Previewing the council elections of 16th June 2022
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
There are four polls on 16th June 2022, with two Labour defences, one Conservative defence and one free-for-all. Let’s start with what may well be the quickest result to come through on election night:
Copt Hill
Sunderland council; postponed from 5th May following the death of Reg Coulson, who had been nominated as a UK Independence Party candidate.
For our first poll today we come to the territory of one of the most efficient electoral services departments in the country. At every general election from 1992 to 2015 a Sunderland constituency was the first seat to declare, and Sunderland weren’t far behind in 2017 or 2019 either.
This has been achieved despite Sunderland being a rather far-flung area for a city council. The council area extends west to the New Town of Washington, and south for some miles beyond Sunderland’s built-up area to take a number of towns and villages on the Durham coalfield.
Which is where we find Copt Hill ward. This is a rather curiously-drawn electoral unit, being based on the eastern half of Houghton-le-Spring but extending north and south to take in other disconnected villages — Hetton Downs to the south, Philadelphia and part of Newbottle to the north. Houghton is located about halfway between Sunderland and Durham, and it’s an important enough town to have been part of a parliamentary constituency name continuously since 1885.
For many years coal was king here, as we can see from the history of Philadelphia. Nearby Washington may be a New Town but its name predates the American colonies; the village of Philadelphia, on the other hand, was named by a colliery owner in honour of the British capture of the American city of that name in 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. A couple of generations afterwards in 1815, the County Durham Philadelphia was the scene of the first recorded railway disaster: the experimental steam locomotive Mechanical Traveller, which had been put to work at Newbottle Colliery, suffered a boiler explosion while it was surrounded by a crowd of sightseers. At least 13 people were killed.
As with many former coalfield areas, local politics in Copt Hill recent years has mainly been fought between the Labour Party and independent candidates. These formed the top two at all but one election here between 2007 and 2018, with independents holding all three seats here from 2014 to 2015. Since then the independent challenge has faded: UKIP came a close second in 2019, while the Conservatives took second place in 2021 for the first time in fifteen years. Shares of the vote were 43% for the Labour slate, 27% for the Conservatives and 13% for UKIP.
The 2021 poll here was for two seats, because Labour councillor Jack Cunningham stood down after three years. He had won his seat in 2018 at the age of just 20, while he was a student reading politics and sociology at Sunderland University. Labour’s Tracy Dodds won the by-election to finish Cunningham’s term, and she is now seeking re-election for a full term of her own.
Dodds has had to wait for this opportunity, because the May 2022 election had to be be postponed following the death of Reg Coulson during the election campaign. Coulson was fighting the ward as the UKIP candidate for the third time in a row; he had come close to winning on their ticket in 2019, but fell back badly in 2021.
The other 24 Sunderland wards polled as scheduled in May, and Labour retained control of the council — a good result, as they could have fallen into a minority had the 2021 results been repeated. Sunderland currently stands at 41 Labour councillors plus this vacancy, against 18 Conservatives, 14 Lib Dems and an independent.
As stated, the outgoing Labour councillor Tracy Dodds is seeking re-election. The Conservative candidate is Patricia Francis, who is fighting the ward for the sixth time after contesting every election here from 2014 to 2019. Sunderland is one of the few places which still has an active UKIP branch, but the party has not nominated anyone to replace the late Reg Coulson and they will not be on the rescheduled ballot. Also standing are Andrew Robertson for the Green Party and Hetton town councillor Kathleen Pearson as an independent candidate, while the delay to the poll has allowed the Liberal Democrats to enter the fray by nominating Mary Boddy.
