Previewing the five council by-elections of 8th September 2022
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
Five by-elections on 8th September 2022:
Foggy Furze
Hartlepool council, County Durham; caused by the resignation of independent councillor Stephen Picton.
So, the Boris Johnson era is over and we have a new Conservative leader who faces their first electoral test in today’s five council by-elections. There are four Conservative defences to come, but we’ll start this week by travelling to the location of perhaps the most iconic electoral victory of the Johnson premiership. Can Liz Truss start her premiership on such a positive note?
Since May last year Hartlepool has had a Conservative MP, the first since Commander John “Yangtse Incident” Kerans in 1959–64. That’s the result of a convincing by-election win by Gill Mortimer, a rare parliamentary by-election gain for the government from the opposition.
That wasn’t the only poll going on here in May 2021. In fact all of Hartlepool’s elected representatives were up for election that year: the town’s electors could also vote for the Tees Valley mayoralty (which saw the Conservatives’ Ben Houchen re-elected), the Cleveland police and crime commissionership (another Conservative gain from Labour) and the whole of Hartlepool council, which was placed up for re-election on brand-new ward boundaries.
Hartlepool is a place which the Local Government Boundary Commission have been a frequent visitor to this century, but all ward maps for the town since 2004 have included a ward called Foggy Furze. This intriguing name refers to “fog furrows”, where “fog” is a Norse word for the coarse grass that grew here before Ralph Ward Jackson founded the town of West Hartlepool. Foggy Furze ward lies south of the town centre, and in its current incarnation includes Stranton Cemetery. Here can be found the war grave of Private Theophilus Jones, Durham Light Infantry, who was killed in the 1914 bombardment of Hartlepool by German warships; Jones was the first soldier killed on English soil by enemy action since the eighteenth century.
Like a lot of Hartlepool this is a very working-class area, and in this century Foggy Furze ward has usually voted Labour in council elections. But not always. In its first election in 2004 Foggy Furze split its representation between one Labour councillor and two Lib Dems. One of the Lib Dems was re-elected in 2007, the other lost his seat to UKIP in 2008. Labour gained those seats in 2011 and 2012 respectively, and continued to hold all three seats until in 2019. In that year Hartlepool Labour split, their vote fell apart, and Foggy Furze was won by the Veterans and People’s Party — one of the smaller players in the right-wing populist genepool.
In boundary changes for 2021 Foggy Furze ward expanded west, mainly taking territory from the abolished Rift House ward. The 2021 election resulted in a clearout here, as the two councillors elected as Labour stood down and the VPP councillor was defeated. Top of the poll was a new face, independent candidate and community fundraiser Stephen Picton; the Conservatives’ Kevin Tiplady finished close behind in second place, and then there was a big gap to independent candidate Darren Price who won the final seat with a majority of 81 votes over the lead Labour candidate. Shares of the vote, for what they are worth given that the Conservatives only had one candidate, ware 30% each for the independents and Conservative, 20% for Labour and 14% for the Veterans and People’s Party. Darren Price had form in the previous Foggy Furze ward: he finished third in 2015 for the localist Putting Hartlepool First party, and was then a close second in 2016 (for UKIP) and 2018 (as an independent).
The 2021 Hartlepool council elections left the Conservatives as the largest party, with all 13 of their candidates elected. This was nowhere near enough for a council majority, resulting a very balanced council with 13 Conservatives, 12 independents and/or localists and 11 Labour councillors, seven of whom scraped in third place for the final seat in their ward meaning that they would be up for re-election in May 2022. The Conservatives had topped the poll in seven of Hartlepool’s 12 wards in 2021, and a repeat of that this year would have given them six gains and a council majority.
Instead Hartlepool was the dog that didn’t bark. Labour were the clear winners of the 2022 Hartlepool elections, winning 7 of the 12 wards and finishing with no nett change. The Conservatives did increase their seat count but fell well short of council control, while their independent coalition partners went backwards. Immediately after the election the Tories then found themselves a man down after Gordon Cranney, re-elected as Conservative councillor for Seaton ward, pleaded guilty during the campaign to assaulting a woman; Cranney is now an independent councillor with an entry in the Councillors Behaving Badly file. At the time of writing the Hartlepool council website lists 14 Conservatives and 12 Labour (or Labour and Co-operative) councillors. If Labour can repeat this May’s performance next year, they will gain four seats and become the largest party on the council.
