A council by-election will be held in May after Labour’s Claudia Webbe was elected as an MP in Leicester.

Cllr Webbe will remain in her Bunhill ward seat until voters choose her replacement on the same day they go to the polls for the London mayoral election on May 7.

Islington leader Cllr Richard Watts, told the Gazette it makes sense to wait until then, rather than organising a costly by-election.

He said: "I think we are conscious not least of the amount by-elections cost but also that voters seem to be pretty much saying to us they've had quite a lot of elections recently. Given one is coming up, it does feel to me like it's in the public interest to run that by-election alongside the London elections."

Cllr Webbe won the Leicester East parliamentary seat in December's general election with 50.8 per cent of the vote.

She replaced Keith Vaz who was suspended from the commons in November having "expressed willingness" to buy cocaine for sex workers.