May 2016 elections: Who's standing to be your local councillor in Wolverhampton?

Voters will go to the polls between 7am and 10am on May 5, with polling booths stationed at venues across the region.

A total of 87 seats are up for grabs in wards across the four Black Country councils - a third of the total seats in each metropolitan borough - including 24 in Sandwell, 23 in Dudley and 20 in both Wolverhampton and Walsall.

Meanwhile in Staffordshire Cannock Chase District Council will be holding polls for a total of 13 of its 41 seats. Eleven seats will be contested in Wyre Forest.

Over the course of this week we will be detailing the candidates for each ward where a seat is up for grabs, starting today with Wolverhampton.

Labour currently dominates the authority, holding 47 of the 60 seats. The Conservatives hold 10, while the Lib Dems and UKIP hold one seat each.

The Bilston East seat is currently vacant following the death of Bert Turner last October. Of the 20 seats being contested 17 are currently held by Labour.

They include the St Peter's seat held by council leader Councillor Roger Lawrence, while deputy leader Peter Bilson's Bushbury South and Low Hill seat will also go to the polls.

And cabinet members Claire Darke and John Reynolds will contest their respective seats in the Park and Graiseley wards.

Two Tory seats are up for grabs - and both have been mired in controversy in the lead up to the elections.

The party nominated two candidates for Tettenhall Regis, namely Mark Evans - who had originally stood down last year - and Udey Singh.

Tory leader Wendy Thompson put the unprecedented dual nomination down to 'an administrative error', but it means that voters in Regis will be faced with two Conservative candidates on ballot papers.

The party says that Udey Singh is the official candidate. Meanwhile in Tettenhall Wightwick incumbent Arun Photay will contest his seat despite having being deselected by the party. He was reinstated following the intervention of Tory party chairman Lord Feldman.

Meanwhile there has also been ructions within the Labour Party over the Blakenhall ward seat.

John Rowley - the longest serving council on the authority having held his seat since 1982 - was voted out by ward members, who selected former Bushbury councillor Jasbinder Dehar as candidate.

But Mr Rowley was controversially reinstated after a re-vote following an appeal to Labour's West Midlands regional office.

His claims that he had been the victim of a smear campaign were upheld and he edged home as the party's candidate by a slender margin in another ballot.

It is the second year running that the Blakenhall seat has been mired in controversy.

Following May 2015's elections Wolverhampton council's chief executive Keith Ireland received a slap over the wrist from the Electoral Commission for failing to meet key performance standards in his role as returning officer.

It came after the independent status of candidate Bhajan Devsi - a former Labour Party member - was left off ballot papers.

Mr Devsi has returned to contest the seat as an independent candidate this year.

The Lib Dems sole seat on the council in Spring Vale is up for grabs.

Sarah Quarmby is the Lib Dem candidate to replace Councillor Richard Whitehouse, who has been on the council since 1984.

In East Park Labour's Payal Bedi has been de-selected in favour of Anwen Muston, who contested seats in Penn in the last two council elections.

Mrs Bedi has moved over to the Bilston East seat vacated by the late Bert Turner.

Changes are also afoot in Oxley, where Lorna McGregor has stepped down. Former Bilston councillor Louise Miles has been selected by Labour as her replacement.

In Ettingshall long-serving Labour councillor Bishan Dass is set to retire. His first spell on the council ran from 1975 to 1987, while he has held his current seat since 2004 and served as mayor in 1986.