LIVE: Latest updates from across Yorkshire and beyond as local election results roll in

Good morning and happy polling day. Welcome to our local elections live blog.

Voters across England and Wales are electing thousands of councillors, 11 mayors, including in London and Greater Manchester, as well as numerous police and crime commissioners. There’s also a Westminster by-election in Blackpool South which we’ll be keeping you abreast of.

Find out if elections are going on in your area, and what happened last time, with our interactive map here. This will be updated as the results come in this evening, all the way through until Saturday night (wish me luck). We’ll be bringing you expert insight and analysis from all our reporters across the country.

Send any thoughts, opinions or photos of dogs at polling stations to [email protected].

This is one of the first elections across the UK which will require voters to bring photo ID with them. In April 2022 MPs passed a new law making voter ID mandatory. The move was highly controversial, with widespread concerns that many could find themselves disenfranchised because they do not own ID.

The introduction of voter ID was designed to prevent voter personation, the crime of impersonating someone else when voting. But the Electoral Reform Society says the crime is “vanishingly rare” – there were only three convictions and six cautions between 2015 and 2020, according to the Electoral Commission – and that photo ID is a “solution looking for a problem”.

To vote today voters will need to bring specific photo ID to vote. The ID does not need to be in date, but the photo will need to be a true likeness. It will be up to polling station clerks to judge whether your ID looks like you.

If you have any issues voting please contact us [email protected].

The full list is as follows:

The local election counts are not all declared overnight, like they are in a general election. Instead, they slowly roll in until Saturday evening. There are however a number of key races that will declare tonight:

The first result I’ll be looking out for tonight is Hartlepool, which should declare around 1.30am. It seems a lifetime ago, that the Conservatives won the Hartlepool by-election, when it appeared as if Boris Johnson was set to be in power for a decade. That was only three years ago - how times change.

Labour needs to win just four of the 12 seats up for grabs to win the majority off the Conservative-Independent coalition. Read my colleague Nic Marko’s excellent preview for the Hartlepool Mail for more information.

Bolton is the next race to look out for at 2am. Labour leads the authority with a minority administration, but will be looking to take full control. It’s worth keeping an eye on how the Reform UK candidates do. The pro-Brexit party is not standing in many council races, but it is in Bolton - and this could be a good barometer of its influence ahead of the general election.

For Labour to win a majority at the general election, it will be looking to make gains in Harlow at 3am and Redditch at 3.30am. These are two bellwethers to keep an eye on. For the Lib Dems, if Ed Davey’s party is on a really good night it could take Stockport, expected at around 3.30am.

You can keep up to date with all the results via our interactive map.

As well as the thousands of council seats up for grabs, there are 11 mayoral races, including in the capital London. The key ones for Rishi Sunak are in the West Midlands and Tees Valley, where high profile Tory mayors Andy Street and Ben Houchen are looking to be re-elected.

Given the national opinion polls and the fact that both areas were previously Labour strongholds, Keir Starmer’s party should really be winning both of these mayoralties. However, the incumbents have good name recognition, and are tipped to be re-elected.

If the Tories were to lose in the West Midlands and on Teesside, Sunak could be in trouble with the plotters in his own party. It is thought this may spur them on try and make their move and depose the Prime Minister ahead of the general election - so these two races could have implications beyond each region.

In an ironic twist, Tom Hunt, the Conservative MP for Ipswich, who voted through the strict voter ID laws, has had to arrange for an emergency vote as he doesn’t have the right photographic identification. ITV’s Harry Horton broke the news. It’s another good reminder to take photo ID with you to the polling station.

The Government intends to make veterans’ ID cards a valid form of voter identification after former service personnel were turned away from polling stations, Downing Street said.

Veterans minister Johnny Mercer apologised to those who had been unable to use their veterans’ ID card to vote in the local elections on Thursday, vowing to “do all I can” to have it added to the list of valid identification.

A Number 10 spokeswoman said: “It is our intention for the new Veteran Card, which was rolled out in January, to be added to the official list.”

Polls have closed in the local, mayoral and PCC elections across England and Wales, as well as in the Blackpool by-election. I’m Ralph Blackburn, NationalWorld’s politics editor, and I’ll be keeping you company for the next few hours as the results slowly start to come in. We should soon get a bit of a gauge from the parties as to what their expectations are soon - I’ll bring you those comments as soon as we get them.

It might not surprise you to learn that Boris Johnson, the architect of the new voter ID laws, actually struggled to vote today. He was initially turned away from his polling station as he failed to bring any ID with him, Sky News reported. It’s understood Johnson eventually came back and was able to vote.

I’d be keen to hear about your experiences of using voter ID. At my polling station in London, there was barely a glance at my driver’s licence before handing over the voting slips. If you had any issues email [email protected].

Less than two hours before polls closed, Labour activists in London received a text message urging them to vote as the party’s data showed the race to become mayor was “so close”. This came after Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s attack on Tory candidate Susan Hall shocked commentators, and raised the question that Keir Starmer’s party might be worried about holding the capital.

I would still expect Khan to win a third term as mayor, when the result is announced on Saturday - but these two things together perhaps show some jitters at Labour HQ.