United Kingdom local elections, 1986

← 1985

8 May 1986

1987 →

All 32 London boroughs, all 36 metropolitan boroughs,
123 out of 296 English districts, 1 local education authority and all 12 Scottish regions

	Majority party	Minority party	Third party

Leader	Margaret Thatcher	Neil Kinnock	David Steel (Liberal) David Owen (SDP)
Party	Conservative	Labour	SDP–Liberal Alliance
Leader since	11 February 1975	2 October 1983	7 July 1976 (Steel) 21 June 1983 (Owen)
Percentage	34%	37%	26%
Councillors +/-	975	13	338

Local elections were held in the United Kingdom in 1986. There was a 3% reduction in the number of councillors, owing to the abolition of the Greater London Council and the Metropolitan County Councils.

The national projected share of the vote was Labour 37%, Conservative 34%, Liberal-SDP Alliance 26%. The Conservatives lost 975 seats, Labour gained 13 seats and the Liberal-SDP Alliance gained 338 seats.

In all 32 London boroughs the whole council was up for election.

All 36 metropolitan borough councils had one third of their seats up for election.

In 2 districts the whole council was up for election.

In 2 districts there were new ward boundaries, following further electoral boundary reviews by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England.

‡ New ward boundaries

In 121 districts one third of the council was up for election.

This was the first and only election to the directly elected local education authority established by the Local Government Act 1985. However it was short lived being abolished four years later by the Education Reform Act 1988.

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