The Elections Centre

The Elections Centre holds Britain’s most comprehensive database of local election results, with records on more than 1.4 million candidates stretching back 125 years. This matters because local elections shape who runs councils, sets council tax, and decides on local services—yet these results have historically been scattered, hard to access, and underused. Without a central, searchable record, researchers, journalists, and policymakers have struggled to spot long-term trends in voter behaviour, party performance, or the effects of boundary changes. The centre fills that gap by turning a century of fragmented paper records into a structured, open resource. If the centre succeeds in expanding its partnerships, the impact could be practical and widespread. Councils could use the data to plan better public engagement. Businesses and third-sector organisations could make evidence-based decisions about where to focus resources. Media outlets could produce richer, more accurate election coverage. The database already underpins hundreds of academic papers; scaling it up would let more people—from campaign strategists to local historians—ask and answer questions about how democracy works at the neighbourhood level. This is applied, not fundamental, research: its value lies in making existing information usable at scale.