2024 Colchester City Council election

The 2024 Colchester City Council election took place on 2 May 2024 alongside other local elections across England. Eighteen members of the council were elected, one from each of the wards, with an additional by-election in Greenstead ward.

The council was under no overall control prior to the election. The Conservatives were the largest party, but the council was being run by a Liberal Democrat minority administration with informal support from Labour and the Green Party. Only two seats changed party at the election, and after the election the Liberal Democrats continued to form a minority administration, with Labour and the Greens lending their support on a case-by-case basis.

Background
This set of seats were last up for election at the 2021 election. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City Council election (then Borough) scheduled for 2020 was postponed one year to 2021. This resulted in the terms of councillors elected at the 2021 election being truncated to 3-years rather than the usual 4-years.

In addition to the seventeen regular members up for election, there will be a by-election in Greenstead ward due to the resignation of Cllr Molly Bloomfield.

Overview
At the election, Labour made a significant advance in vote share, coming first in the popular vote (for the first time since the inaugural 1973 election) and winning the marginal ward of Shrub End from the Liberal Democrats, and making large gains in vote share across the city. In contrast, the Liberal Democrats lost a large portion of their vote when compared to the 2023 election, failing to win their top targets of Stanway and Prettygate; they did, however, retain the marginal seat of Highwoods against Labour.

For the Conservativates, it was another disappointing result, losing the popular vote to Labour and seeing their vote share decline or stagnate in key wards such as Castle and Highwoods. They did, however, retain their seat in Stanway against a strong challenge from the Liberal Democrats. The Green Party remained static in the popular vote, but managed to unseat their former leader (who defected to Labour in 2022) in Castle ward, bringing their total number of seats to 3.

Candidates
The Statement of Persons Nominated details the candidates standing in each ward. It was released on 5 April 2023 following the close of nominations. Incumbents are marked with an asterisk (*).