2022 Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council election

Result of the council election when these seats were last contested in 2018

Result of the most recent council election in 2021

The Local Government Act 1972 created a two-tier system of metropolitan counties and districts covering Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, the West Midlands, and West Yorkshire starting in 1974. Calderdale was a district of the West Yorkshire metropolitan county.[1] The Local Government Act 1985 abolished the metropolitan counties, with metropolitan districts taking on most of their powers as metropolitan boroughs. The West Yorkshire Combined Authority was established in 2014 and began electing the mayor of West Yorkshire in 2021.[2]

Calderdale Council was under no overall control with Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour leaders until the Labour Party achieved a majority of seats in the 2019 election, when they gained four seats to hold 28 of the council's 51 seats. In the most recent election in 2021, nineteen seats were up for election: 17 as part of the normal thirds cycle and two concurrent by-elections to fill vacant seats. The Conservatives made gains at the expense of the Liberal Democrats and independents to come first in seats and share of the vote, winning nine of the nineteen seats up for election on 39.0% of the vote, while Labour won eight with 37.3% of the vote and the Liberal Democrats won the remaining two seats with 11.3% of the vote. The Green Party received 8.3% of the vote but won no seats. Labour maintained its majority on the council.[3]

A Labour councillor for the Park ward, Mohammad Naeem, died in July 2021. Around the same time, the independent councillor for Ryburn, Rob Holden, resigned. By-elections to fill both vacancies were held in September 2021, with the Labour candidate Shazad Fazal holding Park and the Conservative candidate Felicity Issott gaining Ryburn.[4] The former Conservative councillor Roger Taylor, who had been suspended from his party in 2019 for making Islamophobic social media posts, was later permanently suspended from his party.[5][6]

Positions up for election in 2022 were last elected in 2018. In that election, Labour won ten seats, the Conservatives won four, the Liberal Democrats won two and independent candidates won one seat.[7]

The council elects its councillors in thirds, with a third being up for election for three consecutive years and no election in the fourth year.[8][9] The election will take place by first-past-the-post voting, with wards generally being represented by three councillors, with one elected in each election year to serve a four-year term.

All registered electors (British, Irish, Commonwealth and European Union citizens) living in Calderdale aged 18 or over will be entitled to vote in the election. People who live at two addresses in different councils, such as university students with different term-time and holiday addresses, are entitled to be registered for and vote in elections in both local authorities. Voting in-person at polling stations will take place from 07:00 to 22:00 on election day, and voters will be able to apply for postal votes or proxy votes in advance of the election.

The Conservative group leader, Steven Leigh, said he was aiming to gain seats with the purpose of replacing the Labour council after the 2023 election.[10]

Results Map[11]
Party		Councillors				Votes
			Of total	Net			Of total	Net
	Labour	11	61.1%	0	11 / 18	25,528	45.2%	+7.9%
	Conservative	4	22.2%	-1	4 / 18	18,499	32.7%	-6.3%
	Liberal Democrats	2	11.1%	+1	2 / 18	6,662	11.8%	+0.5%
	Green	1	5.6%	+1	1 / 18	5,129	9.1%	+0.8%
	Independent	0	0.0%	-1	0 / 18	198	0.4%	-3.2%
	Freedom Alliance	0	0.0%	0	0 / 18	116	0.2%	+0.1%
	National Front	0	0.0%	0	0 / 18	101	0.2%	+0.1%

Note that due to by-elections being run in some wards, electors in those wards had two votes. This means the change in percentage of votes is not representative of the true swing.

Prior to the election the composition of the council was:

After the election the composition of the council was: