Previewing the six council by-elections of 14th September 2023
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
There are six by-elections on 14th September 2023, with the Conservatives and Labour defending three each. We have three pairs: two in the Thames Estuary area, two in English cities beginning with L, and two in Lancashire. Which is where we start:
Chorley Rural West
Lancashire county council; and
Croston, Mawdesley and Euxton South
Chorley council, Lancashire; both caused by the death of Conservative councillor Keith Iddon.
Our first two by-elections, and first two Conservative defences, of the week are brought to you from central Lancashire. Let me take you to the village of Croston, which lies in the middle of relatively flat and low-lying agricultural land between the town of Chorley and the River Douglas. Croston is located on the River Yarrow, and this gives the village a flooding problem. The name comes from a cross erected here by St Aidan in the 7th century, and Croston’s church was once the centre of a very large parish which included Chorley.
Further up the Yarrow we have the small town of Eccleston, home of the great British Olympian Sir Bradley Wiggins, whose name indicates it has an even longer history than Croston: the name of Eccleston refers to a settlement by a Celtic church. Religion is still important here. Chorley’s Eccleston, Heskin and Charnock Richard ward is within the top 40 wards in England and Wales for Christianity (69.9%), which is a feature of the census return for north-west England; lapsed Christians (particularly lapsed Catholics) in Lancashire are much more likely to put their old religion on the census form than they are elsewhere in the country. The Catholic link here is particularly significant because Eccleston’s famous sons include John Rigby, who was executed for Catholicism in 1600 and is recognised as a martyr by the Catholic Church. In addition to this the de Trafford family, a prominent Catholic family in the north-west, were until relatively recent times lords of the manor of Croston.
The distinguishing feature of Croston, Mawdesley and Euxton South ward’s census return is that 15.8% of the workforce are classed as “economically inactive: other”, which is the highest figure for any ward in north-west England and in the top 15 wards in England and Wales. This is due to the presence here of two large prisons, the medium-security HMP Garth and the low-security HMP Wymott, which between them have the capacity to hold almost 2,000 prisoners. Both prisons house a large number of sex offenders, and the list of people who were incarcerated in Wymott in recent years includes Stuart Hall and Ched Evans. The ward also includes the villages of Mawdesley and Bretherton, together with Croston railway station which lies on the little-used line from Preston to Ormskirk.
Moving further towards Chorley we come to the small village of Charnock Richard, which is known for its service area on the M6 motorway and the adjacent site of the Camelot theme park, which has lain derelict since the park closed in 2012. To the north of this we also need to consider a small corner of Euxton (pronounced “Exton”) around Balshaw Lane railway station; this is very much part of the urban sprawl of the Central Lancashire New Town, but makes up a relatively small and rather out-on-a-limb part of the Croston, Mawdesley and Euxton South ward.
The local authority here is Chorley council, which has been a real success story for the Labour party in recent years. In fact, Chorley now has one of the largest Labour majorities of any English shire council: the latest composition gives 37 Labour councillors against just 4 Conservatives, plus this vacancy. The 2022 and 2023 Chorley council elections both saw Labour win 13 wards out of a possible 14; the one that got away on both occasions was Croston, Mawdesley and Euxton South, where the Conservatives led 52–36 in May 2023.
The Conservatives did rather better at the last Lancashire county council elections in 2021, winning three of Chorley’s eight county divisions and retaining control of the county council — which is now one of only three councils in north-west England with a Conservative majority. But Chorley Rural West is definitely a marginal division: the 2021 result here saw the Conservative lead over Labour cut to 48–41. This county division covers the whole of the Eccleston, Heskin and Charnock Richard ward plus the Croston and Mawdesley bits of the other ward up for election today.
The MP for Chorley is the Speaker of the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle. However, much of this area is outside his seat, and the forthcoming boundary changes will unite the whole area within the South Ribble constituency which is based on Leyland and Penwortham to the north. This was safe Conservative in 2019 but has had rather a large turnover of MPs in recent years; backbencher Katherine Fletcher is in her first term of office.
These county and district council by-elections follow the death of Keith Iddon at the start of July. Iddon had served on Chorley council since 2006 and on the county council since 2009; he was a major player within the ruling Conservative group in County Hall, serving as deputy leader of Lancashire county council from 2017 to 2021. Iddon had become chairman of the county council shortly before his unexpected death at the end of June. Outside politics he had spent his career in the haulage industry and he still held an HGV licence up to his death; the family haulage firm which he co-founded is now run by his twin sons.