Hartlepool Labour did lose one seat they were defending this year, in Fens and Greatham ward where their defending councillor Jennifer Elliott had been the subject of an Election Court case over false statements in her 2021 election leaflets. The Court ruled that the false statements related to the political rather than the personal character of independent candidate Bob Buchan, who accordingly lost the court case but had the last laugh; this time with the Conservative nomination, he defeated Elliott in the May 2022 election shortly afterwards. That loss was offset for Labour by a gain here in Foggy Furze ward, where Labour took the seat previously held by independent councillor Darren Price. Shares of the vote were 40% for Labour, 31% for Price and 25% for the Conservatives.
The ward’s other independent councillor has now stood down after fifteen months in office. Stephen Picton, who topped the poll here in 2021, has developed fibromyalgia and his health has now deteriorated to the point that he no longer feels he can continue as a councillor. This column wishes him well for the future.
One independent candidate has come forward to replace Stephen Picton. Connor Stallard contested the former Foggy Furze ward in 2019, finishing sixth out of seven candidates with 5% of the vote; he’ll be hoping for better this time. The Labour candidate is Carole Thompson, who stood in May in the Headland and Harbour ward covering Old Hartlepool; she is retired from an NHS career which included two decades as an occupational therapist at Hartlepool General Hospital. The Conservatives have selected Pamela Shurmer, who set up a campaign to install defibrillators in public places throughout Hartlepool after her son Danny died of a heart attack last year; as a result of that campaign the Pool reportedly has the country’s highest number of defibrillators per head of population. Completing the ballot paper is the Lib Dems’ Barry McKinstray, who returns from May’s election.
Parliamentary constituency: Hartlepool
ONS Travel to Work Area: Hartlepool
Postcode district: TS25
Barry McKinstray (LD)
Pamela Shurmer (C)
Connor Stallard (Ind)
Carole Thompson (Lab)
May 2022 result Lab 631 Ind 490 C 391 LD 82
May 2021 result Ind 1007/742 C 994 Lab 661/620/560 Veterans and People’s Party 479/380/265 Reform UK 127 For Britain Movement 69
Previous results in detail
Warton
Lancaster council; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Adrian de la Mare.
For travellers from south to north along the West Coast routes — the M6 motorway or the railway main line, on the rare occasions that Avanti West Coast or Transpennine Express can be bothered to run trains — the scenery starts to change once you get past Lancaster. The flat and rich countryside of the Fylde and Wyre suddenly gives way to significant hills, some of them craggy, as you pass into Cumbria. However, the first of these hills is still in Lancashire.
This is Warton Crag, a prominent and steep limestone hill which overlooks Carnforth and Morecambe Bay. Warton Crag packs a lot into its relatively low altitude of 413 feet. The hill was quarried for its limestone for centuries, and is now noted for its variety of natural habitats: limestone grassland is rare in Lancashire, the old quarry is now a breeding-place for peregrine falcons, and the extensive saltmarshes below it on the western side of the crag support all sorts of other birdlife. This includes the reed beds of Leighton Moss, which are maintained as a nature reserve by the RSPB.
Below the crag to the south-east is the ancient village of Warton, whose church — dedicated to St Oswald — goes back to time immemorial. Warton was originally the main settlement in this corner of Lancashire, the nearby town of Carnforth being just a hamlet in the old Warton parish until it was chosen as the site for a railway junction in the nineteenth century. The ancestors of George Washington, the first US president, lived in Warton in the fourteenth century, and local legend has it that Robert Washington — George’s great-great-grandfather — helped to build the church’s clocktower. A US flag is hung inside the church, and flies from the tower every 4th July.
The Warton ward contains most of the current Warton parish (except the hamlet of Millhead, which is in a ward with Carnforth) together with the parish of Yealand Conyers to the north. It has a fairly large retired population, with this beautiful countryside located not far at all from Carnforth and Lancaster beyond. The current ward boundaries date from 2015 and both elections to date have returned Conservatives: in 2019 Adrian Duggan, as he then was, was returned with 47% of vote against 33% for the Green Party and 20% for Labour. The Conservatives had a bigger lead in May 2021 across the Lancaster Rural North division of Lancashire county council, and also hold the local parliamentary seat of Morecambe and Lunesdale which has voted for the government at every election since its creation in 1983.
