Previewing the three council by-elections of 3rd April 2025

"All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order"

Three by-elections on 3rd April 2025:

Park

Lincoln council; caused by the death of Labour councillor Sue Burke.

Last week Andrew's Previews had an independent theme, with two out of three by-elections won by independent candidates (one of which was gained from Labour) and the other being in a council run by independent councillors. This week we're going to change tack and consider three by-elections which are either defended by the Labour Party or are in councils with a Labour majority.

Park ward in Lincoln ticks both of those boxes. This is downhill Lincoln, with the Park of the name being the South Common - an open space to the south of the centre from which the high ground of the Lincoln Cliff rises. Two weeks ago we were in Bracebridge Heath on the top of the cliff, it's now time for us to consider the city below.

In the 2021 census Park ward made the top 100 in England and Wales for residents born in Bulgaria or Romania (8.2%) or the other EU eastern expansion states (11.7%), and it has very high levels of private renting (52.4% of household) thanks to this and a significant student population. The demographic here is generally young and working-class.

The Park ward lies generally south and east of the River Witham, and it is centred on the St Catherine's area at the south end of the High Street. It was here that the first Eleanor Cross was erected in the 1290s, marking the points at which Queen Eleanor of Castile's funeral cortege rested on its journey from Lincoln to London in 1290. Eleanor now lies in Westminster Abbey but her viscera were buried in Lincoln, suggesting that her body was embalmed in the priory of St Katherine Without Lincoln which gave its name (if not its spelling) to the St Catherine's area. Lincoln's Eleanor Cross disappeared many years ago, but part of one of the statues from it is now preserved in Lincoln Castle.

Also here is Sincil Bank Stadium, the home of the League One football club Lincoln City. This is officially known as the LNER Stadium thanks to sponsorship from a railway company, but LNER are only occasional users of Lincoln railway station: that's run by East Midlands Railway who also provide the majority of the trains here. The Park ward boundary takes in the south-eastern part of the city centre including the station, and it runs up to the 12th-century High Bridge which takes the High Street over the River Witham.

The High Bridge is also known locally as the Glory Hole, and recent protracted repair works here have given journalists plenty of opportunities to show their stuff. There has certainly been some stiff competition. The Metro's March 2024 headline "Workmen are grabbing their tools to begin a shift at Lincoln's Glory Hole" (link) is a strong entry in the category of Clickbait That's Just About Safe For Work, while the previous month the Lincolnite had complained of a "lack of action at Lincoln Glory Hole a year after closure", with one affected local business owner reportedly feeling "shafted". The repair works to the Glory Hole finally finished in April 2024, although Lincolnshire Live reported that there was a further week-long delay following "the discovery of old timbers"; they also interviewed the county councillor responsible for highways, who described the challenging nature of the repair work "simply because of the nature of Glory Hole and where it sits." Even in normal circumstances the Glory Hole is hard to pass through because of the restricted space, and an incident in November 2023 where the emergency services had to be called to free a boat which had become wedged inside it gave Lincolnshire Live's headline writers an opportunity that was too good to miss: "I got stuck in Lincoln's Glory Hole and was rescued by the fire brigade". Well played, everyone.

There may have been some rather blue language in that last paragraph, but Park ward's current honourable member is on the red side of politics. The marginal Lincoln parliamentary seat has changed hands at all of the last three general elections: in 2024 it was gained for Labour by former diplomat Hamish Falconer, who went straight into the Foreign Office frontbench team upon his election. The city of Lincoln is much more left-wing than the constituency as a whole, and it has had a Labour majority since 2011: Park ward is part of that majority, and when it was last contested in May 2024 Labour had 47% of the vote here, the Lib Dems 23% and the Green Party 10%. It has very different boundaries from the Park division which will be contested at the Lincolnshire county council elections in four weeks' time (and which was covered in this column last May: Andrew's Previews 2024, forthcoming): that Park division is based on the southern end of the city centre, and the southern end of this ward is in fact part of the Boultham county division. Both of those county divisions were safe for Labour in 2021.

This by-election is to replace Sue Burke following her death in January, at the age of 67. She was a Labour councillor who had served since 2012, originally representing Minster ward before she transferred here in 2016 following boundary changes. Burke served for two consecutive years as mayor of Lincoln during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her husband Chris, who is also a councillor for Park ward, survives her.

