134 of 136 councils Counting under way
Local elections in England cover more than 5,000 seats across 136 local authorities and six mayoral races. The banner shows each party’s seat total as results come in. Results from all counts are expected by Saturday.
Labour has lost control of Lambeth Council as the party's support falls away across London
Croydon remains under no overall control while counting is still taking place in Tower Hamlets and Lewisham
These local elections have seen London's political landscape change dramatically with both the Greens and Reform UK picking up their first councils
London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan tells the BBC he blames the government for the results, which has seen Labour losing two mayors and control of several councils
Until this vote, Labour had 21 boroughs, the Conservatives had five, the Lib Dems had three, the Aspire Party had one and two were no overall control
While we will focus on London, you can also keep across what is happening across the UK here and find results in your area here
Edited by Tim Stokes, with Nicky Ford at the counts
Charlotte Lillywhite
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Sir Ed Davey's wife Emily easily retained her seat in Norbiton with 1,416 votes
The Liberal Democrats kept their large majority in one of their south-west London strongholds, securing an easy victory in Kingston-upon-Thames for the third term in a row.
The borough is home to party leader and local MP Sir Ed Davey – his wife Emily easily retained her seat in Norbiton with 1,416 votes.
The party secured 44 out of the 48 seats on Kingston Council – the same number of seats the party won in 2022, but two more seats than it had going into the election on Thursday.
They lost a seat to Kingston Independent Residents Group (KIRG) in a by-election in November 2022, while another councillor left the group in 2024.
KIRG held onto both seats in Green Lanes and St James – with leader James Giles securing 1,043 votes, followed by Councillor Yvonne Tracey with 1,001 votes.
But the party lost its other seat, as Jamal Chohan was not re-elected.
The Conservatives also kept both seats in Coombe Hill, with leader Rowena Bass and Ian George winning the highest number of votes in the ward.
The result means KIRG is no longer the official opposition in Kingston, as it previously had one more councillor than the Tories.
Giles told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Whilst obviously we would have liked more independents to be elected across the borough, our borough-wide vote share was higher than the Labour Party, and it is clear that more and more residents are looking for change here in Kingston.
“Whilst the Democrats have once more emerged with a super majority, rest assured we will work day in and out to provide the opposition that Kingston’s residents so desperately need. Thank you to everybody who placed their trust in us.”
The last few seats declared go to Labour meaning they are the largest party on Croydon Council, which remains under no overall control.
Nicky Ford
Reporting from the Lewisham count
The Greens are confident of winning Lewisham Council
Here at Haberdashers’ Knights Academy in south London, the Lewisham count is well under way.
As the results come through the sound of the Green Party cheers are resounding – and frequent.
At times they are getting to their feet to applaud, whoop and cheer.
Buoyed by their win of the mayoralty yesterday, it’s looking like they’ll get a majority on the council too.
With Labour sitting on one side of the hall and the Greens on the other, it feels a little like an odd sort of wedding.
Tony Grew
BBC London
The Tories and Labour have both increased their number of councillors in the Croydon council elections.
With 61 out of 70 seats declared, the Conservatives have 28, Labour has 23, the Greens are on six and Reform UK and the Lib Dems on two each.
It is too early to say for sure, but no overall control is likely.
Grant Williams
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Counting took place yesterday in Harrow
Harrow Council was held by the Conservatives, adding 11 councillors to their tally.
Labour councillors have halved since the last election, whilst new party Arise secured one seat.
The north-west London borough returned a total of 42 Conservative councillors from 55 available seats.
The results mirrored councils across London and the rest of the country, with Labour suffering heavy losses.
Labour only returned 12 seats and will once again form the official opposition. The Green Party, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK all struck a blank, despite standing a full slate of candidates.
Arise won its first councillor, with Pamela Fitzpatrick taking a seat in the Marlborough ward.
Throughout the last 60 years, the local authority has flip flopped between either Labour, Conservatives or no overall control.
Polling had indicated the council would continue to be held by the Conservatives – with Harrow being the only borough where the Conservatives increased its vote share at the 2024 general election.
Nick Clark
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Reform UK won nine seats on Barking and Dagenham council
Newly-elected Barking and Dagenham councillor for Reform UK, Ben Suter, said they had "made complete history here".
But he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the party had been “hoping for more”.
He said: "We’ve elected the first opposition in Barking and Dagenham Council in 16 years and we’re proud of that achievement."
Labour kept control of the council, but lost nine seats to Reform UK and four to the Green Party.