Lancaster council’s politics are very difficult to follow, as this column has bemoaned on a regular basis over the last year. The 2019 elections returned 21 Labour councillors, 14 Morecambe Bay Independents, 12 Conservatives, 10 Greens and 3 Lib Dems. Since then the Morecambe Bay Independents have split and the Greens have joined forces with a number of defectors (particularly from Labour) in the newly rechristened “Green and Independent Group”. At the time of writing the council website lists 16 Labour councillors, 14 members of the Green and Independent group, 9 Conservatives, 6 Morecambe Bay Independents, and 4 councillors each in the Bay Independent Group, the Independent Group and the Lib Dems, with two vacant seats. The leader of the council is Caroline Jackson of the Green and Independent Group, and her cabinet also includes Labour, MBI and Bay Independent councillors. A gain for the Greens, who finished in a strong second place here in 2019, would be a boost for the council’s ruling group. A good showing for Labour will give a boost to their parliamentary ambitions in a key marginal seat.
There have been a lot of by-elections here. Warton is the tenth by-election of the current term of Lancaster council, with two more in the pipeline — and there’s still a couple of months left to trigger more polls before the next Lancaster council is elected in May 2023. The Conservatives have had to defend three previous by-elections in Lancaster over the last twelve months and lost the lot; a hold here might settle some nerves as the new Prime Minister finds her feet.
Also in 2023 we will get the final version of the next parliamentary boundaries, in which the Morecambe and Lunesdale seat will see major changes. This is because the electorate of Cumbria is in an annoying range: too small to sustain that county’s current six MPs, but too big for five. Because of the geography of the North West region, the inevitable result of this will be a seat crossing the Lancashire-Cumbria boundary in the Warton area: the draft proposals from the Boundary Commission expand the Morecambe and Lunesdale seat into the Cumbrian countryside south of Kendal, with a name change to “Morecambe and South Lakeland”. This has the effect of splitting up the Westmorland and Lonsdale seat which has been held since 2005 by the former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron; about half of his current seat, including his electoral powerhouse of Kendal, ends up in a new Westmorland and Eden constituency which stretches north over Shap Fell to Penrith. It seems most likely that Farron would attempt to seek re-election there, but should he instead decide to try his luck in Morecambe then the Lib Dems — who didn’t stand in Warton ward in 2019 — had better take this by-election seriously.
So, while Warton might appear at first sight to be a safe Conservative ward — and it is — there’s still a lot that can be read/spun into the result when it comes out. Assuming that the spin is favourable for your side, of course.
Defending for the Conservatives is Iain Harbison, who last appeared in this column in December as the defending Conservative candidate in the Upper Lune Valley by-election (Andrew’s Previews 2021, page 550); he had a very poor result there, convincingly losing a marginal seat to the Lib Dems. Harbison is a registered nurse and is a parish councillor in Yealand Redmayne, just to the north of this ward. The Green candidate is Sue Tyldesley, a former senior officer for Sefton council who now sits on Yealand Conyers parish council; Tyldesley previously stood here in 2015. Standing for Labour is Faith Kenrick, who also contested the Upper Lune Valley by-election last year. Completing the ballot paper is Jane Parsons for the Lib Dems.
Parliamentary constituency: Morecambe and Lunesdale
Lancashire county council division: Lancaster Rural North
ONS Travel to Work Area: Lancaster and Morecambe
Postcode districts: LA5, LA6
Iain Harbison (C)
Faith Kenrick (Lab)
Jane Parsons (LD)
Sue Tyldesley (Grn)
May 2019 result C 307 Grn 214 Lab 129
May 2015 result C 529 Lab 266 Ind 248 Grn 178
Previous results in detail
Hednesford North
Cannock Chase council, Staffordshire; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Matt McCall.
For our Midlands by-election today we have come to Hednesford. Pronounced Hedgford if you’re a local, Hensford otherwise, this town is located just north of Cannock on the southern slopes of Cannock Chase. The Chase is relatively small — it’s the smallest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in mainland Britain — but packs a lot of beauty into its forests and heathland.