Parliamentary constituency: Houghton and Sunderland South
ONS Travel to Work Area: Sunderland
Postcode districts: DH4, DH5, SR3
Mary Boddy (LD)
Tracy Dodds (Lab)
Patricia Francis ©
Kathleen Pearson (Ind)
Andrew Robertson (Grn)
May 2021 double vacancy Lab 1327/1203 C 833/519 UKIP 403/384 LD 272/83 Grn 256
May 2019 result Lab 1232 UKIP 1047 C 386 Grn 311
May 2018 result Lab 1400 Ind 940 C 428 Grn 108
May 2016 result Lab 1577 UKIP 847 C 339 Grn 181
May 2015 result Lab 2267 Ind 2082 C 501 Grn 176
May 2014 result Ind 1469 Lab 1399 C 254
May 2012 result Ind 1679 Lab 1250 LD 111
May 2011 result Ind 1961 Lab 1533
May 2010 result Lab 2174 Ind 1971 LD 687
May 2008 result Ind 1487 Lab 1123 C 451 BNP 197
May 2007 result Ind 1382 Lab 1146 C 358 BNP 176 LD 159
May 2006 result Lab 1372 C 898 BNP 438
June 2004 result Lab 1805/1642/1551 C 1161 BNP 508
Previous results in detail
Franche and Habberley North
Wyre Forest council, Worcesterhire; caused by the resignation of Health Concern councillor Anna l’Huillier.
For the first of our two Midlands by-elections this week it’s time for a return visit to the Worcestershire town of Kidderminster. The Franche and Habberley North ward, which this column profiled last Novemnber, is the north-western of Kidderminster’s six electoral wards. Franche, an old village which has been swallowed up by Kidderminster’s growth, lies on the main road towards Bridgnorth, while the Habberley area can be found on the western edge of the town.
Kidderminster is the main town in the Wyre Forest district, where politics has never been quite the same since the rise of the Health Concern party at the start of this century in protest at the removal of A&E facilities at Kidderminster Hospital. Health Concern’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed a bit over the two decades since then. They were on a high tide in 2019, winning eight seats across Wyre Forest including all three seats in this ward; but that was in a rather fragmented political scene. Health Concern’s winning score in Franche and Habberley North was just 30%; the lead Conservative and Labour candidates tied for the runner-up spot on 20% each; UKIP had 11% and the Greens scored 10%.
From 2015 to 2019 Franche and Habberley North ward had split its representation between two Conservative councillors and one Labour; Franche, the main predecessor ward, had elected councillors on the Conservative, Health Concern, Labour and UKIP tickets between 2004 and 2015. From this you might conclude that this is a politically volatile area.
You might also conclude that from the makeup of Wyre Forest council, which is hung. The Conservatives are the largest party on 13 seats, but the administration is an anti-Tory coalition led by Health Concern (8) and including Lib Dems (3) Labour (2) and Green (1) councillors. There are also five independents on the council, who hold the balance of power.
However, the county elections here tell a different story. Franche and Habberley North ward only dates from 2015, but it has the same boundaries as the St Barnabas division of Worcestershire county council which was last redrawn in 2005. This county division has been in Conservative hands since 2009, and in May 2021 the Conservatives had a strong lead: 46%, against 24% for Labour and 20% for Health Concern. Rather the contrast with what happened here in May 2019.
The Health Concern candidate here in the county elections was Susie Griffiths, who had served as a district councillor for this ward since 2019; she is the daughter of Health Concern’s party leader Graham Ballinger, who is now the only remaining Health Concern councillor for this ward. Griffiths stood down in October 2021, choosing to focus on her mental health and wellbeing. Health Concern didn’t defend their seat in the resulting by-election on 30 November 2021, which was a Conservative gain: shares of the vote were 41% for the Conservatives, 27% for Labour and 18% for the Lib Dems.
Now we have a second by-election here, after Health Concern councillor Anna l’Huillier resigned in April in protest at the council’s Local Plan for development. Again, Health Concern are not defending their seat, so in the resulting free-for-all we have a good chance here for the first Conservative by-election gain of this municipal year. The Tory candidate is Ben Brookes, a local Scout leader who runs a farm shop and garden centre. Labour have selected Kate Sewell, a geography and sociology teacher who, by coincidence, was a contestant on Countdown on the day of the last by-election here; she had the misfortune to be up against an extremely strong contestant on that day, but her luck may be better here. The only returning candidate from the November by-election is Oliver Walker of the Lib Dems, who completes the ballot paper.
