Local elections are today being contested across 27 English county councils, seven unitary authorities, Anglesey in Wales - with two mayoral elections also being held in Doncaster and North Tyneside.

More than 2,300 seats are being fought over but the results of the majority of the polls - which opened at 7.00 a.m. this morning and close tonight at 10.00 p.m. – will be known between late morning and early evening tomorrow.

Six counties, however, - Lincolnshire, Dorset, Somerset, Essex, Gloucestershire and Hampshire – are counting overnight and intend to declare their results early tomorrow morning.

Senior Conservative Party sources are braced for the painful prospect of losing as many as 700 seats out of the 1,477 they are defending, amid anxieties the election results could prove far worse than previously feared. 

Heavy losses are considered inevitable because when last held in 2009, these elections marked the nadir of Gordon Brown's government and enabled the Conservatives to make a virtual clean sweep of the counties.

The Labour Party is keen to make inroads in southern shires to boost leader Ed Miliband's ‘one nation' aspirations, and hopes to regain Derbyshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire.

In terms of candidates fielded by the main parties, the Conservatives and Labour will be represented in most seats, covering 2,263 and 2,168 council seats respectively.

With 1,745 candidates registered, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has three times as many candidates as 2009's polls and almost as many as the 1,763 Liberal Democrats seeking election.

There are around 900 independent and 893 Green Party candidates standing also.