ALDC is here to help Liberal Democrats win local elections. We also monitor the success of Liberal Democrats in local elections, and local by-elections through the year.

Election Briefing

We send Election Briefing mailings and emails throughout the year to all Liberal Democrat candidates in the next set of local elections.

The briefings for 2011 will start soon and so to make sure that the candidates in your area are receiving the service, please tell us who your candidates are as soon as they are selected.

Candidates and agents who are ALDC members are also able to download templates, best practice and campaign ideas from our campaigning section. In the advice section of the website you will find information articles on campaign techniques and election law issues.

If you are not already a member of ALDC join us! Remember ALDC members are 3.5 times more likely to get re-elected than other Liberal Democrats (FACT – 2007 local elections, the same people who are up for election in 2011).

Election Monitoring

ALDC provides a weekly monitoring service of local by-election results. Local by-elections results are posted every Friday on our website as soon as they become available. Please help us by sending in your results...

ALDC members can opt to receive a weekly email (Friday lunchtime) with all the local by-election results of that week.

Please let us know if you have a local authority by-election in your area (including Town and Parish elections). Only by-elections that we have been notified of are published on our website and in the weekly column in Liberal Democrat News. Agents and candidates are emailed an information pack including a PDF of our popular "Winning Your Local By-election" book.

We also provide detailed coverage of the annual local elections in the UK (normally 1st Thursday in May) as well as coverage of the campaign as it develops.

We keep a record of all defections between political parties. Please let us know about defections in your area (including ones between parties that don’t involve the Lib Dems).

Lib Dem in Local Government

There are 3,150 Liberal Democrat principal Councillors in Great Britain.

Liberal Democrats are leading administrations of councils up and down the Country, from urban London to rural Scotland. Many of Britain’s big cities have been run by the Liberal Democrats, and we are currently the controlling party in cities such as Bristol and Portsmouth, rural areas such as South Lakeland and South Somerset, and the London Boroughs of Sutton and Kingston-upon-Thames.  We also run Cardiff, Swansea, Birmingham and Edinburgh in coalition with another party.

In our Big Picture section we have full details of who runs where and the current numbers of councillors on each authority.  We try and keep this as accurate as possible, but information changes every week and so please let us know if your council's figure is incorrect.

If you’re interested in finding more about how to become a Liberal Democrat Councillor – we run a separate information website BeALibDemCouncillor.org.uk which provides information about what being a Councillor involves.

To become a candidate for the Liberal Democrats there are approval and selection processes that must be followed. Model policies are available for local parties in our advice section.

Helping Out

If you’re interested in helping in a local by-election, or in the regular local elections when there are no elections in your area don’t hesitate to volunteer.

ALDC can put you in touch with people who need your help, or you can help with phone canvassing and campaigning from your own home. eCanvass from EARS allows you to phone canvass other places in the country from the comfort of your own home.

To download the eCanvass program click here and then log in with your name, postcode and Lib Dem membership number when you want to do some phoning.

Advice from our Shop

ALDC sells a range of publications which can provide useful advice on Campaigning and on being a Councillor. We only sell publications to members of the Liberal Democrats.  There are also a number of older publications that are free to download to members of ALDC in our File Library.

Comment and Complain

Give us Feedback if you've had a good service from ALDC, or if we've got room to improve.