Local council · Watford Borough Council
Central
1 seat contested on Thursday 7 May 2026. 5 candidates from 5 parties.
Neighbours shaded by Reform UK share vs this ward, red = higher, blue = lower.
Predicted vote share
What the model expects
Predictions are point estimates: the model's best guess, not a guarantee. The "How this prediction was made" section below lists every step that shaped this forecast.
How accurate was the model here?
Our 7 May 2026 forecast for Central
| Party | Predicted | Actual | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reform UK | 3.7% | 13.4% | -9.8pp |
| Labour | 26.7% | 11.6% | +15.1pp |
| Conservative | 15.7% | 7.4% | +8.2pp |
Positive gap = we predicted that party would win more share than they did. See the full Watford Borough Council accuracy summary or the national audit.
Recent contests
What happened last time
| Date | Type | Winner | Top share | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-05-02 | Cycle | Lib Dem | 46.2% | declaration |
| 2023-05-04 | Cycle | Lib Dem | 53.6% | declaration |
| 2022-05-05 | Cycle | Lib Dem | 55.4% | declaration |
| 2021-05-06 | Cycle | Lib Dem | 44.5% | declaration |
| 2019-05-02 | Cycle | Lib Dem | 54.0% | declaration |
Candidates 2026
Parties on the ballot
- Conservative and Unionist Party
- Green Party
- Labour Party
- Lib Dem
- Reform UK
How this area looks demographically
Figures are for Watford as a whole. The same local-authority figures are used for every ward in the council, finer ward-level demographics will land in a future release.
- White British (projected May 2026): 39.0% (Census 2021: 45.8%)
- Asian heritage (projected May 2026): 27.3% (Census 2021: 24.5%)
- Average area deprivation decile: 6.4 (1 = most deprived, 10 = least)
How this prediction was made
- Baseline . Most recent borough result (2024-05-02)
- BES MRP Prior . Baseline blended with BES Wave 1-30 east_of_england prior (weight 15%, n=3761 regional respondents)
- National Swing (STM) . Strong Transition Model: multiplicative bounded swing, dampened by 0.1 for local
- Demographics . 2 demographic factor(s) applied
- Incumbency . No current holder data available
- New Party Entry . Reform UK has existing baseline, no proxy needed
- Normalise . All shares scaled to sum to 100%
- Restrict to ballot . Removed 5 party/parties not standing in 2026 (Independent 5.0pp, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition 2.3pp, SNP 0.1pp, Other 0.0pp, Plaid Cymru 0.0pp). Their share redistributed pro-rata.
- 2025 county-cycle anchor . Blended (weight 0.1) toward May 2025 results for hertfordshire (78 divisions, 285,843 votes), adjusted by national swing since May 2025. This corrects the model's tendency to under-weight Reform's 2025 county breakthroughs in 2-tier districts.
- National-share calibration . Aggregate-predicted vs national-polled mismatch corrected at strength 0.65. Multipliers — Labour ×0.82, Conservative ×1.00, Reform UK ×1.15, Liberal Democrats ×0.96, Green Party ×1.12, SNP ×1.00, Plaid Cymru ×1.00.