There are city council and Crime Commissioner elections coming up in Southampton on May 5 – and of course an EU referendum on June 23. Here's more information about each – and how to check if you're registered to vote.
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Southampton holds local elections in May to choose councillors for each city ward. People elected as councillors take up seats in the council chamber and make decisions on local issues.
Local wards
Wards cover surprisingly large areas: Bitterne Park is one such ward, Bitterne is another, and St Denys is included as part of Portswood ward.
Local councillors
Three councillors represent each city ward, and each is elected for four years. Every three years one of these council seats in each ward is contested in a local election.
Southampton City Council is currently Labour controlled – see the graphic, left, of the composition of the whole Southampton City Council immediately after the 2015 elections: Labour in red, Conservatives in blue, and Councillors Against Cuts in dark red.
There's more information about the political makeup of the council, and previous ward results, on this Wikipedia page.
The three council seats for both Bitterne Park and Portswood wards are currently held by Conservatives. You can see the 2015 political makeup in all city wards on this Southampton City Council ward map (pdf).
In Bitterne Park, Cllr Ivan White's term of office ends so there will be an election for his seat, and in Portswood, it's Cllr Linda Norris's seat that's up for grabs. Cllr Norris is also the current mayor of Southampton.
- We plan to give local election candidates in both Bitterne Park and Portswood wards space to put their case to voters on our sites prior to the election. Candidates are welcome to contact us now on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to confirm they're standing and provide a contact email address (please give ward and party, but please don't send political information yet – we'll be in touch explaining how to contribute, so everyone has exactly the same space/opportunity).
Crime Commissioner elections
These are held on the same day as council elections, for one commissioner for each police area – in our case, Hampshire. There's more information about the role of police and crime commissioners here, and a list of Hampshire candidates with a link to a download of all candiate statements here.
EU referendum
There's a little more information about the EU referendum on June 23 on the government's website. It includes links to various publications and announcements.
Register to vote
Click through to the gov.uk website if you want to check you're registered to vote – by April 18 for this year's May 5 elections.
Graphic of city council makeup by Andrew28913 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Vote graphic under CC2 by Alan Cleaver