Why Rochdale is the only Greater Manchester borough with an election in 2025

Thursday, 24 April 2025 11:11

By George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter

Next month thousands of voters up and down the country will head to polling stations to vote in ward representatives at the local elections.

People will be choosing who they want as their next councillor or mayor, depending on what type of election they have. In Runcorn and Helsby, they will even get to pick a new MP following the resignation of Mike Amesbury.

Unlike most areas across Greater Manchester, Rochdale is the only borough that will be going to the polls.

Despite 2025 being a ‘fallow year’ for metropolitan districts in the city-region, the resignation of Elsie Blundell as Balderstone and Kirkholt councillor has triggered a by-election.

After returning from maternity leave last month, the MP for Heywood and Middleton North decided to step down as councillor to focus on her new parliamentary job.

The Balderstone and Kirkholt ward is currently represented by councillors Danny Meredith and Philip Massey. Polls will open on Thursday, May 1 to decide who will take the third vacant council seat.

Six candidates representing Labour, the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, Workers, Reform, the Greens – as well as an independent candidate – are in the running.

This means only those in the Balderstone and Kirkholt ward will be the only people going to the polls across the whole of Greater Manchester in May 2025.

The next Local Elections for Rochdale are set to take place in May 2026. This is because the 60 councillors are elected on staggered terms, with an election in three years out of every four.

The remaining year is called a ‘fallow year’, when no elections take place.

This comes after a bumper year for elections in 2024, with the General Election on July 4 as well as the council and the mayoral elections being held two months prior. At the general election, Labour saw Paul Waugh voted in as Rochdale MP and Elsie Blundell elected as Heywood and Middleton North MP.

The next general election is expected to take place in 2029, unless the government calls it earlier. Andy Burnham serves a four-year-long term, so the Greater Manchester mayor is not due up for re-election until May 2028.