The party kept a firm grip on the town hall, although with a reduced majority of 38 councillors.
Suter said in some cases Reform candidates had lost out to Labour by small margins.
In Alibon ward, for example, Labour candidate Muazzim Sandhu won with just eleven more votes than Reform candidate Tracey Jane Sullivan-Sparks.
Suter said that Reform could have won more candidates if more of its supporters had turned out to vote. “A lot of people just didn’t have the belief that Reform could win so a lot of our people stayed home."
Council leader Dominic Twomey claimed in his victory speech there is "no foothold for Reform in this borough".
He added: "They’ll collapse quickly. We will expose them for the charlatans that they are. All they will do is continue the division they sow across the country.”
Tony Grew
BBC London
Scott Ainslie, Lambeth Green Party group leader, says the party is "proud and honoured to have won the confidence of so many voters across this borough".
The Greens are now the largest party on Lambeth Council with 29 councillors, up 27.
The Labour Party lost 32 seats and now have 26 councillors and the Lib Dems have eight, up by five.
Ainslie adds: "We will work every day to give them a voice, push back austerity, and make this borough the best place to live, work and have fun.
"We will put their right to a decent affordable home, a liveable environment, and fulfilled life ahead of the interests of developers and speculators.
"We will make this a council that listens and empowers. Thank you to everyone who voted, to all of our volunteers, and to all of the council staff who have worked so hard to deliver the election."
Karl Mercer
BBC London political editor
Another one bites the dust! Labour has lost control of another council in London, as the Greens become the biggest party in Lambeth, winning 29 seats to Labour's 26, with the Lib Dems picking up eight.
After a night when they won mayoral contests in Hackney and Lewisham, as well as their first London borough in Waltham Forest, the Green surge has continued.
Their eyes will now be focussed on nearby Lewisham to see if they can win the council there to add to their victory in the mayoral race.
London's Labour mayor has called his party's results in the capital "bitterly disappointing", blaming the government for Labour's long list of casualties across London.
And it is a long list, losing control in Hackney, Lewisham, Haringey, Brent, Waltham Forest, Southwark, Enfield, Barnet, Wandsworth, Westminster and Newham.
A party that on Thursday ran 21 of London's 32 boroughs finds itself in a very different place this weekend.
With 42 results declared out of 70, Croydon is more than halfway through its council count.
The results so far:
Conservatives: 16
Labour: 16
Greens: 6
Reform UK: 2
Liberal Democrats: 2
The final results are in from the Kia Oval – Lambeth is in no overall control with the Greens as the largest party.Nicky Ford
Reporting from the Lambeth count
The latest from the Lambeth count at the Kia Oval where it appears that Labour will lose control of the council.
The Greens are in the lead with 26 seats, with Labour close behind with 20 and the Liberal Democrats on eight.
I caught up with Claire Holland, Labour leader of Lambeth Council, who didn’t want to fully comment until the results are all in – but she did say she felt very sad if the council went to no overall control and pledged to come out fighting.
"We will continue to be the voice for the voiceless, representing every community," she says.
After the last local election, Labour held 58 seats in Lambeth, the Lib Dems had three and the Greens had two.
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BBC London was in Hackney this morning to speak to Hackney's new mayor Zoë Garbett.
During a walkaround in Ridley Road Market she was greeted by supporters who were celebrating her winning the seat from Labour.
We'll bring you lines from her interview with BBC London's political editor Karl Mercer shortly.
Josef Steen
Local Democracy Reporting Service
The Greens are now the official opposition on Camden Council
The Green Party in Camden has hailed their wins in the local council elections.
Lorna Jane Russell, who until now has been the only Green councillor in Camden, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It’s incredible. The Green Party is now the official opposition, to go from one to 11 is amazing.
"I have every faith that we will do people proud and show them what Green councillors can do."
Labour retained control over Camden but the surge in support for the Greens saw Labour's council leader Richard Olszewski lose his seat.
The insurgent Greens dealt the ruling party several blows as they increased their total number of councillors to 11, making them the largest opposition group on the council.
Labour retained its overall majority with 30 council seats, down 17 from the 2022 elections.
The Liberal Democrats also made gains, increasing their number of councillors to 10.
Trailing in fourth place, the Conservatives won three seats, while the Camden People’s Alliance won a seat in St Pancras and Somers Town.
Russell said: “With a reduced majority and what will be a new leader, it’s a good opportunity for Labour to reflect on the issues and priorities that matter most to communities: housing repairs, overdevelopment, green issues, and to ground them a little bit more in the grassroots.