Defending the county by-election for the Conservatives is Val Caunce, whom this column last met in 2019 when she won a by-election to Chorley council for the former Eccleston and Mawdesley ward (Andrew’s Previews 2019, page 194); she lost her Chorley council seat in 2021 when she sought re-election in Coppull. Caunce had won the Miss New Brighton beauty contest back in the 1960s, and she subsequently ran a modelling agency. The Labour county council candidate is Alan Whittaker, who finished second to Iddon in both the 2017 and 2021 elections; he is a Chorley councillor for Eccleston, Heskin and Charnock Richard ward. Rowan Power completes the Chorley Rural West ballot paper for the Liberal Democrats.
In the Chorley ward of Croston, Mawdesley and Euxton South the defending Conservative candidate is Debra Platt, who is hoping to make a quick return to the council after losing her seat in Euxton ward in May. Her husband Alan is already a councillor for this ward. The Labour candidate is Ian Cardwell, who comes to politics from a 35-year career in the police which saw him reach the rank of chief inspector. Again, the Lib Dems’ Rowan Power rounds out the candidate list.
Chorley Rural West
Parliamentary constituency: South Ribble (part: Bretherton, Croston, Eccleston, Mawdesley and Ulnes Walton parishes), Chorley (part: Charnock Richard and Heskin parishes and part of Euxton parish)
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): South Ribble
Chorley wards: Eccleston, Heskin and Charnock Richard; Croston, Mawdesley and Euxton South (part: Bretherton, Croston, Mawdesley and Ulnes Walton parishes)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Preston
Postcode districts: L40, PR4, PR7, PR26, WN6
Val Caunce (C)
Rowan Power (LD)
Alan Whittaker (Lab)
May 2021 result C 2288 Lab 1938 LD 250 Grn 246
May 2017 result C 2364 Lab 1679 LD 347 UKIP 195
Previous results in detail
Croston, Mawdesley and Euxton South
Parliamentary constituency: South Ribble (part: Bretherton, Croston, Mawdesley and Ulnes Walton parishes), Chorley (part: part of Euxton parish)
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): South Ribble
Lancashire county council division: Chorley Rural West (part: Bretherton, Croston, Mawdesley and Ulnes Walton parishes); Euxton, Buckshaw and Astley (part: part of Euxton parish)
Postcode districts: L40, PR4, PR7, PR26
ONS Travel to Work Area: Preston
Ian Cardwell (Lab)
Debra Platt (C)
Rowan Power (LD)
May 2023 result C 1193 Lab 828 LD 161 Grn 134
May 2022 result C 1200 Lab 660 LD 638 Grn 93
May 2021 result C 1555/1346/1307 Lab 786/715/669 LD 416 Grn 339
Previous results in detail
Fazakarley East
Liverpool council, Merseyside; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Frazer Lake.
We now come to the first of two Labour defences this week in cities whose names begin with L. Let’s start that list with Liverpool, whose council had some major changes in its governance this year. The city’s elected mayoralty disappeared, after a serious of scandals involving Big Joe Anderson and a falling-out within the ruling Labour group under his successor Joanne Anderson (no relation); and central government diktat brought Liverpool off the thirds electoral cycle and changed it to whole-council elections on a completely new ward map.
This ward map gave the Local Government Boundary Commission quite a few problems, mainly due to projections that the population of the city centre and surrounding waterfront area is about to go through the roof. The LGBCE left room for this predicted growth by drawing up a number of seriously undersized wards in that area, which combined with the typical awful turnout in the city’s local elections to produce an unwanted record. Dave Hanratty, a long-standing Liverpool Labour figure whom this column has mentioned before, won the Waterfront North ward — covering the dockland north of the city centre, and consisting mostly of dilapidated dockland industrial units, the building site which is Everton’s new stadium and apartment blocks which are merely a twinkle in their architect’s eye — with a grand total of 91 votes. If we take out the City of London and the Isles of Scilly, that is the lowest winning score in a contested English local election this century, beating the previous record of 98 votes held by Nathan Burns in a 2016 by-election to Lancaster council’s University and Scotforth Rural ward (Andrew’s Previews 2016, page 328).
Vote totals were rather more normal in Fazakerley East, which is Liverpool’s northernmost ward and is a place where homes actually exist and are lived in. If you ever watch the Grand National at Aintree on TV, you’ll notice some woodland on the outside of the Foinavon fence; beyond that woodland is the Ormskirk branch of the Merseyrail Northern Line, and beyond that is Fazakerley East ward. The housing here lies off Longmoor Lane; the southern part of the ward mostly consists of industrial premises off the A580 East Lancashire Road. Back in the day much of this area was home to a large Royal Ordnance Factory, which made rifles and machineguns for the Second World War effort.
