Sheffield heads to the polls on Thursday, 4 May to elect councillors to Sheffield City Council, alongside 229 other councils in England who will all be casting their vote on that day.
Some students will have voted before in both local and general elections, while for some this will be the first opportunity to have their say.
All voters, however, need to bring a suitable form of photo ID with them if voting at a polling station on polling day.
For most people, this will be a passport or a driver’s licence (full or provisional). If you do not have these there are other forms of ID accepted. The National Union of Students (NUS) have also launched a campaign whereby a PASS card (which can be used on polling day) is free with the code NUS (it is usually £15).
A full list of acceptable ID can be found here or on poll cards which were posted out at the beginning of April, on which can also be found details of polling stations. Poll cards also state where and when your votes can be cast.
These are local elections, meaning that while those elected don’t influence national policies such as foreign affairs or tax and spending, they do influence locally-led policies such as housing and planning, and education, which can be shaped differently depending on who Sheffield chooses to elect.
Sheffield City Council elects 84 councillors, who each serve four-year terms. In three out of every four years, 28 councillors are elected, one for each ward of the city. Wards are geographical areas designed to represent roughly the same amount of people on the electoral register, and there are 28 of them split across the entirety of the city and surrounding areas.
Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have all chosen to field a candidate in every ward, while the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) will have a candidate in all but one ward. Reform UK, the Yorkshire Party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Communist Party of Britain have chosen to stand in a few wards only.
Sheffield’s students are mostly concentrated in wards in the city centre or the west of the city.
Fulwood
Fulwood ward covers almost all of Ranmoor and Endcliffe student villages. For the majority of students at Endcliffe student village, the polling station will be situated in the Edge. Fulwood currently has three Liberal Democrat councillors, although Labour and Green have improved their position and come closer to winning in recent years than before. The current councillor, Andrew Sangar, has chosen to stand for re-election this year, having first been elected to the council in 1991. The full candidate list is:
- Andrew Sangar (Liberal Democrats)
- Matthew Killeya (Labour)
- Dylan Lewis-Creser (Green)
- John Burn (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition)
- Christine Saunders (Conservatives)
Broomhill and Sharrow Vale
Broomhill and Sharrow Vale ward covers a lot of the area west of the city centre, and currently has three Green councillors. The election this year is expected to be a close contest between the current Green councillor Angela Argenzio, who was elected for the first time in 2019, and the Labour and Co-Operative candidate Lewis Dagnall, who was a councillor for Gleadless Valley between 2016 and 2021.
The full candidate list is:
- Angela Argenzio (Green)
- Lewis Dagnall (Labour and Co-Operative)
- Patrick Gilbert (Liberal Democrats)
- Noah Eden (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition)
- Gordon Millward (Conservative)
City
City ward covers almost all the area within the inner ring road, and also currently has three Green councillors. Ruth Mersereau is standing for election again here, after having first been elected in 2019.
- Ruth Mersereau (Green)
- Gareth Slater (Labour)
- Julia Wright (Liberal Democrats)
- Alexander Heile (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition)
- Gareth Shanks (Yorkshire)
- Matthew Chapman (Conservative)
Walkley
Walkley ward is currently represented by two Labour and one Green councillor, and is expected to be close between the two parties again this year. Ben Curran, the Labour councillor reaching the end of his term, has chosen to not seek re-election this year, ending 13 years as a councillor in this ward. Laura McClean is standing for Labour for the first time, while Ash Routh is representing the Green Party, having stood for them previously five times, including for elections in Sheffield, Lancaster and Wakefield.
- Laura McClean (Labour)
- Ash Routh (Green)
- Evelyn Millward (Conservative)
- Alex Purvis (Liberal Democrats)
- Isabelle France (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition)
- John Davidson (Reform UK)
Nether Edge and Sharrow
Nether Edge and Sharrow is also currently represented by two Labour and one Green councillor – Peter Garbutt, the current Green councillor, is stepping down and in their place the Greens have selected Bev Bennett, standing for the first time, The Labour candidate, Ibby Ullah, is also standing for election for the first time.
- Bev Bennett (Green)
- Ibby Ullah (Labour)
- Chris Lynch (Liberal Democrats)
- John Chapman (Conservatives)
- Holly Johnston (TUSC)
Crookes and Crosspool
Crookes and Crosspool is an area where a lot of second-and-third years move out to after living in halls. It currently has two Labour councillors (one of the Labour and Co-op) and one Liberal Democrat. It is the Lib Dem, Tim Huggan, who has had his seat since 2019, who is standing for re-election. He won the seat after it was vacated by the Lib Dem Adam Hanrahan. He are the candidates in Crookes and Crosspool:
- Tim Huggan (Liberal Democrats)
- Oscar Idle (Green)
- John Wright (Labour and Co-operative Party)
- Roger Barnsley (Conservative)
- Joseph Hibbert (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition)
A full list of candidates for all wards is available on Sheffield City Council’s website, as well as further details of polling stations.
