Andrew Teale’s council by-election previews for 7th April 2022

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Britain Elects

28 min readApr 6, 2022

“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”

There are nine by-elections taking place on 7th April 2022, with a nice geographical spread: three polls take place in each of the North, the Midlands and the South of England. We have five seats defended by Labour, three by the Conservatives and one free-for-all. Let’s start in the West Country with the first Conservative defence of the week:

Lyme and Charmouth

Dorset council; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Daryl Turner.

Show me the exact spot where Louisa Musgrove fell!

Those were the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who upon first arriving at Lyme Regis is said to have gone straight to the Cobb. It’s a reference to Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, in which Louisa fell off the Cobb and sustained concussion.

The Cobb is the harbour wall at Lyme Regis, a rather isolated seaside town on the Dorset-Devon boundary. Lyme is one of those places which has assumed a cultural significance far beyond its actual significance, being a major centre for history, literature and science. The Regis of the name refers to King Edward I, who granted the town a Royal Charter in 1284. Lyme became a major port and shipbuilding centre, giving its name to a large bay on the south coast. It was significant enough to see major military action twice in the seventeenth century; the Royalists unsuccessfully laid siege to the town for eight weeks in 1644, while the Duke of Monmouth landed here in 1685 to kick off the Monmouth Rebellion.

Things calmed down after that, and by the early eighteenth century Lyme became known for fossils. The town is at the centre of the Jurassic Coast, and its rapidly-eroding Blue Lias cliffs are packed with fossils from the early Jurassic period. Mary Anning, a local fossil collector, brought this to the attention of science and also inspired the well-known tongue-twister “she sells sea shells on the sea shore”. There has been a bit of a revival of interest in Anning in recent years thanks to tireless work by the former Lyme Regis Museum curator Liz-Anne Bawden, who got an MBE for her efforts to get Lyme recognised as the birthplace of palaeontology. Most recently, Mary Anning’s life was turned into a 2020 film, Ammonite, in which Anning was played by Kate Winslet.

This area’s association with fossils is appropriate given that the local population also tends towards the ancient. Lyme Regis these days is a retirement centre, Charmouth even more so. In the 2011 census Charmouth was a separate ward of the then-existing West Dorset council, and it was in the top 40 wards in England and Wales for retired population, and just outside the top 40 in England and Wales for population aged 65 or over. For those in Lyme and Charmouth who are still young enough to work, self-employment dominates the local employment profile.

Lyme’s shipbuilding industry eventually went into decline as ships became too large for the harbour to handle, and tourism and literature now form the bedrock of the town’s economy. Tennyson, Longfellow, Belloc, Chesterton and Tolkein all took holidays here, while Eisenhower delivered an important briefing to Allied officers here in advance of D-Day. A S Byatt set parts of her Booker Prize-winning novel Possession in Lyme Regis, as did John Fowles with his work The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Fowles lived in Lyme Regis, serving for nine years as curator of the town’s museum (Liz-Anne Bawden took over from him) and occasionally dabbling in local politics.

Your columnist would not claim that Andrew’s Previews is a great work of literature to rank among the output of any of these talented writers, but the whole point of this column is to dabble in local politics. And recent elections in Lyme Regis have a real-life story to tell of intrigue, rivalry and bad behaviour, not to mention Persuasion and Possession. To quote the opening line of another great work of literature: all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

We join the story in 2015, when this ward was created as a ward of West Dorset council with the same boundaries as now but with a slightly longer name of “Lyme Regis and Charmouth”. It returned two Conservative councillors, George Symonds and Daryl Turner, with large majorities. Symonds and Turner had both been elected as Conservative councillors in 2011 for the previous Lyme Regis ward, and Turner’s service went back to 2007 when he was originally elected on the Liberal Democrat ticket. Daryl Turner was also the Dorset county councillor for Marshwood Vale division, which covered the ward.

Fast-forward a couple of years to 2017, when there was a by-election which this column covered in Andrew’s Previews 2017, page 250. George Symonds had fallen out with the Conservative leadership of West Dorset council, and he submitted his resignation. Third place in the resulting by-election went to Labour candidate Belinda Bawden, daughter of Liz-Anne Bawden; the Conservatives’ Paul Oatway finished second, and the by-election was lost to Lyme Regis town councillor and independent candidate Cheryl Reynolds. In the final reckoning Reynolds polled 52% of the vote to Oatway’s 33%.

That meant that Cheryl Reynolds joined Daryl Turner as councillors for Lyme Regis and Charmouth. Your columnist hadn’t clocked this back in 2017, but they are in fact brother and sister. It might well be concluded that they don’t get on very well, given that in 2018 Daryl (and their brother Virgil Turner) put in a complaint against Cheryl after she used the N-word in a Lyme Regis town council meeting.

