UK local by-elections 2011

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

BISHOP'S CASTLE, Shropshire; caused by the resignation of a Lib Dem councillor.  One of Shropshire's tiny market towns, and until 1974 the smallest borough in England,

False. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/relationships.jsp?u_id=10153700&c_id=10001043

(But I would have mispronounced Bisster. I'd have guessed at "Beester".)

I knew I should have checked that 1971 census report I have lying around somewhere.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

By-elections on 6th October:

LOWER STOKE, Coventry; caused by the death of a Labour councillor.  A place close to my heart as I went to university there, Coventry is defined by its industries: originally the city was known for its clocks and watches, but when that industry died around 1900 the watchmakers turned to making bicycles and then cars, creating one of the centres of the UK's motor industry.  This ward is directly east of the city centre, running either side of the Binley Road; at the south end of the ward is Stoke Aldermoor, now a small housing estate but previously the home of a Rootes and Peugeot factory.  Generally the ward is working-class but nowhere near being the most deprived area of the city.  It's a safe Labour ward with the shares of the vote in May being Lab 57.6 C 22.5 Grn 7.8 Socialist Alternative (who are vigorously led in Coventry by the former Militant MP Dave Nellist) 6.4 BNP 5.8.  Candidates in the by-election are the same five parties plus the Lib Dems, who are very weak in Coventry and stand in this ward only intermittently.

NORLAND, Kensington and Chelsea, North London; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor after he was charged with possessing child porn.  Bounded to the south by Holland Park Avenue, to the west by the West Cross Road and to the east by Ladbroke Grove, this ward is served by Holland Park station on the Central Line to the south, Latimer Road station on the Hammersmith Line to the north, and the newly-opened Shepherd's Bush station on the West London Line to the south-west.  Ladbroke Grove at the east end is part of newly-fashionable Notting Hill and the main route for the Notting Hill Carnival; Holland Park in the south has always been a desirable area to live, while the area around Latimer Road station is rather more run down by all accounts.  Politically - this is part of the Kensington constituency, you're not going to get anything other than a super-safe Conservative ward; the shares of the vote on general election day in 2010 were C 55.4 Lab 23.4 LD 21.2.  Even in the adverse circumstances of this by-election the Conservatives should have no trouble holding on.

VICARAGE, Watford, Hertfordshire; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor who is starting a four-year university degree.  This ward lies directly west of Watford town centre along the Vicarage Road, and includes Watford General Hospital and Vicarage Road Stadium, the home of Watford football club.  The census statistics don't show this ward ranking highly in the deprivation indices, but one striking feature of the ward is the large Asian population - 17% of the population gave their ethnic origin as Pakistani in the 2001 census, by far the largest figure in Watford.  This has helped Labour to win the ward against the yellow tide that has engulfed most of the rest of Watford, and while the Lib Dems did win one seat in a doubleheader in 2006 and held onto the seat in 2007, the Labour position has greatly improved since then; the shares of the vote in May were Lab 50.1 LD 27.5 C 9.2 Ind 8.1 Grn 5.1.  Candidates this time are the three main parties plus two independents; this time Labour and the Lib Dems are fielding white candidates, while one of the independents is an Asian who was a prominent member of the local Lib Dems but failed to get the nomination.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

The Conservative candidate in Norland, Catherine Faulks is the sister in law of Sebastian Faulks

The Labour candidate was a contestant in the 2009 UK series of Big Brother.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1191485/Evicted-Beinazir-leaves--Big-Brother-housemate.html

Let the Z-list catfight begin!

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

By-elections on 13th October:

BAMBER BRIDGE EAST, South Ribble, Lancashire; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor due to ill health.  Brig, as it's known locally, is a large village located about five miles south-east of Preston on the A6, the old road to London.  This, the easterly of the village's three wards, is based on the area known as Walton Summit in a triangle between three motorways: the M61 to Manchester, the M65 to Blackburn and the M6, which here is the southern end of the original Preston Bypass, opened in 1958 as the UK's first ever motorway.  The ward was quite a close three-way marginal in 2007: Labour won both seats but the second Labour candidate was only 35 votes ahead of the Conservatives who in turn were only 30 votes ahead of the bizarrely-named local political movement 'Idle Toad', led by a former Labour councillor who is still the local county councillor (although this ward is not his powerbase).  The Idle Toad fell apart shortly after the 2007 election, with one former councillor suing the party after its newsletter described him as a "defecator" (the party's defence was that this was a misprint for "defector"!), and they haven't stood here since.  The 2011 election resulted in two Labour holds with a greatly increased majority; shares of the vote were Lab 57.4 C 42.6.  The by-election is another straight Labour/Tory fight.

