Matthew Bone
Political reporter, BBC Hereford & Worcester

Redditch is the only surviving Labour council in Worcestershire and the Conservatives think they’ve got a genuine chance of taking it. 

Labour have a majority of one and are defending a number of marginal seats. The mayor, the leader and the deputy leader are all defending seats that the Tories see as “winnable” so the night carries significant dangers for the people in power. 

But Labour have been campaigning hard here with a number of visits from high profile figures within the party. Redditch promises to be a close and fiercely-contested result.

Daniel Wainwright
Data unit - English regions

BBC News Online looked into voter turnout ahead of tonight's elections and its analysis of voting patterns in 2,500 council wards since 2012 showed wide disparities.

Most of the areas where the fewest people voted in recent elections are in the North, but among them was Bushbury South & Low Hill in Wolverhampton.

The Electoral Reform Society said it was vital people turned out to vote.

BBC Midlands Today

Our Political Editor Patrick Burns predicts the percentage turnout figure to be in the “low thirties” in the local elections across Birmingham.

He was joined in the late Midlands Today bulletin to discuss the campaign by Birmingham Erdington’s Labour MP Jack Dromey and Halesowen & Rowley Regis Conservative MP James Morris.

Birmingham City Council tweets that the first ballot boxes have arrived at the NIA count.

Mike Taylor
BBC WM

The polls have closed across the region in local elections today, but the elections vary between different areas.

Elections are taking place in all areas of the seven metropolitan district councils in the West Midlands – Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton.  In each case, one third of the seats on the council are being contested.

Elections are also happening in 10 other district/borough level councils in the region. In Cannock Chase, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Redditch, Rugby, Tamworth, Worcester and Wyre Forest, about one-third of seats on the council are being contested. 

In Cheltenham and Nuneaton and Bedworth, half of the seats are up for grabs, while Gloucester City Council has a full election on new boundaries.

Moira Rawlings
BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

Rugby is what's known as a hung council which means no party has overall control. 

The Conservatives are the largest party with 20 seats. Labour has nine and the Lib Dems have eight, with five independent councillors. The Conservatives need to get two extra seats to gain overall control.

Fourteen seats are being contested - with the Conservatives and Labour fielding candidates in every seat, the Lib Dems 11, the Greens nine, UKIP seven and the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition five.  

Although there are currently five independent councillors, no-one is standing as an independent candidate this time round.

Coventry council have found some interesting statistics about today's vote in the city.

Polling stations have now closed across the West Midlands after council and police and crime commissioner (PCC) elections.

Patrick Burns
Political editor, Midlands

The Conservatives are standing in all of them and Labour in nearly all, missing out just a handful of wards in Cheltenham and Gloucester. 

Of the other main parties, UKIP and the Greens can be expected to mount a spirited challenge for disaffected voters from the bigger parties notably in Dudley, where UKIP currently hold seven seats and in Solihull, where the Greens are the official opposition. 

This is the second year running when both UKIP and the Greens will be fielding more candidates than the Liberal Democrats, whose candidates are thin on the ground anywhere west of Birmingham or in Warwickshire.

The Lib Dems face a tough fight to fend off the Conservative challenge in the one Midlands council still under their control, Cheltenham, where half the seats are up for election.

Patrick Burns
Political editor, Midlands

Tonight's council elections are by far the biggest test of opinion since the Conservatives won the general election and Jeremy Corbyn’s victory in the Labour leadership challenge.

In the Midlands, 330 seats are being contested in 17 district and unitary authorities.

Alex Homer
BBC Local Live

Welcome to our West Midlands election coverage. 

We're here until 08:00 on Friday covering the local and police and crime commissioner elections as the results come in overnight.