Then the 2019 local elections came along. Dorset’s local government was reorganised that year, with West Dorset subsumed into a large single Dorset council. The boundaries of Lyme Regis and Charmouth ward escaped unchanged, but the word “Regis” in the name appears to have fallen down the back of the settee; and the contraction in the ward’s name was matched by a contraction in its representation. The new ward would have only one councillor. Either Daryl or Cheryl was going to lose out. They both stood for election to the new council, Daryl as the Conservative candidate and Cheryl as an independent; when the votes came out of the boxes Daryl Turner had 40%, Cheryl Reynolds 30% and Rob Smith of the Green Party 17%. Cheryl did get re-elected to Lyme Regis town council, then resigned more or less straight away after falling out with the council leadership, but she is now listed as a town councillor again.

There’s nothing to suggest that Karl Marx ever came to Lyme Regis, but at this point it may be worth remembering his remark that “all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice … the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”. Like George Symonds before him, Daryl Turner has had a big falling-out with the council leadership in Dorchester. In July 2021 Dorset council debated an opposition motion to change the council’s governance to a committee-based system; during a break in proceedings the council leader Spencer Flower, without realising that his microphone was switched on, reportedly threatened to deselect Turner should he support the motion. Turner submitted a complaint to the council’s monitoring officer, who took no further action after Flower apologised.

Daryl Turner has now left the scene and relocated to Wales, leaving behind a blistering resignation letter from February attacking the Dorset council leadership for (among other things) raising council tax. Spencer Flower’s response to the loss of a colleague was graceless enough that the cattiest bit is worth quoting: “I am aware of his deep-rooted disappointment when he was not offered a position on the Cabinet following the May 2019 elections and it was equally disappointing for all his colleagues that Daryl found being a team player such a challenge.”

The inaugural 2019 elections to Dorset council resulted in a slim Conservative majority with 43 seats, against 29 Lib Dems, 4 Greens, 4 independents and 2 Labour councillors. This is the first by-election to the new Dorset council, and the winner today will serve until the next Dorset elections which, due to transitional arrangements from the reorganisation, are not until 2024. The Tories have picked up a defector from the Lib Dems since 2019, but if they lose the Lyme and Charmouth by-election that gain will be cancelled out and their majority will be down to 4 again.

Defending for the Conservatives is Vicci Stocqueler, who is a healthcare professional and wheelchair user. Independent candidate Cheryl Reynolds, a herbalist and (as stated) Lyme Regis town councillor, is back for another go. Also back from the 2017 by-election is Belinda Bawden, who has since been elected to Lyme Regis town council and changed her allegiance to the Green Party. Labour’s David Hart completes the ballot paper for a particularly fascinating by-election.

Parliamentary constituency: West Dorset
ONS Travel to Work Area: Sidmouth (Lyme Regis), Bridport (Charmouth)
Postcode districts: DT6, DT7

Belinda Bawden (Grn)
David Hart (Lab)
Cheryl Reynolds (Ind)
Vicci Stocqueler ©

May 2019 result C 756 Ind 571 Grn 317 Lab 239
September 2017 West Dorset by-election Ind 622 C 396 Lab 171
May 2015 West Dorset result C 1470/1461 LD 836/551 Grn 606 Ind 196
2019 result in detail

Cullompton South

Mid Devon council; caused by the resignation of independent councillor Eileen Andrews.

We cross over the border from Dorset to Devon to reach Cullompton, a small town north-east of Exeter on the River Culm. This is an old town: there are Roman remains in the area, and Cullompton is recorded in the will of King Alfred the Great who left the town to his son Æthelweard.

Alfred’s will called the town Columtune. It’s not at all unusual for spellings of placenames to change between mediaeval or earlier times and the present day, but the modern-day spelling of Cullompton didn’t settle down until well into the nineteenth century. Until 1874 the railway station here was called “Collumpton”, and Ordnance Survey maps used the spelling “Cullumpton” into the 1880s.

The railway station here, which lay on the Great Western main line, is now long gone. The railway followed the main road from Bristol to Exeter which passed through Cullompton town centre, and by the 1960s the holiday traffic through the town was so bad that a bypass was needed. Routed next to the railway, the Cullompton bypass opened in 1969; it was upgraded in the 1970s to become part of the M5 motorway, and it is the only part of the M5 which was built as an upgrade of an existing road. A new relief road for Cullompton, together with a reopening of the railway station, is now being proposed.