“We will keep them on their toes.”
The Labour Party’s losses will resonate with Labour MPs representing the borough, which includes the prime minister Sir Keir Starmer. Nicky Ford
Reporting from the Lambeth count
Results are coming in for Lambeth Council's elections
There is recount upon recount here at the Kia Oval as control for Lambeth hangs in the balance.
Counting restarted this morning with 16 wards already announced yesterday – the Greens have won 21 of the seats declared with Labour on 12 and the Liberal Democrats on seven.
Today there is a tense but optimistic atmosphere depending on who you’re talking to.
The Greens say they’ve taken some seats they weren’t expecting to and Labour say they’ve been fighting against the tide.
The council could be heading for no overall control.
The Greens are telling me they think they’ll get 29 or 30 maybe overall but need 32 for a majority.
Lambeth's ballots are being counted at the Kia Oval, while cricket is being played on the pitch
Tony Grew
BBC London
The prime minister has apologised but said he isn't going anywhere
The mea culpas from the prime minister continue into Saturday.
This morning Sir Keir Starmer visited south-west London where he gritted his teeth and faced the cameras.
He gave his diagnosis for why Labour did so badly in Thursday’s elections, not just in London but across England, Wales and Scotland.
There were unnecessary mistakes, he said. We were too honest with the voters about the dire state of the economy without telling them how things were going to get better.
While the immediate danger to Sir Keir’s continued residence in Downing St may have passed, London Labour aren’t in a forgiving mood.
Their leader, mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, pointedly didn’t name the PM, but his message was clear: the party’s disastrous results in the capital are Sir Keir’s fault.
The reason voters fled from Labour “wasn't because of the performance of the Labour council or the Labour mayor, it was because of the Labour government”.
For all the losses Labour took on Thursday, there are reasons to be grateful.
The threat from Reform UK in Barking and Dagenham failed to appear.
They held on in Islington, in Hounslow, in Camden.
While it could have been much worse, Labour will mourn the losses nonetheless.
The mayoralties of Hackney and Lewisham. Waltham Forest and Hackney Council.
Control of Southwark, Brent, Enfield.
The Greens triumphant and in control of parts of London that Labour used to think of as its heartland.
It’s no wonder the party isn’t in the mood to forgive.
In the end despite speculation that they could dominate the eastern flanks of London, Reform UK only picked up Havering, an outlier politically and culturally, where voters resent being thought of as "outer London" and many hanker to return to Essex.
Reform were tipped to take Bexley and Bromley – they didn’t come close.
The Tories retained both, won back Westminster, pushed Wandsworth into no overall control and comfortably held on in Harrow and Kensington and Chelsea.
Not a bad result when we consider how Reform have rampaged all over Tory territory across England.
And the Lib Dems will be happy enough: they retained the three councils they had before, and got a clean sweep of every councillor in Richmond.
But Thursday’s victors were the Greens.
Zoë Garbett’s stunning victory in Hackney and her impassioned acceptance speech will live long in the hearts and memories of progressive voters across London.
They didn’t win as many councils as predicted, but the fear for Labour must be that left-leaning voters who go Green may never come back.
Before Thursday's local elections Labour ran 21 London boroughs, the Conservatives had five, the Lib Dems had three, the Aspire Party had one and two were no overall control.
Four councils (shown in light grey) are still to be declared but the political map shows how much change there has been with Labour losing several areas, the Greens and Reform picking up their first London boroughs and more now in no overall control (marked in dark grey).
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Earlier, London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan was asked by BBC London political editor Karl Mercer whether Sir Keir Starmer could carry on as leader of the Labour Party.
Philip James Lynch
Local Democracy Reporting Service
Labour retained power by a slim margin in Hounslow
Labour retained control of Hounslow Council following the local elections, despite losing 20 seats.
A total of 32 is needed for a majority – exactly the number Labour achieved.
The party will have a majority of one, compared to a majority of 20 after the 2022 vote.
Labour saw a large drop off in their vote, losing some of their safest seats in the borough.
Reform UK had a breakthrough in Feltham, gaining eight new councillors across the borough compared to 2022.
The Conservatives also saw success in the borough gaining seven councillors.
Jack Emsley, Conservative councillor for Chiswick Homefields, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the result was “seismic”.
The Green Party gained three new councillors compared to 2022, although one had defected to the Greens during the previous term.
The Liberal Democrats also gained their first councillor, taking a seat from Labour in Isleworth.
Turnout was 41%, compared to 33.6% in 2022 – an increase of 7.4%.
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