Previewing the two North Tyneside council by-elections of Wednesday 2nd July 2025
"All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order"
Two by-elections on Wednesday 2nd July 2025:
Killingworth; and
Longbenton and Benton
North Tyneside council; caused respectively by the resignation of Pat Oliver and by the election of Karen Clark as mayor of the borough. Both were Labour councillors.
The May 2025 local elections are now just over two months in the past, which means we have reached the time of year when it's time to start dealing with the matters arising from them. Tomorrow this column will cover the first resignations of councillors from the newly-elected Class of 2025; and one of today's two polls is a direct consequence of one of the first of May 2025's results to be declared.
In 2002 North Tyneside became one of the first councils to establish a directly-elected mayoralty. At the time this was a closely-fought authority to the east of Newcastle upon Tyne, combining deprived areas like Wallsend with middle-class commuter territory on the North Sea coast like Tynemouth and Whitley Bay. Most of these middle-class areas are grouped within the Tynemouth parliamentary seat, which voted Conservative at every general election from 1918 to 1992 with the exception of the Attlee landslide, but has been represented continuously since 1997 by the Labour chief whip Sir Alan Campbell.
It took a little longer for the Conservatives' local strength in North Tyneside to die out. In fact, the first North Tyneside mayoral election in 2002 was won by the Conservative candidate Chris Morgan who defeated Labour's Eddie Darke in the runoff by 52-48, ending 30 years of Labour rule over the borough. A year later Morgan was forced to resign after being arrested on suspicion of indecent assault and child pornography offences. He was subsequently cleared of all those charges, but was successfully prosecuted many years later for sharing indecent images of children.
Morgan's resignation led to the first ever elected mayoral by-election in June 2003, which was successfully defended by the Conservatives' Linda Arkley with an increased majority over Labour of 56-44. In 2005 Arkley lost the mayoralty to Labour's John Harrison, who came from 42-40 behind on first preferences to win the runoff by 51-49, but the rematch in 2009 went to Arkley by 54-46.
That was the last time that a North Tyneside mayoral election went to a run-off, as the elections from 2013 to 2021 were all won by Labour candidate Norma Redfearn in the first round with over 50% of the vote. Dame Norma Redfearn, as she had become in the 2023 New Year honours for political and public service, retired at the 2025 election by which time the runoff system had been abolished, and that resulted in the winner having a very low vote share. Labour councillor Karen Clark, who had previously been Redfearn's cabinet member for public health and wellbeing, became the sixth Mayor of North Tyneside with just 30% of the vote, against 29% for Reform UK's John Falkenstein and 21% for the Conservatives. As a result of this election, Clark's previous position as a North Tyneside councillor automatically became vacant. The 2024 elections to North Tyneside council had returned 51 Labour councillors against 8 Conservatives and one independent, so the Labour mayor has a Labour majority on the council to work with.
Mayor Clark had first been elected to North Tyneside council in 2015 in Longbenton ward, which was extensively redrawn for the 2024 elections with the new name of Longbenton and Benton. This area lies on the northern edge of Newcastle upon Tyne's urban area but is outside the city boundary, which runs along the Metro line between Longbenton and Four Lane Ends stations; Benton metro station also serves the ward. The area along the Metro is a former coalmining area which was mostly filled with housing by Newcastle Corporation in the 1930s and 1950s, although one corner of this ward is occupied by Northumbria University's Coach Lane campus (home to the University's health and life science students) and by Newcastle United FC's training ground. The northern corner of the ward is occupied by a number of large business parks in which can be found the head office and the main distribution centre for that North East business success story, Greggs. Also here is Longbenton High School, which educated the England footballer Peter Beardsley; this school was once named after the nineteenth-century physician Thomas Addison, who worked for most his life at Guy's Hospital in London but was born in Longbenton in 1795.
Also going to the polls today is Killingworth ward, which was substantially redrawn in last year's boundary changes and is now tightly focused on Killingworth itself. Previously the western half of Killingworth had been covered by Camperdown ward, which this column has previously visited for by-elections in 2021 and 2022. In fact, your columnist was here in person for the September 2021 by-election, while taking some well-deserved time off in Northumberland; and it's this photograph from the aftermath of the plague year that graces the back of Andrew's Previews 2021.
On the way up to Killingworth I had spent some time on Hadrian's Wall visiting Vindolanda, a well-excavated Roman fort built in the shape of a playing-card. Vindolanda had gates for access at each point of the compass, with the fort's major buildings tucked away defensively in the centre behind the barrack blocks.
This was clearly Northumberland county council's inspiration when they designed and built a small municipal New Town in the 1960s. Killingworth Township, as it was originally called, was designed like Vindolanda but on a grander scale: it was built in the shape of a playing-card with roads in and out at the middle of each long edge, and with the major buildings tucked away in a literal Citadel at the centre. Within the Citadel we find a modern shopping mall (replacing a 1960s original) and a library/health centre/community venue/council office building called the White Swan Centre which houses all three polling stations for this by-election.
As originally built, Killingworth had rather a lot of modernist high-rise tower blocks, most of which have since gone. The White Swan Centre is an exception to that rule, but even that isn't as tall as it used to be. Another 1960s survivor is the former British Gas Research Station, which was once Killingworth's major employer; it is now occupied by the council and is a listed building. If you want to see what a typical Killingworth home of the 1970s looked like, the BBC have a helpful record: Bob and Thelma Ferris' home in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? is in Killingworth, and its modern-day residents are electors in this ward.