There’s a fair amount of recent history on the Chase, much of which is connected with central and eastern Europe. Just outside the boundary of this ward is the Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery, containing the graves of around 5,000 German, Austrian and associated soldiers from the two world wars; it’s maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on behalf of their German counterpart. Nearby is a memorial to the victims of the Katyn massacre. Within this ward’s boundary was the site of RAF Hednesford, a wartime training camp which was subsequently used to house refugees from the 1956 Hungarian uprising.
Despite all these European connections, the 2011 census return for Hednesford North reveals one of the areas of England least affected by immigration, with 97.8% of the population born in the UK and just 0.5% in the 21st-century EU accession states. This is in common with many former mining centres, and Hednesford is one of those: coal-mining was traditionally the main economic game in town here. Hednesford was reconnected to the rail network in 1989 with the reopening of Hednesford railway station, which had been closed by Beeching; the Chase Line through Hednesford has recently been electrified, and there are regular trains from here to Walsall and Birmingham beyond. It would be fair to say that this hasn’t yet resulted in a commuter demographic in Hednesford.
The local politics, however, tell an interesting story which has some similarities to what we saw in Redditch last week. As in Redditch, the Cannock Chase constituency has voted for the government at all seven general elections since its formation in 1997 — this notwithstanding the fact that its first Conservative MP, Aidan Burley, decided to be a culture warrior before that was fashionable, turned out to be a controversy magnet and only served one term. Every general election this century in Cannock Chase has resulted in a swing to the Conservatives, and the seat’s current MP Amanda Milling — who served in Cabinet from February 2020 to September 2021 as minister without portfolio and Conservative party chairman — is now sitting on a majority from December 2019 of almost 20,000 votes.
Cannock Chase council has proven a tougher nut for the Conservatives to crack, and Labour had a majority on the council until 2019. They’re a long way away from that now after a disastrous election in 2021, when Labour were defending nine district council seats and one Staffordshire county council seat in Cannock Chase and lost the lot. The Conservatives swept every seat up for election in Cannock Chase that year except for Hednesford South ward, which I shall come to presently, and gained overall control of Cannock Chase council. Labour did better across the district in May this year, but still slipped further backwards as the Conservatives gained Hednesford Green Heath ward. The latest council composition gives 24 Conservatives plus this vacancy, 8 Labour, 4 Chase Community Independents, 2 Greens and 2 Lib Dems. This may prove to be a high-water mark for the local Conservatives — their defences get harder from here — but it’s still an impressive performance.
We can see this electoral history in the previous results for Hednesford North ward, which is normally Labour-inclined and has voted Conservative only twice since the current ward boundaries were introduced in 2002: the first occasion in 2008, the second in 2021. Both of the ward’s Conservative councillors have ended up in Andrew’s Previews. We’ll come to the 2021 winner Matt McCall later; Graham Burnett, who won here in 2008 and lost his seat in 2012, was subsequently elected in 2017 as one of the two Staffordshire county councillors for the local seat of Hednesford and Rawnsley. Burnett died shortly afterwards, and the resulting county council by-election five years ago yesterday (Andrew’s Previews 2017, page 227) resulted in a Conservative hold by just 30 votes over Labour and 168 votes over the Green Party.
This was not a flash in the pan for the Greens, who had broken through onto Cannock Chase council in 2016 by gaining Hednesford South ward from Labour. The Greens subsequently gained Rawnsley ward in 2018, and then won three seats in 2019 (above): Rawnsley and Hednesford South again, and Hednesford North (Grn 42% Lab 31% C 27%). The Green group on the council then split, and most of their local councillors and activists have ended up fighting under the Chase Community Independent banner. Paul Woodhead, the Green councillor elected in Hednesford South in 2016, was re-elected under his new colours in 2021 to become the only non-Conservative elected in Cannock Chase that year.
This meant a Conservative gain in Hednesford North, Matt McCall winning in 2021 (above) with 39% of the vote against 33% for Labour and 27% for the Chase Community Independents. The Conservatives could not repeat the trick in May 2022, with Labour holding their final seat in the ward in an even closer three-way result: 36% for Labour, 33% for the Conservatives, 31% for the Chase Community Independents.