MEOPHAM NORTH, Gravesham, Kent; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor.  The Kentish village of Meopham (pronounced MEPPam) is located in the North Downs five miles south of Gravesend; this ward is the northern half of the Meopham parish and includes the whole of Meopham itself plus the hamlets of Meopham Green and Meopham Station; as the name suggests Meopham Station has a railway station on the London-Chatham main line, with trains taking 48 minutes to London Victoria; this makes Meopham a very well-off area popular with London commuters.  Under first-past-the-post Gravesham council has had a few wrong-winner results in recent years caused by the Tory votes piling up in super-safe wards, and this is one of those; the result in May was C 71.1 Lab 28.9, and the local county council division (Gravesham Rural) had an even larger majority in 2009.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP.

ST HELEN'S, Barnsley, South Yorkshire; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor.  Located at the north end of the town on the road to Wakefield, this ward is based on the post-war New Lodge, Athersley North and Athersley South council estates.  It's a very depressed part of a very depressed town, and Labour are rarely seriously challenged here; the closest races in the last few years were in 2006 (Lab majority 198 over Independent) and 2008 (Lab majority 330 over BNP).  The BNP have finished second here at every election since 2008 (including a 2009 by-election) but apart from that first result have never come anywhere near winning.  May's result was Lab 79.3 BNP 12.1 C 8.6; the by-election also sees an English Democrat and an independent candidate.

SLEAFORD WEST AND LEASINGHAM, Lincolnshire County Council; caused by the death of the Deputy Leader of the Council, who was a Conservative councillor.  A market town 19 miles south of Lincoln, Sleaford became a regional centre at the junction of the Nottingham/Skegness and Peterborough/Lincoln roads and railway lines and was once the county town of the Parts of Kesteven, the south-western of Lincolnshire's three Parts.  Industries in the town were mainly agricultural, including seeds and the Bass Maltings.  This division includes the town centre, the south-west of the town and the villages of North and South Rauceby to the west and Leasingham to the north.  These are generally well-off areas and this is safe Conservative ward, with the 2009 result being C 57.0 Ind 18.3 LD 13.9 Lab 10.8.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus the Lincolnshire Independents, a group of independent county councillors. 

Brown seems somehow appropriate for the BNP.

Just please don't use teal like the BBC do.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Some more info on Brig's affluence level and social makeup would be welcome, thanks!

doktorb will be have a better answer if he's still here, but probably best described as 'middle of the road'; neither particularly deprived nor particularly well-off.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

By-elections in the week commencing 16 October.  There is one unusual Tuesday poll on 18 October:

COKEHAM, Adur, West Sussex: caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  This is one of two wards covering the south coast village of Sompting, hard up against the South Downs three miles north-east of Worthing, and now effectively a suburb of Lancing, which is the next town east after Worthing.  Sompting has some quite run-down council housing areas and this ward, which takes in built-up areas either side of the main A27 south coast road, with the unpopulated areas now being part of the South Downs National Park, has its fair share of them.  It was the last Adur ward to elect a Labour councillor, doing so in 2004, but the Conservatives have won consistently since then.  The 2010 result was C 42.2 LD 27.1 Ind 20.4 UKIP 10.3, but the Independent candidate was actually the regular Labour candidate for the ward who appears to have had problems with his nomination papers that time.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP and the Greens.

and lots of by-elections on Thursday 20 October:

BOOKHAM SOUTH, Mole Valley, Surrey; caused by the death of a Liberal Democrat councillor.  This ward covers Great Bookham, a suburb of Leatherhead on the road to Guildford, and also includes a little countryside to the south including the National Trust regency stately home of Polesden Lacey.  The two Bookhams (Great and Little) are on the southern edge of the London Travel to Work Area, and Bookham railway station (which is located outside this ward in Little Bookham) has trains every half hour to Waterloo via Worcester Park, taking about 50 minutes, plus occasional rush-hour trains to London Bridge via West Croydon, taking about an hour.  As that might suggest, the ward is uniformly well-off, with all four of its census areas in the 20% least deprived in England.  In Mole Valley district this doesn't translate into a safe Tory ward, as the district is closely fought between the Lib Dems and Conservatives; the Conservatives won this ward in May by 60 votes (C 46.9 LD 44.6 UKIP 8.4) but this was their first win since 2006, the Lib Dems have won the three elections in between by majorities of 150-300.  Candidates in this marginal ward are again Lib Dem, Tory and UKIP.