The new Killingworth has no road connection with the original Killingworth Village, which is also covered by this ward. This was once home to a colliery, and a pioneering one at that. In 1804 a young man called George Stephenson started work at Killingworth Colliery, as a brakeman controlling the pithead's winding gear. It was at Killingworth that Stephenson mastered the art of making steam-driven machinery: his first locomotive, Blücher, was built here in 1814 to haul coal wagons along the Killingworth Wagonway down to the Tyne at Wallsend. The Killingworth Wagonway had cast-iron rails 4 feet 8 inches apart; with the addition of an extra half-inch, this became the standard gauge used today in railways across the world.
George Stephenson also designed his own miner's safety lamp, resulting in a lifelong dispute with Humphrey Davy whose own design of safety lamp came out at the same time. Stephenson's design, named after him as the "Geordie lamp", became standard in the north-east's collieries and its prevalence may be one reason why people from Newcastle are to this day called Geordies. Today Stephenson is commemorated locally in the name of George Stephenson High School, the secondary school opened in 1970 to serve Killingworth.
The extensive ward boundary changes here in May 2024 were followed by extensive Parliamentary boundary changes in July 2024, in which the North Tyneside constituency which previously covered both Killingworth and Longbenton was broken up. This meant that Killingworth joined the Parliamentary map as part of the new Cramlington and Killingworth parliamentary seat, which was one of the first constituencies to declare its result on election night: it was won comfortably by Labour candidate Emma Foody, with Reform UK second and Conservative MP Ian Levy (most of whose former Blyth Valley seat had been transferred into this area) in third. Foody is married to the Nottingham North MP Alex Norris, and she had briefly served as deputy police and crime commissioner for Nottinghamshire in 2020-21 before returning to her native north-east. Longbenton was transferred into the Newcastle upon Tyne North constituency, which has little resemblance to the pre-2024 seat of that name but retained its Labour MP Catherine McKinnell: following the 2024 election McKinnell became a junior minister with responsibility for school standards. The previous Labour MP for North Tyneside, Mary Glindon, was re-elected in Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend which does not cover either of the wards up for election today.
The extensive ward boundary changes make comparisons to pre-2024 results difficult, but for what it's worth the old Longbenton and Camperdown wards were safely Labour, while the Conservatives were capable of winning seats in Benton and (with more difficulty) the old Killingworth ward until 2010. So it's rather surprising that the Conservatives couldn't find a candidate for the new Longbenton and Benton ward when it was first contested last year; the Labour slate of Karen Clarke, Eddie Darke (who had been the Labour party's first mayoral candidate back in 2002) and Linda Darke won easily with a 56-22 lead over the Green candidate. In Killingworth ward the Labour slate won the three seats by defeating the single Conservative candidate by 55-25; the Greens were the only other party to put up even one candidate, so Labour had one seat in the ward guaranteed before a single vote was cast.
Some of the voters of Killingworth are being called out for their third by-election in four years to replace Labour councillor Pat Oliver, who was first elected in 2012 for Benton ward (gaining her seat from the Conservatives) and transferred here in 2024. This time Labour's defending candidate is Lucy Dixon, who works in the social housing sector. The Conservatives have selected Alexander Amos, who contested the neighbouring ward of Backworth and Holystone last year. Also standing in Killingworth are Ian Jones for the Greens, Brian Smith (who stood last year in Longbenton and Benton ward) for Reform UK and Emma Vinton for the Lib Dems.
The same five parties are standing in Longbenton and Benton ward, where the Labour candidate to succeed Mayor Clark is Bryan Macdonald who has a history of voluntary work in the area. The Green Party have selected Jim Howard, a retired engineer who specialised in sustainability and energy efficiency during his career. Reform UK's John Falkenstein, a barrister who specialises in employment, local government and discrimination law and who has previously worked for North Tyneside council, is standing here after coming a close second across the borough in May's mayoral election; he is the subject of a negative story in last week's Private Eye, which reports that Newcastle council are currently taking enforcement action against Falkenstein for turning a residential property he owns into a short-term let without planning permission. Falkenstein completes an all-male ballot paper in Longbenton and Benton, along with Joshua Clark for the Conservatives and David Nisbet for the Lib Dems.
Killingworth
Parliamentary constituency: Cramlington and Killingworth
ONS Travel to Work Area: Newcastle
Postcode districts: NE12, NE27
Alexander Amos (C)
Lucy Dixon (Lab)
Ian Jones (Grn)
Brian Smith (RUK)
Emma Vinton (LD)
May 2024 result Lab 1356/1287/1209 C 617 Grn 510
Previous results in detail
Longbenton and Benton
Parliamentary constituency: Newcastle upon Tyne North
ONS Travel to Work Area: Newcastle
Postcode districts: NE7, NE12
Joshua Clark (C)
John Falkenstein (RUK)
Jim Howard (Grn)
David Nisbet (LD)
Bryan Macdonald (Lab)
May 2024 result Lab 1610/1445/1311 Grn 619 RUK 370 TUSC 256
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