So we have a volatile ward which has voted for three different parties over the last electoral cycle. Anything could happen here.
You need four people to contest another exciting episode on The Chase, and that’s what we have here. This by-election follows the resignation of Matt McCall after 15 months in office, so the defending party is the Conservatives who have selected Laura Harrison; she runs a tree surgery business and is a Hednesford town councillor who contested Rawnsley ward in May’s district elections. Labour, who won here in May, have selected Pam Johnson who fought the safe-Conservative ward of Hawks Green four months ago. The Chase Community Independents, who will be defending this ward next year, have reselected Darrell Mawle who finished in a strong third place here in 2021 and in May; he is the present Mayor of Hednesford, and previously served on Cannock Chase council as a Liberal Democrat from 2006 to 2010. For the first time sine 2016 Hednesford North has a four-way contest with the nomination of independent candidate Christopher Harborow, who finished in third place in Cannock North ward in May.
For these four candidates there’s just one thing standing in their way — the ballot box. The Chase is on!
Parliamentary constituency: Cannock Chase
Staffordshire county council division: Hednesford and Rawnsley
ONS Travel to Work Area: Wolverhampton and Walsall
Postcode district: WS12
Christopher Harborow (Ind)
Laura Harrison (C)
Pam Johnson (Lab)
Darrell Mawle (Chase Community Ind)
May 2022 result Lab 473 C 426 Chase Community Ind 400
May 2021 result C 634 Lab 537 Chase Community Ind 441
May 2019 result Grn 517 Lab 389 C 335
May 2018 result Lab 635 C 472 Grn 274
May 2016 result Lab 697 UKIP 382 C 317 Grn 59
May 2015 result Lab 1307 C 1000 UKIP 806 Grn 137
May 2014 result Lab 653 UKIP 562 C 397
May 2012 result Lab 924 C 392 Chase Ind 171
May 2011 result Lab 994 C 526 LD 178
May 2010 result Lab 1247 C 1035 LD 541 BNP 393
May 2008 result C 549 Lab 508 LD 156 UKIP 138
May 2007 result Lab 624 C 493 LD 238
May 2006 result Lab 595 C 501 LD 275
November 2004 by-election Lab 419 C 248 LD 235
June 2004 double vacancy Lab 578/511 C 427/283 LD 401/389 Ind 229/180
May 2003 result Lab 602 C 454 LD 256
May 2002 result Lab 779/770/769 C 397/276/254 LD 274/235/228 Rock and Roll Loony Party 76
Previous results in detail
Felpham
West Sussex county council; and
Barnham
Arun council, West Sussex; both caused by the death of Conservative councillor John Charles.
Away to sweet Felpham for heaven is there:
The Ladder of Angels descends through the air
On the turrett its spiral does softly descend
Through the village it winds, at my cot it does end.
Not my words: this verse comes from the pen of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century poet William Blake, who lived from 1800 to 1803 in the Sussex village of Felpham. His cottage in the village still stands although it was placed on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register last year. It was here that Blake started work on his two-volume poem Milton, whose preface contains the poem we now as the hymn Jerusalem.
This corner of Sussex definitely fell into the category of “green and pleasant land” a couple of centuries ago, but Felpham’s coastal location has led to a lot of housing being built here over the last two centuries. The village is now effectively an eastern suburb of the town of Bognor Regis, and it might not be that inaccurate to describe its demographic as rather like that which took part in the Conservative leadership contest over the last two weeks. Felpham’s census return shows an old, white and British population with high levels of owner-occupation.
The developers haven’t yet come in such a big way for Barnham, but there has been significant population growth here this century nonetheless. A boundary review for the 2015 election dealt with this by lopping off the northern end of the previous Barnham ward, which means that the ward no longer contains the Fontwell Park racecourse. We are left with a rural ward based on the villages of Aldingbourne, Westergate, Eastergate and Barnham itself. Barnham is a railway junction, where trains taking the branch line to Bognor Regis leave Southern’s West Coastway line.