Cullompton is the best-connected of the three towns within Mid Devon district: the other two are Tiverton (where the council is based) and Crediton. South ward is an almost-entirely built-up area containing part of the town centre and housing to the west and south-west of it. It returns two members of Mid Devon council.

Local elections here this century have been dominated by independent candidates, with the exception of a July 2004 by-election (which the Conservatives won) and the last Mid Devon elections in May 2019 when the ward’s two seats split between the Conservatives and independent candidate Eileen Andrews. Shares of the vote were 33% for the Conservatives, 30% for Andrews and 22% for the Liberal Democrats. Eileen Andrews had represented the ward since 2007, and had also served as Mayor of Cullompton. She is now 94 years old, and she has stood down on health grounds.

At other levels of government this is a Conservative area. Cullompton South ward’s Conservative district councillor John Berry has been the ward’s county councillor since 2001; he was easily re-elected last year in the Cullompton and Bradninch county division. The ward is part of the safe Conservative parliamentary seat of Tiverton and Honiton.

Which may give as a clue as to what will happen in this by-election, as there is no new independent candidate to replace Eileen Andrews. We have a free-for-all! And it could be an important one. The Conservatives lost control of Mid Devon council in 2019, winning 18 seats against 12 Lib Dems, 10 independents and 2 Greens. Initially the Tories were left out of the administration as an independent-Lib Dem coalition as formed, but this collapsed in 2020 and Mid Devon is now run by an independent-Conservative coalition. The Tories gained two seats in by-elections last year, and if they can gain this one as well they will have 21 seats — half of the council.

The Conservatives have selected Rosemary Berry for the Cullompton South by-election: she is a former Mid Devon councillor, representing Cullompton Outer ward from 2015 to 2019, and is councillor John Berry’s wife. Standing for the Lib Dems is James Buczkowski, a town councillor, former Mayor of Cullompton, and local Scout leader. The ballot paper is completed by the ward’s first Labour candidate this century, Jason Chamberlain. The Local Democracy Reporting Service has received short statements from all the campaigns, which you can read on the Devon Live website here (link).

Parliamentary constituency: Tiverton and Honiton
Devon county council division: Cullompton and Bradninch
ONS Travel to Work Area: Exeter
Postcode district: EX15

Rosemary Berry ©
James Buczkowski (LD)
Jason Chamberlain (Lab)

May 2019 result C 339/256 Ind 310 LD 225/195 Lib 161
May 2015 result Ind 810/728/493 C 593/562
May 2011 result Ind 759/456/415 LD 234
May 2007 result Ind 547/419/261 C 250/194
July 2004 by-election C 255 LD 219 Ind 101 Ind 82
May 2003 result Ind 359/344/185 LD 225/217
Previous results in detail

Storrington and Washington

Horsham council, West Sussex; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor James Sanson.

To complete the week’s southern trio it’s time for our fifth and final trip to Horsham district for the 2021–22 municipal year. Unlike the previous four by-elections which all took place in Horsham town, and were all won by the Liberal Democrats, this time we have escaped to the country. And this is particularly beautiful countryside, as much of Storrington and Washington ward lies within the South Downs National Park.

The ward lies at the bottom of the northern slopes of the South Downs, north of Worthing. The only way through the Downs from Worthing is the A24 road, which descends towards the village of Washington. Storrington is a small market town lying to the west of Washington, with just under 4,000 electors on the roll.

This ward was created in 2019 as a cut-down version of the former Chantry ward, which was named after a summit in the South Downs. Chantry was a safe Conservative ward, with the exception of a 2013 by-election where UKIP came close to winning; and Storrington and Washington has continued in that vein. This ward’s first poll in 2019 saw the Conservative slate guaranteed one of the three seats due to insufficient opposition candidates; the Tory slate eventually beat the Lib Dem candidate 51–30.

One of the Conservative Horsham councillors elected here in 2019 was Paul Marshall, who was also leader of West Sussex county council. He stood down from Horsham council a few months later to concentrate on that role, and the resulting by-election (Andrew’s Previews 2019, page 404) was held on the same day as the December 2019 general election. The Conservatives increased their majority in the ward to 59–24 at that by-election, and also had no trouble defending the local parliamentary seat of Arundel and South Downs. Marshall was re-elected to the county council last year from the local Storrington division without fuss.

This second Storrington and Washington by-election arises from the resignation of Conservative councillor Jim Sanson, who had first been elected for the former Chantry ward in 2007. If press reports are to be believed, Sanson left in something of a huff after being deselected by the party.

