2026 Epping Forest District Council election

The 2026 Epping Forest District Council election will be held on Thursday 7 May 2026, alongside the other local elections in the United Kingdom that will held on the same day. 18 members of Epping Forest District Council in Essex will be elected.

The 2026 Epping Forest District Council election will be held on 7 May 2026, following a period of unprecedented turmoil that has shaken the foundations of local politics in the district.

Since 7 July 2025, Epping has stood at the epicentre of national attention, with protests and riots erupting over the Government’s use of the Bell Hotel to house asylum seekers. Demonstrations regularly descended into confrontation, as local residents, anti-fascist campaigners, and far-right activists clashed in scenes unseen in the town for generations.^[1] The unrest intensified after the sexual assault of a woman and a schoolgirl by a resident of the hotel, whose conviction and sentencing in September 2025 ignited further anger and polarised opinion across the district.

In response, the Conservative administration on the council took the unprecedented step of launching a legal challenge against the Home Office, securing a temporary High Court injunction in August 2025 to halt the placement of asylum seekers in the Bell Hotel. That victory proved fleeting: the ruling was overturned at the Court of Appeal, and the case now stands before the Supreme Court, due for a final judgment in October 2026.^[2]

The crisis has fractured the Conservatives themselves. After months of mounting criticism over their handling of the Bell Hotel unrest, the group lost its majority for the first time since 2006, when two councillors resigned to join the Independents.^[3] As a result, the Conservatives will enter the 2026 election defending a fragile minority administration, their dominance of the council for nearly two decades under unprecedented threat.

Below are by-elections that took place from the local elections in 2024 at both district level, and parish council level, including town councils.

Below is the breakdown of the results from the 2024 parish council election to the Grange Hill ward on Chigwell Parish Council - the boundaries of which mirror those at the district level. The below table is for comparison with the Grange Hill by-election result.

Change in vote share is based on the ward-wide results achieved at the 2024 parish council election.

Below is the breakdown of the results from the 2024 parish council election to the Buckhurst Hill West ward - the boundaries of which mirror those at the district level. The below table is for comparison with the Buckhurst Hill West by-election result.