Labour are keeping it in the family by selecting as their defending candidate Sue Burke's son Sean Burke-Ulyat, who works in the care sector; he was last seen on a ballot paper in 2022, when he contested Lincoln's Birchwood ward. The Liberal Democrats have reselected their runner-up from last year Sarah Uldall, who is a professional artist. Also back for another go is Park ward's regular Green Party candidate Sally Horscroft, who has stood here in every election since the current ward boundaries were drawn up in 2016; Horscroft was also the Greens' parliamentary candidate for Lincoln in 2019 and 2024, and she will be the Green candidate for Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire next month. Completing this ballot are Joey Gwinn for the Conservatives, Tony Todd (who was the UKIP candidate for this ward in 2018) for Reform UK and Nick Parker for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

Parliamentary constituency: Lincoln
Lincolnshire county council division: Park (north of ward), Boultham (south of ward)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Lincoln
Postcode districts: LN4, LN5

Sean Burke-Ulyat (Lab)
Joey Gwinn (C)
Sally Horscroft (Grn)
Nick Parker (TUSC)
Tony Todd (RUK)
Sarah Uldall (LD)

May 2024 result Lab 696 LD 346 Grn 152 C 107 RUK 92 Party of Women 83
May 2023 result Lab 760 C 209 Grn 143 LD 86
May 2022 result Lab 706 C 296 Grn 150 LD 81
May 2021 result Lab 719 C 392 Grn 152 LD 98 TUSC 36
May 2019 result Lab 669 C 222 Grn 210 LD 112
May 2018 result Lab 819 C 271 Grn 110 UKIP 100 LD 72
May 2016 result Lab 799/735/677 UKIP 280 C 245/221/210 Grn 213/211/189 LD 159/108/92
Previous results in detail

Sutton South East

St Helens council, Merseyside; caused by the death of Liberal Democrat councillor Brian Spencer.

We now travel west of the Pennines to small-town Lancashire - or Merseyside, as it is now. Sutton was one of the four townships which merged to create the borough of St Helens in the 1860s, and as the name might suggest it is the southern of those townships. This ward lies a few miles south-east of the modern town centre. St Helens' economy was historically based on coal and glass, and Sutton was no exception to that with a number of collieries located here. Even today, Sutton South East ward's demographic profile is working-class.

Sutton South East ward was created in 2022 and it can be divided into three areas. At the western end of the ward is Lea Green railway station - which has been the subject of overrunning renovation works for some years now - and the Marshall's Cross area around it. Sutton Leach lies in the south of the ward; while to the north-east is a large housing area around St Helens Junction railway station. (Which is no longer a junction.) These two stations are on the original Liverpool and Manchester railway line which opened in 1830 as the UK's first intercity railway, and some express trains between the two cities call at Lea Green. There is a 1 in 90 incline between the two stations, and back in the day St Helens Junction - thanks to its location at the bottom of the slope - was a favoured location for trainspotters to see steam locomotives working hard.

St Helens' two parliamentary seats were redrawn for the 2024 general election based on a previous set of ward boundaries, so one small corner of this ward is in St Helens North. However, the MP for most of Sutton South East since 2015 has been Labour's Marie Rimmer, who made it to Parliament as MP for St Helens South and Whiston after decades of service on St Helens council. Rimmer's CBE came in 2005 for services to local government, and her CV includes three spells as leader of the council. In 2023 Marie Rimmer received the Freedom of the Borough from St Helens council, alongside the former St Helens rugby star James Roby, the then world darts champion Michael Smith and the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment.

Rimmer has a safe Labour seat, and Labour have been in overall control of St Helens council since 2010. The most recent elections here were in May 2022, when Labour won 29 seats against 7 independents, 6 Greens, 4 Lib Dems and 2 Conservatives; after that St Helens took the unusual step for a metropolitan borough of moving to whole-council elections, so the next polls here will be in 2026.

We were last in St Helens in December, for a by-election in Blackbrook ward which Labour lost to Reform UK. There have been some signs in recent St Helens elections of an anti-Labour vote in some wards looking for something to coalesce around. Possibly the first indication of this was in the 2019 council elections, when the Green Party won two wards and came close in several others (including Blackbrook).

The old Sutton ward had a rather different electoral history from Blackbrook, in that it had been a Liberal Democrat stronghold until 2010. The late Lib Dem councillor Brian Spencer, who was then working as electrician for the coal board, was first elected all the way back in 1980 for what was then Sutton and Bold ward, and in 2008 he polled 62% of the vote in Sutton. At the time Spencer was leader of St Helens council, a post which he held from 2006 to 2010 at the head of a Lib Dem-Conservative coalition.

The formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in Westminster then led to the entire Merseyside area taking a huge swing towards Labour, and the Lib Dem vote in Sutton ward collapsed. Labour gained all three seats in the ward between 2011 and 2014, with Spencer losing his seat in 2012. Despite this he didn't give up, and in 2022 Brian Spencer returned to St Helens council by polling 49% of the vote in the newly-created Sutton South East ward. The Labour slate, which scored 36%, won the ward's other seat.

Brian Spencer's status as a political veteran extended to Westminster elections too, and he last appeared on ballot papers in July 2024 as the Liberal Democrat candidate for St Helens South and Whiston - a seat which he had contested at every general election going back to 1992. He passed away on Boxing Day, at the age of 77.

