Elections were held on 5th May 2003 in England to all metropolitan boroughs, many unitary authorities in England and almost all shire districts, in Scotland to the Scottish Parliament and local authorities, and in Wales to the Welsh Assembly.
The voting system used for all local government elections was first-past-the-post, with multi-member FPTP being used where more than one seat was up for election.
The 36 metropolitan boroughs are all elected by thirds. Each ward has three councillors, with the councillor elected in 1999 being up for election in each ward. In some cases two seats were up for election, due to the death or resignation of another councillor for the ward within six months of the election. Results of these elections are contained in Part I, which each of the former metropolitan counties constituting a separate chapter.
The English unitary authorities and shire districts may have up to three councillors in each ward, and may hold elections either all at once or by thirds. A few districts elect by halves every two years; none of these districts held an election this year. Where districts elect by thirds generally not all of the wards in the district hold an election every year. Many of the shire districts and some unitary authorities were using new ward boundaries, and so ward results will not be directly comparable with previous years. A full explanation of the electoral arrangements is given at the head of each council's entry.
Unitary election results are shown in Part II, with one exception,1 with shire district results in Part III. Part II is divided into eight chapters based on region, while Part III has one chapter for each county.
The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections use a form of the Additional Member System of proportional representation. In each single-member constituencies are used (which, with one exception,2 are coterminous with the UK parliamentary constituencies) with the country also being divided into regions from which top-up seats are allocated to restore a proportional balance of seats over the region. In Scotland, there are eight regions electing seven regional MSPs each; in Wales five regions with four regional AMs each. Welsh Assembly results are in Part IV and Scottish Parliament results are in Part V, with constituency and regional results forming separate chapters.
All Scottish local authorities use first-past-the-post, with one councillor elected from each ward. Elections to these authorities are shown in Part VI. I have grouped the Scottish councils into eight chapters based on geography: Aberdeenshire (Chapter 54), Ayrshire (Chapter 55), Border (Chapter 56), Clyde (Chapter 57), Forth (Chapter 58), Highland (Chapter 59), Island (Chapter 60) and Tay (Chapter 61). Both the name and number of each ward are quoted (except for Inverclyde Council, which does not name its wards).
Finally, at the back you will find an Index of Wards.
Where a candidate in an election dies, the election in that ward is cancelled and rearranged for a later date. This happened in the following wards at this election:
Here is a list of abbreviations used in this book for major parties and selected other parties which fought several councils. This list is not exhaustive; parties which put up only a few candidates will generally have their abbreviation listed at the head of the entry for the relevant council. Please note that the “Lab” label includes candidates who were jointly sponsored by the Labour and Co-operative Parties.
BNP - British National Party C - Conservative Party Grn - Green Party Ind - Independent Lab - Labour Party LD - Liberal Democrat Lib - Liberal Party Loony - Monster Raving Loony Party PC - Plaid Cymru SNP - Scottish National Party Soc All - Socialist Alliance Soc Lab - Socialist Labour Party SSP - Scottish Socialist Party UKIP - UK Independence Party
I would like to close this section by thanking all those who have supplied me with results, and particularly those hundreds of council webpages without which this work would not have been possible.