The 2022 Sunderland City Council election took place on 5 May 2022 to elect members of

Sunderland City Council Sunderland City Council is the local authority of the City of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of five in Tyne and Wear and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and provides the major ...

. This is on the same day as other elections across the United Kingdom.

Background

24 of the 75 seats will be up for election All 25 wards were originally due to elect councillors, however the election in Copt Hill ward was postponed following the death of the city's only UKIP candidate. Since the first election in

1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. ...

, Sunderland has been a strongly

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

council, which consistently achieves over 60% control of the council.

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

represented the worst year for Labour in terms of seats; the party lost 9 with 39.2% of the vote. The

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

gained 6 with 34.8%, the Liberal Democrats gained 4 with 15.4%,

UKIP The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest pa ...

did not make any further gains with 4.5%, and the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

lost representation on the council with 5.2%. There had been speculation ahead of the election that the Labour Party could lose overall control of Sunderland City Council for the first time in its history. The seats up for election this year were last elected in

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

. In that election, Labour won 61 seats (a net loss of 4 seats). The Conservatives gained 2 seats while the Liberal Democrats gained 3 seats on the Council. 1 independent councillor lost their seat.

Election results

After the election, the Labour Party maintained control of the Council. Labour's majority was reduced to 4, having lost 1 seat to the Liberal Democrats in Doxford Ward. In Fulwell, the Conservatives also lost a seat to the Liberal Democrats with a swing of 15% The results defied media speculation that

would continue to haemorrhage seats like in

and

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

. Labour leader Graeme Miller commented that "It was a good night" for his party because they "stopped the rot". Conservative Group leader Anthony Mullen, blamed his party's poor performance on the

Partygate Partygate was a political scandal in the United Kingdom about parties and other gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff held during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when public health restrictions prohibited most gather ...

Scandal, after the Conservatives failed to gain seats in Washington South, Rhyope, St Anne's or Silksworth. Liberal Democrat leader Niall Hodson said his party's gains from both Labour and the Conservatives were a result of “good candidates working hard for a long period of time”.

Council composition

In the last council, the composition of the council was: After the election, the composition of the council was:

Results by ward

An asterisk indicates an incumbent councillor.

Barnes

Castle

Copt Hill (countermanded)

Note: This ward election took place on Thursday 16 June 2022. Copt Hill ward election was rescheduled due to the death of UKIP candidate Reg Coulson.

Doxford

Fulwell

Hendon

Hetton

Houghton

Millfield

Pallion

Redhill

Ryhope

Sandhill

Shiney Row

Silksworth

Southwick

St. Anne's

St. Chad's

St. Michael's

St. Peter's

Washington Central

Washington East

Washington North

Washington South

Washington West

References

{{2022 United Kingdom local elections

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

Sunderland City Council elections