Fazakerley East is one of three children of the 2004–23 Fazakerley ward, which this column visited for a by-election in June last year (Andrew’s Previews 2023, page 291). Fazakerley’s former elected representatives include Steve Rotheram, who rose to become the Labour MP for the local constituency of Liverpool Walton and then elected mayor of the Liverpool City Region, a position he still holds. He passed the Walton seat on in 2017 to the new Labour candidate Dan Carden, who was re-elected in December 2019 with 84.7% of the vote — the highest percentage score for any candidate in that general election — and a majority of over 30,000.
By contrast the shine has come off Labour a bit in recent Liverpool council elections, but they still won 61 seats out of a possible 85 in May 2023. The opposition is split between 15 Lib Dems, who are concentrated in the middle-class wards in the south of the city; and 3 seats each for the Green Party, the old-style Liberals (who in Liverpool are the personality cult of long-serving councillor Steve Radford) and the Liverpool Community Independent Party. The last-named is a Labour splinter group, formed in 2022 by a number of councillors who had fallen out with the then mayor Joanne Anderson. In May Fazakerley East ward saw a straight fight between two outgoing city councillors, with deputy mayor, cabinet member for health and social care and outgoing Fazakerley ward councillor Frazer Lake for Labour opposed by outgoing Everton ward councillor Alfie Hincks for the Liverpool Community Independents. Lake won by a 68–32 margin.
Having secured re-election for a second term of office (he was first elected in 2019), Frazer Lake then resigned from Liverpool council three months later. He has indicated that he has taken a new job with a trade union which is not compatible with being a councillor. His new job likely also pays better than being a councillor.
Defending the resulting by-election for Labour is Debbie Cooke, who runs a charity called Local Solutions. The Liverpool Community Independents have nominated Jean Martin, who has been associated for many years with the local community centre, the Fazakerley Community Federation. There is rather more choice for the local electors this time, with three more candidates nominated: they are Katie Burgess for the Conservatives, Kayleigh Halpin for the Lib Dems, and independent candidate and boxing coach Barry Maguire.
Parliamentary constituency: Liverpool Walton
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Liverpool Walton
ONS Travel to Work Area: Liverpool
Postcode districts: L9, L10, L11
Katie Burgess (C)
Debbie Cooke (Lab)
Kayleigh Halpin (LD)
Barry Maguire (Ind)
Jean Martin (Liverpool Community Ind)
May 2023 result Lab 581 Liverpool Community Ind 277
Previous results in detail
Carholme
Lincolnshire county council; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Rob Parker.
We now cross to the east side of the country for the second half of this week’s Previews, starting in the city of Lincoln. The Carholme county council division is based on the western half of the city centre: here we find the castle, the city hall and the Lincolnshire county council headquarters, with Brayford Pool and the aptly-named Steep Hill lying on the division boundary. The division also takes in the western part of the city north of the water.
The Steep Hill lies on an old Roman thoroughfare, which continues northwards along Bailgate to the Newport Arch from which Ermine Street begins its arrow-straight journey north. This arch is the original north gate of Lindum Colonia; the Arch dates from the 3rd century and is thought to be the oldest arch in England which road traffic still passes underneath. Assuming those vehicles fit, of course. Also passing underneath this arch is the division boundary.
Lincoln is the strongest part of its county for Labour, and it helps that Carholme division is a major student quarter. The Carholme ward of Lincoln city council, which is rather smaller than this division, was 43% student at the time of the 2021 census; this despite the fact that ward boundary changes in the 2010s had moved most of the main actual university buildings outside the area. The county division also takes in the southern half of Castle ward, whose census return is rather more normal.
The current boundaries of Carholme division date from 2017, and both Lincolnshire county elections since then have returned the Labour candidate Rob Parker very easily. In 2021 he enjoyed a 58–24 lead over the Conservatives. Lincoln is now the only district in the East Midlands region which retains elections by thirds for its council, and the May 2023 city elections in Carholme and Castle wards also saw large Labour leads.
Outgoing councillor Rob Parker, who is retiring after 34 years’ service, is apparently notable enough for Wikipedia. He has represented this county division continuously since 1989, and had led the Labour group on Lincolnshire county council since 1991 (with a break in leadership from 2013 to 2017). That included a spell as leader of the council from 1993 to 1997, after the Conservatives lost their majority.
