About the electoral register

We have to supply copies of the full electoral register to credit reference agencies.

Even if you have opted out of the open register we have to make your details available to credit reference agencies.

Credit reference agencies use the electoral register to help calculate your credit score and decide if you should get credit.

If you’re not on the electoral register, it may have a negative effect on your credit score.

You must register to vote to appear on the electoral register. You don’t have to vote even after you have registered.

You can contact us to check if you are on the electoral register, but we can’t contact credit reference agencies for you.

Request a Certificate of Inclusion

If a credit reference agency asks you to prove that you are on the electoral register, we can give you a Certificate of Inclusion. 

The Certificate of Inclusion confirms that you are on the electoral register at your address.

We can only send the certificate to the person registered at that address, not to anyone else. 

You have to have been registered at your address before 1 September 2017.

To request a Certificate of Inclusion, you will need your:

• name, address and contact details, including a phone number and email address

When you submit your request, we will send you an email with information about the different payment options.

You can view the full Electoral Register at our Civic Centre offices. You can’t view it online.

The Electoral Commission has set some restrictions on what you can and can’t do when viewing the register.

You can:

• view the current live register 
  
• make handwritten notes

You can’t:

• view the register unsupervised
  
• take pictures of or photocopy the register
  
• look up anyone by name
  
• use the information for marketing purposes
  
• view historical registers
  

There are over 78,000 addresses on the register, split across six folders. We organise it in order of polling district, and then alphabetically by street name.

It only contains names and elector numbers, not other details, such as contact numbers or forwarding addresses.

We recommend that you let us know you want to view the register in advance by booking an appointment online. This means we can bring out the most relevant section(s) of the register for you. 

However, you can also drop in and view the register at any time during our opening hours.