So, Jim Sanson’s replacement as Conservative candidate may well end up on the council rather sooner than he might have anticipated. The by-election is defended by Daniel Hall, who is the CEO of an international non-governmental organisation, runs a leadership development programme for young people and sits on the board of a mental health charity. The Lib Dem candidate is Pascal Roberts, who faces an uphill struggle in continuing the party’s recent winning streak in Horsham council by-elections. Completing the ballot paper is Joan Grech for the Green Party.

Parliamentary constituency: Arundel and South Downs
West Sussex county council division: Storrington
ONS Travel to Work Area: Crawley
Postcode district: RH20

Joan Grech (Grn)
Daniel Hall ©
Pascal Roberts (LD)

December 2019 by-election C 3283 LD 1344 Lab 924
May 2019 result C 1584/1536/1439 LD 939 Lab 562
Previous results in detail

Brookside

Telford and Wrekin council, Shropshire; caused by the death of Labour councillor Jackie Loveridge.

We now move northwards for three Labour defences in contrasting wards of the Midlands, starting in the New Town of Telford. The Brookside ward borders the south end of the Town Park, and is based on housing to the west of Stirchley, one of the villages which the development of the New Town swallowed up.

In the 2011 census Brookside ward, which then covered a slightly larger area, made the top 100 for adults educated to level 1 (1–4 GCSE passes or equivalent) or level 2 (5 or more GCSE passes or equivalent), and also for those employed in manufacturing (22.5%). Brookside also returned the third-highest figure in the West Midlands for those professing no religion (38.5%).

The boundary changes in 2015 may well have been to the detriment of the local Conservatives, who won one of the two seats in the previous Brookside ward in May 2007 and the other at a by-election in November 2007. The Labour slate of Arnold England and Jacqueline Loveridge gained the ward in 2011 and have made it safe again. The 2019 Telford and Wrekin elections gave 39% to the Labour slate, 23% to the Conservative slate and 20% to the UKIP candidate. Jackie Loveridge, who beat the alphabet to top the poll in 2019, passed away in January at the age of 65.

Defending this by-election for Labour is Jackie Loveridge’s widower Jim, who is a Stirchley and Brookside parish councillor. The Conservatives have selected Chris Leach. UKIP have not returned, so Paul Howard completes the ballot paper for the Liberal Democrats.

Parliamentary constituency: Telford
ONS Travel to Work Area: Telford
Postcode district: TF3

Paul Howard (LD)
Chris Leach ©
Jim Loveridge (Lab)

May 2019 result Lab 519/488 C 314/189 UKIP 270 LD 236
May 2015 result Lab 931/869 C 660/631 UKIP 591/453 Grn 164
Previous results in detail

East Park

Wolverhampton council, West Midlands; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Harman Singh Banger.

We move east from Telford into the industrial West Midlands. The East Park ward of Wolverhampton radiates east from the edge of the city centre towards the eponymous park, which opened for the Diamond Jubilee year of 1896. The ward’s housing is located to the north of the park, in the Old Heath and Moseley Villages areas along the main road to Willenhall; to the south is Wolverhampton’s speedway and greyhound racing stadium, while to the west is Monmore Green. Don’t be fooled by this bucolic-sounding name: Monmore Green is an utterly industrial part of the Black Country, and railway and Midland Metro passengers can appreciate this at leisure as they crawl through the area from Birmingham towards the main Wolverhampton stations.

In the 2011 census East Park was in the top 80 wards in England and Wales for mixed-race ethnicity (7.0%), adults with no qualifications (42.1%) and unemployment (9.4%). Much of the ward’s housing stock is postwar social housing at the wrong end of the deprivation indices. 11% of the population were of Asian ethnicity (mostly with a Sikh background), and 9% were black; however, the population born outside the UK is relatively low given East Park ward’s multi-ethnic nature.

The current Wolverhampton ward boundaries date from 2004, and East Park ward has voted Labour on all but one occasion since then, usually with large majorities. The exception was the 2008 election where the Conservatives ran riot across Wolverhampton, winning 12 wards and topping the poll across the city in a feat which they have not matched since in a local election. It’s very likely that the Tories also topped the poll across Wolverhampton in the 2019 general election, in which they had majorities of 4,080 in the city’s North East constituency and 1,661 in South West; however, there is some room for doubt on that because the South East constituency, which includes East Park ward and which Labour held by 1,235 votes, also includes territory from Dudley borough.

Labour are still very comfortably in control of Wolverhampton city council, although they did lose five seats to the Conservatives in 2021. East Park ward re-elected its Labour councillor with a 54–39 lead over the Conservatives, the Tories’ best score here since they won the ward in 2008.