The Lincoln parliamentary seat, which is slightly larger than the city council area, is a long-standing marginal seat which the Boundary Commissioners have left alone for the next general election. Its current MP is Conservative backbencher Karl McCartney who was elected here in 2010, lost his seat to Labour in 2017 and got it back in 2019. The Labour MP in 2017–19 was Karen Lee, who resigned her Lincoln city council seat upon her election to Parliament resulting in a by-election in Carholme ward (Andrew’s Previews 2017, page 301). Lee was elected to the county council in 2021, gaining the neighbouring Ermine and Cathedral division from the Conservatives by two votes, and she has taken over the Labour group leadership following Rob Parker’s retirement.
Hoping to take over Rob Parker’s county council seat is the defending Labour candidate in this by-election: Neil Murray has represented the Carholme ward on Lincoln city council since 2007, was easily re-elected there in May, and he now has the chance to double up at county level. The Conservatives have selected Thomas Hulme, who was runner-up to Murray in May’s city elections; he is 24 and works in the education sector. Also standing are James Brown for the Lib Dems, Nick Parker — outgoing councillor Rob Parker’s son — for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, and Jane Smith for Reform UK. The local press have interviewed all the candidates, and you can find out more here (link).
Parliamentary constituency: Lincoln
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Lincoln
Lincoln council wards: Carholme (all), Castle (part)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Lincoln
Postcode districts: LN1, LN2, LN5
James Brown (LD)
Thomas Hulme (C)
Neil Murray (Lab)
Nick Parker (TUSC)
Jane Smith (Reform UK)
May 2021 result Lab 1554 C 658 Grn 288 LD 106 TUSC 45 Lib 36
May 2017 result Lab 1593 C 581 Grn 158 LD 153 UKIP 97
Previous results in detail
Mayesbrook
Barking and Dagenham council, London; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Nashitha Choudhury.
We’ve had Liverpool and Lincoln, now it’s time to continue the alliterative theme by travelling to London. Specifically, we’ve come to Barking and Dagenham — or, more accurately, to the increasingly ill-defined space between them. The dividing line between Barking IG11 and Dagenham RM8 postcodes follows a stream, the Mayes Brook, which forms the western boundary of this ward; that places Mayesbrook ward postally in Dagenham, but the ward is located within the Barking parliamentary seat and was part of the old Essex borough of Barking.
This area was open space a century ago; but the 1920s and 1930s saw the development of the massive Becontree estate by the London County Council. Mayesbrook is one of the wards covering the estate, and Mayesbrook Park — also known locally as “Matchstick Island”, for reasons which remain obscure — was opened in 1934 to give Becontree residents some green open space. It forms the western third of this ward. The park is the home of Barking FC, a non-league football team who currently play in the Essex Senior League, five levels below the EFL. To the north of the park is some much newer housing built on the site of the former Barking campus of the University of East London; that campus closed in 2006.
At the ward’s south-eastern corner is Becontree underground station, which has the distinction of having the longest platforms of any London Underground station, at 231 metres — almost twice as long as the District Line trains which stop there. This is because it was originally opened in 1926 (with the name Gale Street Halt) as a stop for mainline trains between London and Southend; those trains now have their own dedicated tracks, and the western halves of the Underground platforms are now fenced off and overgrown.
Today Mayesbrook is a majority non-white ward with a young and multi-ethnic population. In the 2021 census it made the top 50 wards in England and Wales for people employed in the construction sector (15.6%), the top 80 for children aged 15 and under (27.2%) and the top 90 for people born in Bulgaria or Romania (6.8%).
The local authority here is Barking and Dagenham council, where the Labour party are on a fifteen-year winning streak: the last time anyone other than Labour won an election in the borough was a July 2008 by-election in Chadwell Heath ward which the Conservatives won, and the borough elections in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 all returned 51 Labour councillors out of a possible 51. Mayesbrook ward has voted Labour in every election this century with the exception of 2006, when the British National Party won two of the three seats. In 2022, the only contest to date on the current boundaries, the Labour slate won all three seats with a 70–30 lead over the Conservatives in a straight fight; the Tories had only stood two candidates, so there was one Labour seat guaranteed even before voting started.
Labour councillor Nashitha Choudhury, who is a primary school teacher in real life, resigned from the council in June shortly after completing her first year in office. Defending her seat in the by-election is Summya Sohaib. The Conservatives have selected Sharfaraz Raj, who stood in Goresbrook ward to the south-east last year. There won’t be a straight fight this time, because we also have candidates from the Lib Dems (Olumidy Adeyefa) and the Greens (Simon Anthony).
