Third of council seats up for grabs

NINETEEN seats will be up for grabs in May's Plymouth City Council elections.

- By ALISON STEPHENSON Local Democracy Reporter

Plymouth will hold council elections in May this year

The city council decided just before Christmas to continue as normal with elections in 2026 following an invitation to local authorities to postpone them due to the pressures of local government reorganisation.

Plymouth holds elections by thirds which means a third of seats are contested each year for three years, followed by a year when there are no elections.

Ten of the seats being contested this year are currently held by Labour which would still be the largest party even if it lost all of these.

There are 57 seats on the council and Labour currently hold 39, the Conservatives and Independents both hold seven, Greens have two, Liberal Democrats have one and there is one completely independent member.

At this stage, a list of candidates for all the seats in the May elections is not known, but it has been established that Conservative councillor for Plymstock Radford Rebecca Smith said she would stand down due to her workload as an MP for South West Devon.