Parliamentary constituency: Wyre Forest
Worcestershire county council division: St Barnabas (same boundaries)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Worcester and Kidderminster
Postcode districts: DY10, DY11, DY12, DY14
Ben Brookes ©
Kate Sewell (Lab)
Oliver Walker (LD)
November 2021 by-election C 564 Lab 372 LD 245 Ind 198
May 2021 county council result C 1114 Lab 586 Health Concern 493 Grn 158 LD 76
May 2019 result Health Concern 956/890/651 C 628/536 Lab 628/502 UKIP 338 Grn 318 LD 311
May 2018 result C 993 Lab 696 Health Concern 452 LD 110 UKIP 81 Grn 40
May 2017 county council result C 1405 Lab 898 UKIP 165 LD 89 Grn 55
May 2016 result Lab 867 C 695 Health Concern 436 UKIP 385 Grn 62
May 2015 result C 2006/1930/1347 Lab 1443/1113 UKIP 1039/809/742 Grn 437 TUSC 155/112
May 2013 county council result C 735 Lab 626 Health Concern 431 UKIP 416 TUSC 44 LD 39
June 2009 county council result C 1134 Health Concern 902 Lab 668 Lib 127 Grn 101
May 2005 county council result Lab 2013 C 1534 Health Concern 1531
Previous results in detail
Leamington Clarendon
Warwick council; caused by the death of Labour councillor Jonathan Nicholls.
In this Jubilee month, let’s go Royal. If you mention Royal Leamington Spa to someone, chances are that a picture will come up in their minds eye of some fine Regency architecture. The terraces of the Parade, the town’s main shopping street, are as Georgian as they come, while at the bottom of the Parade the Royal Pump Rooms (now a museum and library) were the reason why the great and good came to Leam from all over Britain and Europe.
The Pump Rooms opened in 1814 at a time when Leam was one of the fastest-growing towns in the country. Their architect also developed the Regent Hotel partway up the Parade, which in 1882 was the location where Warwickshire county cricket club was founded. If you want to stay in the Regent yourself, you can and doing so probably won’t break the bank: following a refurbishment in 2003–05 it’s now part of the Travelodge group, and (based on your columnist’s stay there a few years ago) has rather more generously-sized rooms than your average Travelodge. Next to the Regent is Leamington Spa Town Hall, opened in 1884 and with a large statue of Queen Victoria outside it. If you look closely at the statue you may notice that its plinth is off-centre: this is the result of a German bomb exploding nearby in 1940.
One exception to all this Georgian gorgeousness is Leamington Spa’s railway station, which was rebuilt in the late 1930s in the Art Deco style. Chiltern Railways, who now run the station as part of their London-Birmingham route, have paid tribute to this by decorating the station with vintage GWR railway posters.
All this is part of the Leamington Clarendon ward, which is demopgrahically and politically rather unusual for the Midlands. This is due to the influence of Warwick University, many of whose students and staff live in Leamington and commute on the buses which run very frequently from the Parade to the campus. The Clarendon ward which existed at the time of the 2011 census didn’t break into any of the national top 100 lists which this column checks, but it had the highest number of people employed in the information and communication sectors of any ward in the West Midlands (8.3%). Around 21% of the adult population were full-time students, and the ward had high levels of people with degrees and private renting.
Warwick district’s ward boundaries have changed twice since the 2011 census, which makes comparisons with previous years rather difficult. The current boundaries date from 2019, at which election all four of the current main parties polled significant votes here: the Labour slate won with 34%, the Lib Dems had 29%, the Conservatives 18% and the Greens 12%. One of the Labour councillors, Jerry Weber, resigned in 2021 after moving to the south coast the previous year: Labour held the resulting by-election in May 2021 more convincingly, polling 43% against 24% for the Conservatives and 17% for the Lib Dems.
That poll took place on the same day as the 2021 Warwickshire county elections, in which Labour came from third place to gain the Leamington Clarendon county division (which is slightly larger than this ward) from the Liberal Democrats. These good Labour results follow the party’s hold of the marginal Warwick and Leamington constituency at the 2019 general election with almost no swing — very much against the trend in the West Midlands. Rather a swing to the left for a seat which once returned a Conservative prime minister, Anthony Eden, to Parliament.
This second Leamington Clarendon by-election follows the death of Jonathan Nicholls, who was leader of the Labour group on Warwick council. Nicholls was notable enough for Who’s Who and Wikipedia thanks to his long career in higher education: he served as registrar of Warwick University from 1999, moving to Birmingham in 2004 before working for nine years (2007–16) as Registrary of the University of Cambridge, essentially the university’s senior administrative officer. I regret to report that Nicholls was killed in a road accident in March. He was 65 years old.