Now, there has been some talk in recent months from the usual outraged people on Twitter to the effect that nobody has been convicted over misuse of COVID government funds. This is not true. Let us consider the case of Harman Banger, who describes himself on Twitter as a “property asset acquisition and investment specialist”. He was also a Wolverhampton city councillor for East Park ward, having been first elected in 2011, and sat on the council’s cabinet. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he was the cabinet member with the City Economy portfolio, giving him the responsibility for setting up bounceback loans for Wolverhampton’s businesses. At the time of writing his last tweet, sent on 3 June 2020, was a retweet of this message from Wolverhampton council:

In April 2020 Councillor Banger’s wife, Neena Kumari, had put an application in to the council for a small business grant of £10,000 in respect of Pizza Plus, a takeaway which Banger and Kumari owned. Investigations by the council revealed that at the time of the application the Pizza Plus address was boarded up with no electricity supply, and the company did not appear to be trading. The application was rejected; and shortly after that tweet was sent, Banger and Kumari were arrested by West Midlands Police’s anti-fraud squad. In December 2021 Wolverhampton magistrates found both of them guilty of fraud by false representation. Harman Banger resigned from Wolverhampton council a few days later, but he has decided to continue the legal battle by appealing his conviction. The appeal will be heard later this year.

The resulting East Park by-election is the only one of today’s polls in a part of England which will also have elections in May, so this is a warmup for the Wolverhampton elections taking place in four weeks’ time. It’s a straight fight between two local residents. Defending for Labour is Lovinyer Daley, who currently works as a lettings adviser. Challenging for the Conservatives is their former ward councillor (2008–12) Steve Hall, who finished second here in the 2019 election (as an independent) and the 2021 election (as a Conservative).

Parliamentary constituency: Wolverhampton South East
ONS Travel to Work Area: Wolverhampton and Walsall
Postcode districts: WV1, WV2, WV13, WV14

Lovinyer Daley (Lab)
Steve Hall ©

May 2021 result Lab 1207 C 882 Grn 140
May 2019 result Lab 1013 Ind 395 C 299
May 2018 result Lab 1208 C 353 Ind 249
May 2016 result Lab 1022 UKIP 386 C 303 Grn 50 Ind 50
May 2015 result Lab 2261 C 1033 UKIP 880 Grn 144 Ind 34
May 2014 result Lab 1151 UKIP 692 C 411 Grn 93
May 2012 result Lab 1244 C 653 LD 112
May 2011 result Lab 1763 C 1058
May 2010 result Lab 2040 C 1199 LD 914 BNP 391
May 2008 result C 1309 Lab 975 LD 528
May 2007 result Lab 1182 C 531 LD 436 Ind 402
May 2006 result Lab 1351 C 733 LD 472
June 2004 result Lab 1253/1149/1087 UKIP 558 C 551/522/492 LD 377
Previous results in detail

Cote Heath

High Peak council, Derbyshire; caused by the death of Labour councillor Keith Savage.

For our East Midlands poll today we are in an area which is rather difficult to describe as part of the East Midlands. We’ve come to the hills above Buxton, which is one of England’s highest towns (minimum altitude 1000 feet) but is surrounded on all sides by the higher ground of the Peak District. The only downward way out is via the deep Wye Gorge to the east of Buxton, through which the A6 road runs towards Matlock.

The Wye has cut this gorge through limestone rock — indeed part of the river runs underground, through the showcave of Poole’s Cavern. Buxton does well out of its geology. There are natural warm springs here which attracted the Romans and are exploited today as Buxton Water. Further up, in the hills around Buxton, quarrying is the main game in town: Buxton’s limestone is of high quality and in great demand for industry.

Some of this industry continues to take gouges out of Cote Heath, which is Buxton’s southern ward. There is housing here along the A515 road towards Ashbourne, together with the village of Harpur Hill which is administered as part of Buxton, and the small parish of King Sterndale to the east. At the 2011 census 4.8% of Cote Heath’s workforce were employed in mining or quarrying, which was the fourth-highest figure for any ward in England and Wales. The three wards with higher figures were St Dennis in the china-clay pits of Cornwall, Loftus in Redcar and Cleveland (home to the Boulby potash mine, which we touched on last week), and Onllwyn in Neath Port Talbot where there is still coalmining going on, although of an opencast rather than deep nature. Cote Heath is also in the top 50 wards in England and Wales for “lower supervisory and technical occupations”.

