The 2016 North East Lincolnshire Council election took place on 5 May 2016 to elect members of North East Lincolnshire Council in England.[1] This was on the same day as other local elections.
After the 2016 local election, the political make up of the council was as follows:[2]
| Party | Number of councillors | |
|---|---|---|
| Labour | 18 | |
| Conservative | 11 | |
| Liberal Democrats | 5 | |
| UKIP | 5 | |
| Green | 0 | |
| Independent | 2 | |
| Vacant | 1 |
Labour remained in minority control of the authority, despite losing one seat (Park) to the Liberal Democrats and failing to regain the East Marsh seat they lost to UKIP in a by-election the previous year, which was gained by the Liberal Democrats as UKIP didn't field a candidate in that ward. These were the first gains by the Liberal Democrats in the borough since the 2008 local elections, prior to being almost wiped out over the next four years.
Since the previous year's elections, two UKIP councillors (Matthew Stinson[3] and Stephen Harness[4]) resigned from their party and sat as Independents, and would go on to join the Conservatives, while Ron Shepherd by this point had already defected directly to the Conservatives and successfully defended his seat in Scartho at these elections in the process.
Shortly after these elections took place, a by-election was held to fill the vacancy in the South ward in June 2016 due to the resignation of councillor Chris Stanland in the South ward. Although he resigned before these local elections, it happened after close of nominations. Labour held the seat and thus increased their number of councillors to 19.