As with the Redditch case last week, we have a county and district councillor who represented areas which border each other but do not overlap. These polls arise following the death in July of councillor John Charles, who sat on both West Sussex county council and Arun district council, which covers the towns and villages on the coastal strip west of Worthing. Charles had spent his working life with the Metropolitan Police, retiring after 30 years with the rank of detective inspector. A lifelong Conservative, he served on Horsham council from 1995 to 2003, had represented the Barnham ward of Arun council since 2011, and was in his first term on the county council after being elected for Felpham in 2021.
Felpham is a safe Conservative part of a strongly Conservative county, although the division did vote UKIP in 2013. In 2021 John Charles won Felpham with 52% of the vote, against 20% for independent candidate Richard Parker and 10% for the Lib Dems. The division’s two Arun council wards have a full slate of four Conservative councillors.
Barnham ward is a bit more complicated. Arun council was one of the few districts to stay Conservative throughout the party’s 1990s collapse, but the Tories lost their majority on the council in 2019. Despite polling fewer votes than the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats came out on top with 22 seats against 21 Conservatives, 8 independents, 2 Greens and a Labour councillor. A Lib Dem-led administration took over the council, but the Conservatives became the largest party again in May 2021 with two by-election gains from the Lib Dems, and the Tories have since taken back control with a minority administration of their own.
Interestingly, one of the two Green gains in 2019 came in Barnham ward, which split its representation: the Conservatives topped the poll with 33% and held two seats, the single Green candidate polled 29% and won one seat, and the partial Lib Dem slate polled 23%. This column has covered a number of other cases and recent by-elections where the Green Party can poll particularly well in rural Sussex and neighbouring counties. Remember what I said about there having been significant population growth in Barnham this century? This can mean demographic change, too.
The ballot papers for both by-elections today give a strong impression of “progressive alliance” or “backroom deals”, whatever you want to call it, with the Lib Dems not contesting either poll despite being the largest opposition party on both Arun council and West Sussex county council. I’ll start with the county by-election where the defending Conservative candidate is David Darling; he was an unsuccessful candidate for Arun council in 2019, fighting Orchard ward in Bognor. Independent candidate Richard Parker is trying again after his second-place finish last year; another independent standing is Jaine Wild. As stated, there is no Lib Dem candidate, so Labour’s David Meagher — who was the Lib Dem candidate here back in 2013 — completes the county ballot paper.
For the district by-election the defending Conservative candidate is Graham Jones, who has retired from a career in the Army and the engineering industry where he worked on flight simulators. In a newspaper interview with all the Barnham candidates (link) Jones describes himself as a former district and county councillor; I haven’t been able to trace his previous district council career, but he was a UKIP member of West Sussex county council for Felpham from 2013 to 2017. In the 2019 Arun elections Jones was an independent candidate for Middleton-on-Sea ward, where he lives. The Greens have selected Barnham and Eastergate parish councillor Sue Wallsgrove, whose previous career in local government was spent working on West Sussex county council’s social services finance team. Again there is no Lib Dem candidate, so the ballot paper is completed by Alan Butcher for Labour.
Felpham
Parliamentary constituency: Bognor Regis and Littlehampton
Arun council wards: Felpham East, Felpham West
ONS Travel to Work Area: Chichester and Bognor Regis
Postcode districts: PO21, PO22
David Darling (C)
David Meagher (Lab)
Richard Parker (Ind)
Jaine Wild (Ind)
May 2021 result C 1642 Ind 629 LD 323 Grn 283 Lab 256
May 2017 result C 1846 Ind 423 Lab 421 LD 231 Grn 104
May 2013 result UKIP 989 C 926 Ind 660 Lab 154 LD 90
June 2009 result C 1676 UKIP 734 LD 474 Lab 191
Previous results in detail: 2017-, 2009–13
Barnham
Parliamentary constituency: Arundel and South Downs
West Sussex county council division: Fontwell
ONS Travel to Work Area: Chichester and Bognor Regis
Postcode districts: PO20, PO22
Alan Butcher (Lab)
Graham Jones (C)
Sue Wallsgrove (Grn)
May 2019 result C 932/753/659 Grn 822 LD 654/498 Lab 400
May 2015 result C 1994/1644/1491 UKIP 1187/1041 Ind 1115 Grn 1033 Lab 710
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