The Peak District National Park boundary has been carefully drawn to avoid most of the limestone quarries, but one site within this ward has slipped through the net: Topley Pike Quarry, above the Wye gorge near King Sterndale, is part of the National Park. On the far side of the A515 the quarrying has left one rather unusual and controversial legacy. The abandoned Harpur Hill Quarry has filled up with rainwater, producing a picturesque lake with a startling blue colour. You wouldn’t find Jacques Cousteau swimming in these particular waters: the reason for the startling blue colour is that the water has reacted with the limestone rock to produce a quicklime solution which is nearly as alkaline as household bleach. High Peak council dump black dye into the lake every few years in an attempt to deter people from swimming in it, but a long-term solution to the dangers of Buxton’s “Blue Lagoon” has so far proved elusive.

https://youtu.be/wVBZLoNffPw

This intriguing natural and man-made landscape has an intriguing political landscape to match. Cote Heath ward has been very closely fought bewteen the Conservative and Labour parties this century: it voted Labour in 2003, Conservative in 2007, Labour in 2011, Conservative and 2015, and split its two seats between the two parties in 2019 in what was essentially a dead-heat result.

Whoever ends up winning Cote Heath normally ends up as the largest party on High Peak council, so this is a key marginal ward as well. The 2019 High Peak elections returned a Labour majority of one, with 22 Labour councillors against 16 Conservatives, 3 Lib Dems and 2 Greens (in the touristy Sheffield commuterland of the Hope Valley). If Labour lose this by-election, their majority on the council will go with it.

Just to make matters even more interesting, Cote Heath forms part of a marginal division of Derbyshire county council (Buxton North and East, where the Conservatives increased their majority last year), and the High Peak constituency — which has the same boundaries as High Peak district — is a key Parliamentary marginal. The current Conservative MP, Robert Largan, gained the seat in December 2019 by just 590 votes.

This by-election follows the sudden death in December of Labour councillor Keith Savage, who was elected for this ward in 1995, 2011 and most recently in 2019. He made his career in teaching and education, but he was also one of the prime movers in Buxton’s important cultural scene: Savage was a trustee of the Buxton Festival Fringe for 15 years and was a founding member of another local arts charity, Buxton Film.

Defending for Labour is Alan Smith, who is described as a long-standing union organiser. The Conservatives have selected Kev Kirkham, who works as a mechanic. The two-party duopoly is broken this time with the nomination of a third candidate: Peter Crook, for the Green Party.

Parliamentary constituency: High Peak
Derbyshire county council division: Buxton North and East
ONS Travel to Work Area: Buxton
Postcode district: SK17

May 2019 result C 477/407 Lab 475/452
May 2015 result C 965/880 Lab 648/642 Ind 263 Grn 205
Previous results in detail

Everton; and
Warbreck

Liverpool council, Merseyside; caused respectively by the resignations of Labour councillors Ian Byrne and Cheryl Didsbury.

With due respect to Wolverhampton, our big city by-elections today take place in Liverpool. And we are very much in the big city, as Everton ward runs right up to the edge of the city centre: cross the fearsome dual carriageway behind the Walker Art Gallery and there you are. The Everton ward does not include Everton FC’s ground (which is in County ward), but ironically it does run up the edge of Anfield Stadium.

Everton ward has a number of unwanted distinctions in the 2011 census. 58% of its households are socially rented, putting the ward in the top 25 wards in England and Wales. Despite the presence of a campus of John Moores University in the ward, 47% of adults living here have no qualifications, putting Everton in the top 15 wards in England and Wales; in north-west England, only Cantril Farm Stockbridge Village has fewer qualifications. Despite being literally over the road from Liverpool city centre and all the jobs that can provide, over 10% of the workforce were unemployed (putting Everton in the top 50 wards in England and Wales) and a staggering 16% more were long-term sick or disabled, which is the highest figure for any ward in England.

In demographic terms, things are rather more normal a few miles to the north in Warbreck ward, which covers most of the Walton area in North Liverpool together with the southern end of Aintree. Warbreck is a Scandinavian name meaning “lookout hill”, and there’s certainly a lot of surveillance activity around Walton Gaol which is part of this ward. HMP Liverpool, as that prison is now called, has the dubious distinction of being the scene of one of the UK’s very last executions: Peter Allen was hanged here for murder on 13 August 1964, at the same time as his accomplice Gwynne Evans went to the gallows in Strangeways.

Warbreck ward has a lot more industry than Everton. The ward boundaries include the enormous Jacob’s Aintree complex, which has been making some of your favourite biscuits in Liverpool for over a century. Next to that is Hartley’s Village, a small model village built by and for the former Hartley’s jam factory.

