Colchester goes to the polls today in what will shape the make up of the borough council for the next year.

There are 17 seats up for election and it is the Colchester Conservative group which, by pure numbers, has the most to lose.

The Tories currently hold eight of the seats which are up for grabs while both Labour and the Lib Dems have four. There is also one independent seat, in Highwoods.

Of Colchester's 17 wards, just four have mixed representation.

At the moment, both Castle and Shrub End have two Conservatives and one Lib Dem, Stanway has two Lib Dems and one Conservative while Wivenhoe has two Labour members and one Lib Dem.

These are, by and large, the wards to look out for.

Today's poll is the first election-by-thirds since a boundary review, which saw the number of borough councillors reduced from 60 to 51 and standardising the number of councillors per ward to three.