Division vacancies and by-elections

Information about division elections.

North Yorkshire Council elects 90 councillors to 89 Divisions. There are 88 single-member divisions and one two-member division.

View information on our current councillors here.

View more information about becoming a councillor here.

The seats are elected to at the ordinary scheduled elections which usually occur every four years and they were last held in May 2022. At scheduled elections, all 90 seats are re-elected to.

Those councillors elected in 2022 are however serving an extended five-year term of office because of changes caused by local government reorganisation in North Yorkshire in 2023.

View results from those elections held in 2022 here.

The next scheduled council elections will be held in May 2027.

View results for division by elections since May 2023 here.

Division casual vacancies

A seat can become vacant when a councillor:

•    resigns or dies
•    is declared bankrupt
•    is disqualified from being a councillor (or ceases to be qualified)
•    is convicted of a serious criminal offence

When a vacancy occurs, a notice of vacancy will be published and that notice will explain whether an election is triggered automatically or whether request from two electors are needed to trigger one. The exception to this rule is if the vacancy occurs within six months before the date on which that elected member would have retired, in which case an election will not be held unless we are no longer quorate.

Current division vacancies

Details of any vacancies will appear below

Requesting an election for a casual vacancy

Requests to hold a by-election to fill a casual vacancy must be made in writing by two local government electors from within North Yorkshire. The requests do not have to arrive at the same time and can be in any form, for example, letter, fax or email and do not necessarily have to be signed. The request can be a single request by two electors or two separate requests.

It is useful for requests for an election to contain:

  • the full names and addresses of those requesting the election for our elections team to check the validity of the requests, and
     
  • the specific vacancy which the requests are in relation to, such as the division where the vacancy is and the name of the councillor causing the vacancy

There is no need for electors to wait for the notice of vacancy to be published by the relevant authority before submitting a request for a by-election. Regardless of when the requests arrive, even if they arrive before the notice of vacancy is published, this triggers the start of the election timetable.

The requests must be sent to our Proper Officer using the contact information provided within the vacancy notice and requests can be inspected by any person once they have been received.

Division by-elections

This section contains information about previous and current division by-elections that have been requested following a casual vacancy arising.

View results for division elections since May 2023 here.

Eastfield by-election

A by-election has been triggered following the resignation of the former councillor for the Eastfield division in Scarborough. The by-election is due to take place on Thursday 19 June.

 Election results for the Eastfield Division (pdf / 78 KB)

Election timetable for the Eastfield Division

Notice of election agents' names and offices for the Eastfield Division

View the results of previous by-elections.