2023 Sunderland City Council election
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4 May 2023
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25 of 75 seats on Sunderland City Council 38 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 2023 Sunderland City Council Election Map | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2023 Sunderland City Council election took place on 4 May 2023 to elect members of Sunderland City Council. There were 25 of the 75 seats of the council up for election, being the usual third of the council. The election took place at the same time as other local elections across England.
Labour retained its majority on the council.[1][2] The Liberal Democrats overtook the Conservatives to become the largest opposition party. The Liberal Democrats were led into the election by Niall Hodson, but he was replaced as party leader after the election by Paul Edgeworth.[3]
25 of the 75 seats will be up for election[4]
Since the first election in 1973, Sunderland has been a strongly Labour council, which consistently achieves over 60% control of the council.[5] However, in recent years they have lost seats to the Conservatives, UKIP and Liberal Democrats. The seats up for election this year were last elected in 2019. In that election, Labour lost 10 seats, The Conservatives gained 4 and Liberal Democrats gained 3.
In 2022, Labour defied speculation they would continue to haemorrhage, Leader Graeme Miller commented that "It was a good night" for his party because they "stopped the rot".
Since the last election, three councillors have defected from the Conservatives, one to Labour, one to Reform UK, and one who currently sits as an Independent and is not standing for re-election. In the last election the Conservatives were outperformed by the Liberal Democrats, who gained one more seat. There was speculation that the Liberal Democrats could take over from the Conservatives as the main opposition party on the council.
Results summary
| 2023 Sunderland City Council election | ||||||||||
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| Party | This election | Full council | This election | |||||||
| Seats | Net | Seats % | Other | Total | Total % | Votes | Votes % | +/− | ||
| Labour | 16 |  2 |
66.7 | 29 | 45 | 60.0 | 28,796 | 45.3 | 0.7 | |
| Liberal Democrats | 5 | 1 |
20.8 | 10 | 15 | 20.0 | 10,882 | 17.1 | 1.6 | |
| Conservative | 3 |  2 |
4.0 | 10 | 13 | 17.3 | 14,358 | 22.6 | 8.3 | |
| Reform UK | 0 | - | 0.0 | 1 | 1 | 2.7 | 4,230 | 6.7 | 6.7 | |
| Green | 0 | - | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 3,533 | 5.6 | 1.0 | |
| Independent | 0 | - | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 1,719 | 2.7 | 0.6 | |
| Monster Raving Loony | 0 | - | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 40 | 0.1 | - | |
| Communist | 0 | - | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 27 | 0.1 | - | |
