A guide to the 2022 local election in Somerset

Voters are choosing who will sit on the new, super council that will run all services across the county

How is Somerset currently run?

At the moment, Somerset County Council is the authority responsible for providing the most significant local government services in most of the county like education, transport, adult social care, children's services.

Then there are four district councils (Somerset West & Taunton, Sedgemoor, Mendip and South Somerset) that look after things like planning, licensing, environmental health.

Finally, the town or parish councils are responsible for local issues.

What's changing?

The county council and four district councils of Mendip, South Somerset, Sedgemoor and Somerset West & Taunton will all be scrapped.

They will be replaced by a single, large, Somerset Council that will officially start in April 2023. It will be a new unitary authority combining the existing powers of the county and district councils.

What does that mean?

Voters in Somerset will go to the polls on 5 May to elect the 110 councillors who will oversee the transition to the new setup for their first year.

The same group of councillors will then run all services in the county for a further four years.

Every part of the county will have two representatives.

The existing district councillors will continue to sit until their respective authorities are dissolved in 2023.

There will also be a boundary review, conducted by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE), the findings of which will be implemented ahead of the next elections in May 2027.

Who won before?

The Conservatives have run the county council since 2009 and were most recently re-elected in 2017. There are 337 candidates hoping to catch the voters' attention, including 20 independent candidates standing in various wards across the county.

For decades it has swung between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and the stakes this time are high.

What's at stake?

Next Thursday's vote will be crucial in several ways. It will pick the 110 councillors who will run all local services in Somerset for the next five years.

Politically it will show whether the Liberal Democrats are recovering in Somerset and, even though it is meant to be about local issues, it will indicate to what extent voters are influenced by the Prime Ministers' troubles.