Defending Leamington Clarendon for Labour this time is local resident Christopher King. Frances Lasok returns for the Conservatives after her second-place finish in last year’s by-election; she is a former elections professional working in the democracy and technology sector. The Lib Dem candidate is Justine Ragany, who is a content director for a creative experience agency (whatever that means). Also standing are Ignaty Dyakov-Richmond for the Green Party (who returns from last year’s by-election) and Gerald Smith for UKIP.
Parliamentary constituency: Warwick and Leamington
Warwickshire county council division: Leamington Clarendon
ONS Travel to Work Area: Leamington Spa
Postcode districts: CV31, CV32
Ignaty Dyakov-Richmond (Grn)
Christopher King (Lab)
Frances Lasok ©
Justine Ragany (LD)
Gerald Smith (UKIP)
May 2021 by-election Lab 1370 C 761 LD 539 Grn 431 Ind 103 SDP 16
May 2019 result Lab 1021/977/896 LD 873/817/784 C 520/520/504 Grn 360/357/332 UKIP 188
Previous results in detail
Brede and Udimore
Rother council, East Sussex; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Jonathan Johnson.
We finish for the week with our rural by-election, which takes place at the eastern end of Sussex. Brede and Udimore ward covers two namesake parishes to the north of Hastings and the west of Rye. The ward follows the course of the River Brede, and water is important to the local economy: there was a waterworks at Brede village which supplied Hastings with drinking water. The steam engines which did that work have been restored, and are open to the public on the first Saturday of each month.
One famous former resident here was Spike Milligan, who died at his home in Udimore in 2002 and was buried in Winchelsea, just over the ward boundary. Milligan had wanted his grave to bear the epitaph “I told you I was ill” but the diocese of Chichester balked at this; eventually they allowed the Gaelic translation of that phrase, “Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite”, to be carved on Milligan’s headstone. Winchelsea may be outside the ward, but Winchelsea railay station is in Udimore parish and is the ward’s railhead: the station is on the little-used Marshlink line between Hastings and Ashford.
This ward was created in 1983, abolished in 2003 with its area becoming part of Brede Valley ward, and then re-created in 2019. Jonathan Johnson was first elected here in 1999, stood down in 2003 and had continuous service since 2007. In 2011 he had no trouble at all defeating Labour candidate Margaret Sandra, who was profiled by the Guardian in 2007 (link) for the unusual reason that she has no surname. Jonathan Johnson served in Rother’s cabinet from 2009 to 2018, and then served for the year 2018–19 as chairman of Rother council. He passed away in March.
In 2019 Johnson returned to the revived Brede and Udimore ward, winning by the rather close margin of 40% against 34% for an independent candidate and 10% for Labour. Not much for Labour to write home about, especially given that this area is part of the key marginal parliamentary seat of Hastings and Rye. There wasn’t much joy for the Conservatives elsewhere in Rother district, as they lost control of the council following a particularly poor performance in the district’s major town of Bexhill-on-Sea; a coalition called the Rother Alliance, with independent, Lib Dem and Labour members, is running the show. This ward is, however, safe Conservative at East Sussex county council level, where it is part of the Brede Valley and Marsham division.
Defending for the Conservatives is Neil Gordon, from Udimore. The independent candidate from last time and Labour have not returned, so Gordon is opposed only by Liberal Democrat candidate Martin Griffiths, who gives an address in Three Oaks to the south. This by-election is a straight fight between them.
Parliamentary constituency: Hastings and Rye
East Sussex county council division: Brede Valley and Marsham
ONS Travel to Work Area: Hastings
Postcode districts: TN31, TN36
Neil Gordon ©
Martin Griffiths (LD)
May 2019 result C 303 Ind 260 Lab 78 UKIP 59 LD 58
2019 result in detail
(Ward was part of Brede Valley ward 2003–19)
May 1999 result C 471 LD 290
May 1995 result LD 369 C 308 Lab 98
May 1991 result C 466 LD 374
May 1987 result C 546 All 267
May 1983 result C unopposed
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
