Voters up and down the country will head to the polls next month for the first bumper crop of elections since the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Many contests, including seats for Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council, are set to take place on May 6, dubbed “Super Thursday”, including some that were postponed from last year because of Covid-19.

Across England, voters will be choosing a mixture of councillors, local mayors, regional mayors and police commissioners.

Those on the electoral roll in Southampton can take part in the unitary authority elections in just over three weeks’ time.

Voters will also decide who they want to take up the role of Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire – the contest was due to take place last year, but was delayed due to the pandemic.

With the voter registration deadline looming, we’ve taken a look at what turnout has been like across Southampton in recent years.

Electoral Commission data shows that at the last local council elections in 2019, 168,500 people in the area were eligible to vote, with 51,200 of them returning valid ballot papers.

That was a turnout of 30.4%, which was lower than the England average for council elections of 32.3%.

Around 17,000 postal votes were included in the count.

Including rejected votes, the ballot box turnout in Southampton that year was 30.6%.

Different figures show that 48,600 people in Southampton returned valid votes at the Hampshire PCC election in 2016 – 29.8% of those who were eligible to take part.

Elsewhere in Britain, Welsh and Scottish voters will be heading to the polls on May 6 to elect new parliaments.

The scale of Super Thursday means that every voter will be able to take part in at least one type of poll, making it the biggest event of its kind outside a general election.

An Electoral Commission spokesperson said: “This May, voters across Great Britain will be going to the polls to vote and choose the people that make decisions which can impact their day to day lives.

“There are several ways for people to vote – you can choose to vote at a polling station, by post, or by appointing someone you trust to vote as a proxy on your behalf.”

A YouGov survey carried out on behalf of the Electoral Commission in February found that the majority of voters would feel safe attending a polling station despite Covid-19.