In common with large parts of Merseyside, both of these wards have been Labour monoliths for the last decade. Warbreck ward — which voted Liberal Democrat until 2007 — gave Labour a 68–15 lead over the Lib Dems last year, while in Everton ward Labour won with 65%. They were both fought by new Labour candidates, for different reasons. The previous Labour councillor for Warbreck, Richard McLinden, was a victim of the second COVID wave; while the outgoing councillor for Everton ward was the former Labour council leader Frank Prendergast who had fallen out with the party. Prendergast sought re-election as an independent, finishing second with 11%.

Those were pretty poor Labour scores by recent standards, as both wards had been over 80% Labour in recent years. Prendergast got over 86% of the vote in Everton ward in 2012, as did new candidate Ian Byrne in 2018. Warbreck gave Labour over 80% of the vote in 2018 and 2019. The 2021 Liverpool city council elections were difficult for Labour, which suffered the fallout from a major scandal over the running of the city by Big Joe Anderson’s mayoral administration. Big Joe’s successor as Labour candidate, Joanne Anderson (no relation), suffered the indignity of being taken to a runoff in the 2021 mayoral election.

The scandal has given the government the excuse to vandalise Liverpool’s electoral system in the same way that they did in Birmingham a few years ago. The May 2022 local elections here have been cancelled, and the city will move to all-out elections for the mayor and council every four years from 2023. The Local Government Boundary Commission released a new draft map earlier this week which scatters these wards to the four winds. Everton ward is to be divided into three new wards (Everton North, Everton South, and Scotland Road), while Warbreck is similarly dissolved into new wards called Orrell Park, Walton Hall and Walton Vale.

Which may be a factor in the timing of these by-elections, as they are to replace two councillors who were last elected in 2018 and might reasonably have expected to be able to stand down this year after four-year terms. One of them is solicitor and Warbreck councillor Cheryl Didsbury, who had served since 2014. Everton ward is vacated by Ian Byrne, who was first elected here in 2018 and then went on to greater things: in December 2019 he became the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby. This ward is not represented by Byrne any longer: Everton and Warbreck both form part of the Liverpool Walton parliamentary seat.

There will still be a Byrne on the Everton ballot, as the defending Labour candidate there is Elile Byrne, Ian’s daughter. Frank Prendergast has decided not to have another go, so Byrne junior takes on opposition from the Greens (Kevin Robinson-Hale), the Conservatives (Wendy Hine), the continuing Liberal Party (Angela Preston), the Liberal Democrats (former Tory councillor Steve Fitzsimmons) and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (Roger Bannister).

In Warbreck ward the defending Labour candidate is Sam East. The Lib Dems’ Karen Afford, a former councillor for the neighbouring County ward, is having another go after her second-placed finish here last year. Rebecca Lawson for the Greens and Mark Butchard for the Conservatives complete the Warbreck ballot paper.

Everton

Parliamentary constituency: Liverpool Walton
ONS Travel to Work Area: Liverpool
Postcode districts: L3, L4, L5, L6

Roger Bannister (TUSC)
Ellie Byrne (Lab)
Steve Fitzsimmons (LD)
Wendy Hine ©
Angela Preston (Lib)
Kevin Robinson-Hale (Grn)

May 2021 result Lab 1741 Ind 286 Grn 271 C 166 Lib 101 LD 100
May 2019 result Lab 2036 Grn 201 LD 96 C 68 Lib 64
May 2018 result Lab 2295 C 136 Grn 100 Lib 60 LD 59
May 2016 result Lab 2136 Grn 210 Lib 185 C 97
May 2015 result Lab 4984 UKIP 510 C 201 Grn 181 Lib 117 TUSC 92
May 2014 result Lab 2056 UKIP 557 Grn 125 TUSC 89 Lib 66 C 66
May 2012 result Lab 2548 Grn 182 Lib 88 C 67 British Freedom Party 50
May 2011 result Lab 2562 C 127 BNP 126 Grn 100 Lib 79
May 2010 result Lab 3623 Lib 532 BNP 281 C 278 Grn 134
May 2008 result Lab 1678 BNP 222 C 130 LD 120 Grn 102 Lib 78
May 2007 result Lab 1675 LD 233 BNP 154 Lib 108 C 104
May 2006 result Lab 1519 LD 296 C 140 Grn 137 Lib 117
June 2004 result Lab 1834/1827/1678 LD 453/424/389 Liverpool Labour Community Party 320 Grn 270 Lib 268/192 Ind 212
Previous results in detail

Warbreck

Parliamentary constituency: Liverpool Walton
ONS Travel to Work Area: Liverpool
Postcode district: L9

