Liberal Democrats › 2025
Liberal Democrats in 2025
Polling day: 1 May 2025. 23 councils held elections.
Summary
- Contested in 23 of 23 councils; ran for 1,640 seats.
- Won 370 seats (22.6% of seats up) on 16.2% of the vote.
- Net change vs each council's last appearance in this dataset: +153 seats across 17 councils up, 3 councils down, 3 flat, 0 new to the window.
- Council-control change: 6 gained, 0 lost.
Same votes, different counting rule
Compare the seats Liberal Democrats actually won under FPTP with a proportional re-count of the same council-level votes. Positive means seats unfairly awarded by FPTP; negative means seats the party was denied by FPTP.
Where Liberal Democrats led, as of 2025
Councils where Liberal Democrats was the largest single party in the most recent composition snapshot at or before 2025. Greens ring councils gained at this election; reds ring those lost. Click any hex to drill in.
As of 2025
65 councils led
+6 gained this cycle
Grey hexes are councils where another party led, or where we don't have a snapshot for that year.
Council-control changes
Councils where the largest party in the running composition changed at this election. How a flip is defined →
Gained (6)
- Cambridgeshire from Conservative Party
- Hertfordshire from Conservative Party
- Gloucestershire from Conservative Party
- Shropshire from Conservative Party
- Wiltshire from Conservative Party
- Devon from Conservative Party
Where the seats came from
Per-council net seat change vs each council's prior appearance in our dataset (typically that council's previous all-out election or its last by-thirds slice). "Debut" rows are councils whose first cycle in our window is 2025 — usually the result of a boundary reorganisation or being a county outside our 2021 LEH coverage.
Seats gained (17 councils)
| Council | Won | Last cycle | Net | Vote share | Seat share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shropshire | 42 | 14 (2021) | +28 | 34.2% | 56.8% |
| Devon | 27 | 9 (2021) | +18 | 28.3% | 45.0% |
| Wiltshire | 43 | 27 (2021) | +16 | 33.9% | 43.9% |
| Oxfordshire | 36 | 21 (2021) | +15 | 30.1% | 52.2% |
| Cornwall | 26 | 13 (2021) | +13 | 24.4% | 29.9% |
| Buckinghamshire | 27 | 15 (2021) | +12 | 26.4% | 27.8% |
| Cambridgeshire | 31 | 20 (2021) | +11 | 27.4% | 50.8% |
| Gloucestershire | 27 | 16 (2021) | +11 | 27.2% | 49.1% |
| Warwickshire | 14 | 5 (2021) | +9 | 17.4% | 24.6% |
| Hertfordshire | 31 | 23 (2021) | +8 | 26.0% | 39.7% |
| Kent | 12 | 6 (2021) | +6 | 11.8% | 14.8% |
| Lancashire | 5 | 2 (2021) | +3 | 9.1% | 6.0% |
| Leicestershire | 11 | 9 (2021) | +2 | 16.3% | 20.0% |
| Worcestershire | 6 | 4 (2021) | +2 | 12.1% | 10.5% |
| Lincolnshire | 5 | 3 (2021) | +2 | 9.3% | 7.1% |
| West Northamptonshire | 6 | 5 (2021) | +1 | 11.6% | 7.9% |
| North Northamptonshire | 1 | 0 (2021) | +1 | 4.1% | 1.5% |
Seats lost (3 councils)
| Council | Won | Last cycle | Net | Vote share | Seat share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Durham | 14 | 17 (2021) | -3 | 12.0% | 14.3% |
| Derbyshire | 3 | 4 (2021) | -1 | 8.7% | 4.7% |
| Nottinghamshire | 0 | 1 (2021) | -1 | 5.3% | 0.0% |
No change (3)
- Northumberland 3 seats (unchanged from 2021)
- Staffordshire 0 seats (unchanged from 2021)
- Doncaster 0 seats (unchanged from 2021)
Net-change comparisons are versus each council's most recent appearance in our dataset (2021–2026). For all-out councils that's the previous all-out cycle (typically four years prior); for by-thirds councils it's last year's slice. Cross-cycle ward boundary changes can produce small artefacts — see methodology.