Parliamentary constituency: Barking
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Barking
London Assembly constituency: City and East
ONS Travel to Work Area: London
Postcode districts: IG11, RM8, RM9
Olumidy Adeyefa (LD)
Simon Anthony (Grn)
Sharfaraz Raj (C)
Summya Sohaib (Lab)
May 2022 result Lab 1301/1259/1242 C 565/559
Previous results in detail
Minster Cliffs
Swale council, Kent; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Ken Ingleton.
Let’s go offshore for our final by-election of the day — specifically, to the Isle of Sheppey on the south bank of the Thames estuary. We’ve come to the town of Minster-on-Sea, which gets its suffix from the fact that there are two villages in Kent called Minster: this is the Sheppey Minster, not the one on the Isle of Thanet associated with St Augustine of Canterbury. Mind, the name of Sheppey Minster is also a religious reference: there was a Benedictine nunnery here on and off from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries, and the abbey church is still in use today as the parish church.
Minster’s housing runs north from the abbey until it reaches the coast, which here consists of clay cliffs which give the town’s northern ward its name. Like Mayesbrook in the last section, this ward makes the top 50 wards in England and Wales for those employed in the construction sector; but the construction workers haven’t get managed to get their hands on the western half of this ward, which is generally open space. Here can be found Barton’s Point Coastal Park, Sheerness golf course and rather a lot of Kentish marshland. This is a landscape which would have been familiar to Charles Dickens, and Minster-on-Sea appears as a location in his novel The Old Curiosity Shop.
The three Swale council elections to date on this ward have all been rather curious. In each case two out of three seats in the ward went to the Conservatives, but they didn’t get first place; UKIP finished top of the poll in 2015, while the Swale Independents candidate won the first seat in both 2019 and 2023. May’s election turned in a very fragmented result: 26% for the Swale Independents, 22% for the Conservatives (who were the only party to stand a full slate), 18% for outgoing Swale Independents councillor Richard Darby seeking re-election as an unbranded independent, 16% for Labour and 11% for the Greens. The Conservatives lost control of Swale council in 2019, and they are in opposition: the Swale Independents participate in the council’s ruling coalition, which is led by Labour and also includes the Greens.
For parliamentary purposes the Isle of Sheppey is combined with Sittingbourne on the mainland to form the Sittingbourne and Sheppey constituency. This was gained from Labour in 2010 by Conservative backbencher Gordon Henderson, who has since made the seat safe for the Conservatives. He is to retire at the next general election. The island as a whole elects two Kent county councillors and the Conservatives held both of those seats easily at the last Kent county elections in 2021. County councillor Cameron Beart passed away this year at a very age; the Conservatives held the resulting by-election in May, but only narrowly in a close three-way fight with the Swale Independents and Labour.
The Conservatives are defending this by-election following the death in July of veteran local politician Ken Ingleton, who was first elected to Swale council all the way back in 1979. His service was not continuous, with breaks from 1990–92 and from 1996 to 2015; partly because of this, Ingleton’s two years as Mayor of Swale (1986–87 and 2019–20) were more than three decades apart. Ingleton had represented Minster Cliffs ward from 1992 to 1996, and continuously since 2019.
Defending for the Conservatives is Oliver Eakin, who is seeking s quick return to Swale council: he won a by-election in Sheerness ward in May 2021, gaining the seat from Labour (Andrew’s Previews 2021, page 151), but lost re-election in May 2023 in the neighbouring Sheppey Central ward. The Swale Independents candidate also lost re-election in May 2023 in Sheppey Central: he is Peter Macdonald, whose previous Swale council service dates from 2019. Independent candidate Richard Darby is not standing again, and there is no Green candidate either; but Labour are having another go with their new candidate Ed Baldwin. The Lib Dems’ Edward Currie completes the ballot paper.
Parliamentary constituency: Sittingbourne and Sheppey
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Sittingbourne and Sheppey
Kent county council division: Sheppey
ONS Travel to Work Area: Medway
Postcode district: ME12
Ed Baldwin (Lab)
Edward Currie (LD)
Oliver Eakin (C)
Peter Macdonald (Swale Ind)
May 2023 result Swale Ind 656 C 561/554/466 Ind 457 Lab 396 Grn 276 Reform UK 163
May 2019 result Swale Ind 943 C 690/646/613 Grn 413 Lab 293
May 2015 result UKIP 1552 C 1528/1479/1217 Lab 864
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). The 2022 edition is out now! You can also support future previews by donating to the Local Elections Archive Project (link).
Andrew Teale