May 2021 result Lab 2107 LD 460 Grn 247 C 226 Lib 74
May 2019 result Lab 2240 Grn 221 LD 156 C 105 Lib 58
May 2018 result Lab 2321 LD 228 C 190 Grn 126 Lib 38
May 2016 result Lab 2166 LD 435 Grn 197 EDP 127 C 81 Lib 74
May 2015 result Lab 5379 UKIP 627 LD 494 Grn 310 C 202 TUSC 87 Lib 38 EDP 25
May 2014 result Lab 2138 UKIP 577 LD 292 Grn 136 C 84 EDP 40 Lib 37
May 2012 result Lab 2724 LD 312 EDP 216 Grn 118 Lib 75 C 67
May 2011 result Lab 3190 LD 337 UKIP 124 C 110 Lib 66 EDP 55 Grn 34
May 2010 result Lab 3761 LD 2238 C 248 Grn 161
May 2008 result Lab 1852 LD 724 BNP 198 C 154 Lib 146 Grn 99
September 2007 by-election Lab 1796 LD 1024 BNP 136 Ind 131 UKIP 52 Grn 45 C 40 Liverpool Labour Community Party 32
May 2007 result Lab 1837 LD 1643 BNP 178 C 66 Grn 50
May 2006 result LD 1380 Lab 1353 Lib 185 C 135
June 2004 result LD 2643/2450/2309 Lab 1217/970/952
Previous results in detail

South Hunsley

East Riding council, East Yorkshire; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Vanessa Walker.

We finish the week by travelling from the west coast to the east. There is no village called South Hunsley, but there is a large secondary school and sixth-form college of that name. South Hunsley School has given us figures including the current Wales and Leeds United footballer Daniel James, the Manchester City footballer Jess Park, the Coronation Street actress and impressionist Debra Stephenson and the former BBC weather presenter Alex Deakin.

All of these are products of a corner of Yorkshire on the north bank of the Humber estuary, just to the west of the Hull built-up area. South Hunsley ward’s two main population centres are large villages of approximately equal size. The better-connected of these is North Ferriby, which is on the main road and railway line running west from Hull but whose name — “north ferry village” — harks back to transport of a different era, before the construction of the Humber Bridge just downstream. In the twentieth century three Bronze Age wooden boats were excavated here from the shores of the Humber: now in the care of Hull Museum, the Ferriby Boats are contenders for the oldest known boats in Europe.

Overlooking all this from a mile or two to the north of the shoreline is Swanland, which like North Ferriby is a favoured location for Hull commuters. One prominent Hull commuter from here in times past was James Reckitt, a major Hull businessman and philanthropist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who died in Swanland in 1924. He was one of the eponymous sons in Reckitt and Sons, which manufactured starch, polish and other household products in Hull. Reckitt’s company is still going strong today as part of Reckitt Benckiser, which is a member of the FTSE 100 index.

South Hunsley ward has returned Conservative councillors throughout this century and is now a very safe ward for the party. It also forms part of a safe Conservative Parliamentary seat: Haltemprice and Howden, which returns David Davis to Parliament. In 2019 the Conservative slate in South Hunsley had a 65–14 lead over the Lib Dems, who held this ward until 2003 but have fallen a long way back since then. One former Lib Dem councillor here was Diana Wallis, who was a Yorkshire MEP in the European Parliament from 1999 to 2012.

Vanessa Walker, who had represented the ward since 2015 and held the Adult and Carer Services portfolio on the East Riding council cabinet, passed away in January at the age of 66 after developing pancreatic cancer. She did not go gently into that good night, making clear in an interview she gave last October to ITV’s Tonight programme that she wanted to show people that a terminal diagnosis should not mean that someone was written off.

All four candidates on the ballot paper to replace Walker give addresses in Swanland. Defending for the Conservatives is Paul Hopton, who is a Swanland parish councillor. The Liberal Democrats have selected Margaret Corless, who appears to be unhappy about recent housing developments in Swanland. Also standing are Dafydd Taylor for Labour and a wildcard candidate: Diana Wallis’ husband Stewart Arnold, a former leader of the regionalist Yorkshire Party, is standing here with the Green Party nomination.

Parliamentary constituency: Haltemprice and Howden
ONS Travel to Work Area: Hull
Postcode districts: HU14, HU15

May 2019 result C 1947/1656 LD 406/378 Lab 335/276 UKIP 296
May 2015 result C 4281/3185 Lab 989/852 LD 711/579
May 2011 result C 2688/2441 Lab 631/576 LD 468/386
May 2007 result C 2446/2293 LD 764/686 Lab 251
May 2003 result C 1789/1754 LD 1575/1462 Lab 176/159
Previous results in detail

If you enjoyed these previews, there are many more like them — going back to 2016 — in the Andrew’s Previews books, which are available to buy now (link). You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).

Andrew Teale