{"id":573033,"date":"2026-05-08T13:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573033\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T13:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:53:13","slug":"sussex-and-surrey-2026-local-election-counting-under-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573033\/","title":{"rendered":"Sussex and Surrey 2026 local election counting under way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s the magic number the parties are aiming for?published at 14:52 BST<\/p>\n<p>14:52 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-qs9kpv-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/dc81ea7f-0d15-4a6f-ac9e-1a16b2e4b9ca.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Helen Catt<br \/>South East political editor<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A woman counting ballot papers\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dafcd6fb-7d7f-40b5-a465-00c5f69216b8.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"4724\" height=\"2657\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Of course, all of the political parties are aiming to get as many councillors as they can.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On each council, though, there is a magic number which they particularly want to hit: half the seats + 1. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That would give them majority control, which means they have enough councillors to outvote all the others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In East Sussex, they\u2019ll be aiming to win at least 26 seats. In West Sussex, it\u2019s 36. A party would need to win 37 seats to take control of East Surrey and 46 for West Surrey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It\u2019s a bit harder to track in Hastings, Crawley, Adur and Worthing, as only some of the seats are up for election. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That means how many councillors a party already has, who are not up for election this year, determines how many more they need to win to hit that magic total of half + 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the magic number the parties are aiming for?published at 14:52 BST 14:52 BST Helen CattSouth East political&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-573033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}