Greater Manchester faces a democratic drought this spring, with not a single borough-wide poll on the calendar for 2025 after last year’s triple-whammy of council, mayoral and parliamentary contests.

The only ballot boxes to appear in the city-region on 1 May will be wheeled out in Rochdale’s Balderstone and Kirkholt ward, where seven candidates are battling to replace Labour’s Elsie Blundell. She quit the council seat after winning the Oldham East and Saddleworth parliamentary constituency last July, forcing the by-election that will decide her successor.

Across the remaining nine councils the story is the same: 2025 is a “fallow year” in the electoral cycle. Councillors serve four-year staggered terms, meaning one year in every four is deliberately left empty of polls. Oldham Council confirmed the next borough vote will not arrive until 7 May 2026, while mayor Andy Burnham’s fresh four-year mandate—secured in 2024—keeps him off the ballot until 2028.

Parliamentary by-elections are equally absent. Although 27 MPs were elected across England in last year’s general election, none of Greater Manchester’s seats have fallen vacant since July, leaving Cheshire’s Runcorn and Helsby contest—triggered by Mike Amesbury’s assault conviction—as the sole Westminster by-election in the country.

Voters in Balderstone and Kirkholt have from 7 am to 10 pm on Thursday, 1 May, to choose between Labour’s Leanne Greenwood, independent Billy Howarth, Liberal Democrat Chariss Laura Peacock, Workers Party of Britain candidate Laura Pugh, Conservative Mudassar Razzaq, Green Martyn David Savin and Reform’s Jordan Tarrant-Short.

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