Spencer clearly had a large personal vote in Sutton, and the Liberal Democrats will be hoping that this can transfer to their new candidate. David Smith previously sat on the council from 2019 to 2022 in Newton ward, before losing re-election in 2022 in Newton-le-Willows East; he has recently retired from running his own travel company. The Labour candidate is Matt Butterworth, a former teacher who now works with the probation service. Also on the ballot are Melanie Lee for the Conservatives and John Pinnington for Reform UK. The St Helens Star has interviewed all the candidates, and you can find out more here (link).

Parliamentary constituency: St Helens South and Whiston (most), St Helens North (Moss Nook)
ONS Travel to Work Area: Warrington and Wigan
Postcode district: WA9

Matt Butterworth (Lab)
Melanie Lee (C)
John Pinnington (RUK)
David Smith (LD)

May 2022 result LD 816 Lab 589/560 C 250
Previous results in detail

Cwmllynfell and Ystalyfera

Neath Port Talbot council, Glamorgan; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Cathy James.

We'll finish for the week in the Valleys of South Wales - specifically, the Swansea Valley and the Twrch valley. These meet at the village of Ystalyfera, which grew up in the 19th century as a major ironworking centre. Indeed, in 1861 the Ystalyfera Iron and Tinplate Works were claimed to be the largest tinplate works in the world, supporting 4,000 jobs, and its eleven blast furnaces were second only to Dowlais in Merthyr Tydfil. However, the owner J P Budd was unable to get enough investment to keep the works up to date with technological advances, and in 1885 the remaining blast furnaces went cold. Tinplate was still in production here up to the Second World War, but then the factory site was redeveloped.

Ystalyfera is the last village in the Swansea Valley before the border is crossed and Powys is entered. The Glamorgan boundary runs north-west from here up the Twrch valley, with the road generally being on the Powys and then the Carmarthenshire side of the river: this means that there is no way between Ystalyfera and Cwmllynfell, which lies on the Glamorgan side of the valley, without passing through two other counties. Next to Cwmllynfell is the massive Celtic Energy East Pit, an opencast coalmine which has now ceased operations but which - to some local controversy - remains largely unrestored.

The council planning department which has taken the flak for this is Neath Port Talbot, a county borough which the Swansea and Twrch valleys are a rather remote corner of. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Labour lost control of this council at the 2022 local elections, although this corner of the borough isn't particularly firmly in the Labour column anyway. Until 2022 Cwmllynfell and Ystalyfera were separate wards: Ystalyfera had been represented for many years by Plaid Cymru councillor Alun Llewelyn, while Cwmllynfell normally voted Labour but was gained by Plaid in 2017.

Both Plaid Cymru councillors stood for re-election here in 2022, and at least one of them was guaranteed to win because only a single Labour candidate stood against them. Llewelyn easily topped the poll, but the outgoing Cwmllynfell councillor Hugh Jones lost his seat to Labour's Cathy James by 23 votes. Vote shares were 57% for Plaid Cymru and 43% for Labour.

Senedd and Westminster elections here normally have more candidates standing than just Labour and Plaid. This area is currently part of the Neath constituency in the Senedd, which has been represented since 2016 by Labour's Jeremy Miles: he has been in the Welsh Government for nearly all of that period, currently with the health and social care portfolio, and he only narrowly lost the March 2024 Welsh Labour leadership election to Vaughan Gething.

The 2024 Westminster boundary changes, by contrast, injected this area into the Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe parliamentary seat. This is an expanded version of the large and very rural Brecon and Radnorshire constituency, which had previously been closely fought between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. The addition of the Cwm Tawe area was thought to make Labour competitive, but in the end the new seat returned the Lib Dems' David Chadwick with slightly under 30% of the vote. Chadwick is the only Welsh Lib Dem MP, and naturally enough he is the party's Wales spokesman.

As stated, Labour lost control of Neath Port Talbot council in 2022: the result then gave 27 Labour councillors, 18 independent, 12 for Plaid Cymru, 2 Lib Dems and 1 Green. The council administration is made up of independent and Plaid councillors, with an independent leader.

So Labour will be hoping not to lose further ground in this by-election, which they are defending following the resignation of Cathy James. Their defending candidate Heledd Owen is a youth worker who had a number of roles on the Welsh-language TV soap Pobol y Cwm in her younger years; she also appeared in the 2013 BBC3 documentary The Call Centre. Plaid Cymru have selected Brandon Havard, a father of two in his late 20s from Ystalyfera. Also standing are Susan Grounds for the Lib Dems, Cameron Richards for Reform UK, independent candidate Mathew Scarll who is a Cwmllynfell community councillor, and Lee Stabbins for the Conservatives.

Westminster constituency: Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe
Senedd constituency: Neath
ONS Travel to Work Area: Swansea
Postcode district: SA9

Susan Grounds (LD)
Brandon Havard (PC)
Heledd Owen (Lab)
Cameron Richards (RUK)
Mathew Scarll (Ind)
Lee Stabbins (C)

May 2022 result PC 763/560 Lab 583
Previous results in detail

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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