Issued on behalf of the Returning Officer
Polling will take place on Thursday 11 December 2025 to elect one of six candidates standing in The Highland Council's Fort William and Ardnamurchan Ward By-election. Voters are being reminded to make sure they are ready to cast their vote.
The single transferable vote system will be used. Instead of marking a cross, voters should rank the candidates in order of their choice, placing a number 1 in the box next to the name of the candidate who is their first choice, 2 in the box next to their second choice and so on. Voters may rank as many or as few candidates as they wish.
The Council has created a short video that explains the process.
Postal packs have been despatched to registered electors who submitted their application by the postal vote deadline. Anyone who has requested a postal vote will not be able to vote in person at a polling station. Anyone unable to return their postal pack by post in time, can hand it in at any polling station located within the ward between 7am and 10pm on Thursday 11 December 2025.
A list of polling station locations can be found on the Council’s website.
For those who are voting in person, polling stations will be open from 7am until 10pm on Thursday 11 December 2025. You do not need to bring voter ID or the poll letter with you in order to vote.
Voters are encouraged to check their poll letter carefully as this will have details of their designated polling station. For this by-election three changes have been made to locations previously used as polling stations:
- Lundavra Primary School will not be used. Voters will instead be asked to go to The Highland Council’s Charles Kennedy building to vote.
- St Brides Primary School will not be a polling station. Voters will instead be asked to go to the Nether Lochaber Church Hall.
- Lochaline Village hall is not available so voters will be asked to go to the nearby Lochaline Hub Cafe to cast their vote.
The candidates standing for election to Ward 21 – Fort William and Ardnamurchan are:
- CROOKWOOD, Ollie – Scottish Greens
- MACDONALD, Allan – Reform UK
- MACLEAN, Norrie – Scottish National Party (SNP)
- PEILL, Julia – Scottish Conservative and Unionist
- PERERA, Michael Robert – Scottish Labour Party
- PROSSER, Matthew – Scottish Liberal Democrats
To ensure everyone can vote independently and confidently, a variety of accessibility aids are provided at all the polling stations, including a ballot paper overlay. When used alongside the audio recording of the ballot paper, this provides a fully self-service voting experience for blind and partially sighted voters, allowing them to vote in private and without assistance.
The electronic election count will take place in Fort William on Friday 12 December starting at 10am. People will be able to follow the count live and watch the declaration of the results via the Council’s social media channels - @highlandcouncil - https://youtube.com/live/KJW8qE5A2rU
All information about the by-election is available by visiting the Council’s website