VOTERS across East Anglia will be heading to the polls today to vote for new district and borough councils.

And they will also have their say on whether Britain should adopt the Alternative Vote system for elections to Westminster.

Polling stations are open until 10pm tonight – but most districts and boroughs are not counting any votes until tomorrow.

Our website will have direct reports from all the counts and full results as soon as they are announced.

Different councils are counting at different times.

The only council with an overnight count is at Colchester – where results are expected shortly after 2.30am.

Suffolk Coastal, St Edmundsbury, Forest Heath, Tendring and Babergh are counting during the morning. Ipswich is due to start counting at noon and Mid Suffolk is starting its count at 2pm.

The first results are expected to be declared about an hour after counting starts – and all councils are hoping to have completed council votes by the time counting starts on the AV referendum votes at 4pm.

Labour is hoping to mount a significant comeback in these elections – the last time the seats were fought in 2007 the party was all but wiped off the map in rural areas.

It hopes to win back control of Ipswich and, possibly, Waveney councils and is hoping to substantially increase its representation on other authorities.

The party heading into the elections with most concern is the Liberal Democrats who fear that voters could punish them for going into coalition with the Conservatives at Westminster.