freefall and filthy sewage being pumped into their rivers and seas.

They want change and they want to see the end of Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party in office. That is why, up and down the country, so many lifelong Conservative voters backed the Liberal Democrats today, because they know Liberal Democrat councillors will never take them for granted and fight for the issues they care about.

Labour appeared confident about their chances before the polls closed, and given the voting forecasts, not many would argue their bullishness is misplaced.

Labour have held a lead in the polls over the Conservatives for more than two years as people turn sour on the Tory-led government.

One recent poll suggested Labour could gain 44% of the vote at the next General Election, with the Tories wallowing on 18%, squeezed by Reform UK polling at 15%.

While local elections are a different beast to national votes – turnout tends to be lower and people tend to vote on local issues – the Conservatives are hopeful of losing as few seats as possible, as opposed to winning more.

Labour are in a confident mood after the closure of the polls, and say they are expecting to win seats in key battlegrounds.

Pat McFadden (pictured below outside Westminster this morning), Labour’s National Campaign Coordinator, said:

‘We are proud of the positive campaign we have run, focused on turning the page after fourteen years of decline under the Conservative Party.

These elections have been about offering change. We have set out our plan to get Britain building again, take back our streets, and bring opportunity to every corner of the country, while the Conservatives have once again stayed silent on the issues that matter.

The most important election of the night is the historic by-election in Blackpool, caused by yet more Tory chaos and scandal. It’s the only election today where voters have had the opportunity to directly reject Rishi Sunak’s party in Westminster.

It’s going to be a long night and the full picture of results from local elections may not be clear until over the weekend, but we expect to see Labour gains that show we’re making progress in the places we need to win the next general election.

Polls have now closed in today’s local elections.

If you were able to get in line before the clock hit 10pm, then stay as you will be able to vote.

The first results are expected to come in by 12.30am.

Sadiq Khan got in on the dogs at polling stations action when he and his wife Saadiya brought their dog along with them to vote this morning.

His Tory rival Susan Hall also went out to vote this morning at her local polling station in Hatch End, as polls give the incumbant a significant lead over his Conservative challenger.

We’ve all heard of dogs at polling stations, but donkeys?

People heading to vote in the village of Godshill in the New Forest this morning were greeted by an ass stood outside their polling station.

It’s unclear whether his owner was inside or the donkey was trying to cast its vote in the district election.

While the race to become Mayor of London unsurprisingly takes the most attention, there are 10 other mayoral races taking place in England today.

Most of these are to elect combined authority mayors, also known as metro mayors – politicians who will chair combined authorities made up of multiple council areas.

The following regions are holding these polls today:

• East Midlands
• Greater Manchester
• Liverpool City Region
• North East
• South Yorkshire
• Tees Valley
• West Midlands
• West Yorkshire
• York and North Yorkshire

There is also one mayoral election in the city of Salford.

While many voters will cast their ballot in their local village hall or school, some people in Cambridge had a slightly different experience.

Due to issues accessing the Milton Road Library in the morning, people who turned up to vote were told they had to do so from the back of a volunteer’s car.

Among the biggest votes taking place today is the London mayoral election.

Labour mayor Sadiq Khan headed to the polls today looking for a third four-year term in charge of Britain’s most populous city.

He is facing competition from a host of candidates, including Conservative Susan Hall, Reform UK’s Howard Cox, the Green Party’s Zoe Garbett and Liberal Democrat Rob Blackie.

The full list of London mayoral candidates is as follows:

• Sadiq Khan – Labour Party
• Susan Hall – Conservative Party
• Zoe Garbett – Green Party
• Howard Cox – Reform UK
• Rob Blackie – Liberal Democrat
• Femy Amin – Animal Welfare
• Count Binface – Count Binface
• Natalie Campbell – Independent
• Amy Gallagher – Social Democratic Party
• Tarun Ghulati – Independent
• Andreas Michli – Independent
• Brian Rose – London Real
• Nick Scanlon – Britain First

One of the most comforting sights on election day is the dogs of Britain sitting outside the polling station while their owners head inside to cast their vote.

With polls closing at 10pm, you might be forgiven for thinking it could take a while for the results to come through.

And while it may take some time for the larger votes to be confirmed, the first council results could come just after midnight.

There will be a steady trickle of results through the night, with councils in Hartlepool, Sunderland, Bolton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Portsmouith, Southen-on-Sea and Exeter all expected to delcare before 3am.

The result in the Blackpool South by-election should be announced by 4.30am.

However, larger votes such as mayoral and PCC elections will take longer than this, with Londoners having to wait until Saturday for their mayoral election result to be confirmed.

One of the most interesting things about voting day is the variety of where Britain’s polling stations are actually located.

Whether it be a local cafe (top), a Salvation Army office (second top) or a village hall (bottom), it seems there’s almost no barrier when it comes to finding somewhere to vote.

Polling stations across England and Wales opened at 7am this morning, giving the volunteers who run them from your local church, school or social club an early start.

Despite that, more than 12 hours later they are still open and if you haven’t voted yet you still have the opportunity to get out and do so.

Polling stations don’t close until 10pm and as long as you in line by the time the clock strikes the hour you’ll be able to cast your vote.

It’s a big day for people with an interest in how their local area is run. This is what’s on the line:

• In England more than 2,600 council seats are up for grabs across 107 local authorities
• Nearly a dozen mayoral elections are taking place, including for the London mayoralty and a number of new combined authority mayors in England
• In the capital 25 London Assembly seats are up for grabs
• Voters in England and Wales will elect 37 police and crime commissioners (PCC)
• And there’s a by-election in the constituency of Blackpool South to elect a new MP

Good evening and welcome to MailOnline’s live coverage of the UK local elections.

Millions of people have gone to their local polling stations today to make their vote count in council, mayoral and PCC elections.

There’s even a by-election taking place on what could be a chastening night for the Conservative Party, with predictions they could be in line for big losses across the country.

It will be a night full of intrigue and here at MailOnline we’ll do our best to keep you abreast of all the developments as they happen.