Councils in Britain to get new officials, as voting commences today

Voting in local elections across the UK today opens today for the election of new officials in Scotland, Wales, 34 in England along with 27 other counties.

Today’s council elections will also elect new mayors in six new devolved super-regions together with Doncaster and North Tyneside.

A total of 15,403 candidates will contest 4,851 seats - with 107 contenders running unopposed.

Mayors to be elected in the newly-created regions will be given additional powers in the areas of housing and policing. They are: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City region, Tees Valley, West Midlands and West of England.

Interim figures from the eight areas holding mayoral elections show 7,205,134 are free to vote on Thursday.

The Manchester Gorton parliamentary by-election triggered by the death of Labour MP Gerald Kaufman was also due to take place - but has now been delayed until the day of the General Election.

Some of the local election results will be declared in the early hours of Friday, but most will come in during the day.