BRADWELL SOUTH AND HOPTON, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  Part of the area that was transferred from Suffolk to Norfolk in 1974, this is one of those badly-drawn wards that has no transport link from end to end.  It contains the southern part of the Great Yarmouth suburb of Bradwell, and curves around the built-up area of Gorleston to take in the seaside resort village of Hopton-on-Sea, home to the World Indoor Bowls Championship.  Hopton-on-Sea is a fairly comfortable area while Bradwell is more socially mixed.  The ward was safe Conservative during the Noughties, but Labour performed well in Great Yarmouth in May to almost bring the ward into marginal territory; shares of the vote were C 46.2 Lab 35.9 UKIP 12.7 Grn 5.1.  Candidates for the by-election are just Conservative, Labour and UKIP.

BRIDGE, Nottingham; caused by the death of a Labour councillor.  This ward covers Nottingham's city centre, but most of the population is located south of the centre in the Meadows, a 1970s council estate whose redevelopment grant fell victim to coalition cuts last year.  Also here is Meadow Lane, home of the world's oldest professional football [soccer] team, Notts County.  Bridge ward's two seats split Lib Dem/Labour in 2007 but Labour decisively gained the second seat in May, the shares of the vote being Lab 52.0 LD 36.2 C 11.8.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP and the Church of the Militant Elvis.

ECCLES, Salford; caused by the death of a Labour councillor.  Swallowed up by Salford in 1974, Eccles is an ex-textile town on the north bank of the Manchester Ship Canal and on the Liverpool and Manchester railway.  The ward runs north from the town centre across the M602 arterial motorway to include the Ellesmere Park and Monton areas to the north and north-west.  Socially it runs the gamut from some very deprived areas in the town centre and Ellesmere Park to Monton, which is quite a nice area.  Monton and Ellesmere Road is presumably where the Tory vote comes from, and this was a Labour/Tory marginal during the Blair and Brown years, the Conservatives winning in 2007 and 2008, but Labour decisively gained one of the Conservative seats in May (Lab 55.1 C 27.9 UKIP 10.8 LD 6.3).  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus the BNP and an independent.

ELLESMERE PORT TOWN, Cheshire West and Chester; caused by the death of the leader of the Labour group.  This industrial town (the local football team is still called Vauxhall Motors) was founded in the nineteenth century on the south bank of the Mersey, and is named after the Ellesmere Canal which reaches the sea here.  This ward runs from Ellesmere Port railway station (two trains an hour on the Wirral Line to Liverpool, plus four trains a day to Helsby) south through the town centre and the Wolverham area to Cheshire Oaks, the UK's largest designer outlet and a major local employer.  On the opposite side of the M53 motorway is part of the enormous chemical works.  The ward was created in May and the only previous result is Lab 79.8 C 13.5 LD 6.8; predecessor wards on the former Ellesmere Port and Neston council are part of safe Labour Stanlow and Wolverham ward and the whole of normally safe Labour Central ward (although the Tories did get within 6 points of Labour in 2007).  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP and Socialist Labour.

PARK HALL, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire; a long-delayed by-election caused by the death of a Labour councillor the day after she was re-elected in May's local election.  The ward is located in the northern Mansfield suburb of Mansfield Woodhouse along Park Hall Road; generally one of the district's more deprived areas.  Mansfield had new wards created in May and the only previous result is Lab 57.8 Mansfield Independent Forum (who are associated with the borough's elected Mayor) 35.3 LD 7.0.  The Tories and UKIP will also enter the fray at the by-election.

SHORTLANDS, Bromley, South London; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor.  Despite having a Bromley postal address, this ward is part of the affluent south-east London suburb of Beckenham, which boomed in the late nineteenth century after the coming of the railway; at the junction of the Chatham Main Line and the Catford Loop, Shortlands station is 10 miles from Victoria and has four trains per hour to there via Herne Hill and a further two to Blackfriars via Catford.  This creates an affluent commuter ward, five of whose six census areas are in the 20% least deprived in England; the result of this in Bromley borough is a very safe Conservative ward, the 2010 result being C 57.9 Grn 14.5 Lab 14.2 LD 13.3.  The Green strength was probably due to a protest vote more than anything; they didn't stand here in 2006 and polled just 6% in the 2008 GLA elections (C 60.8 Lab 11.0 LD 9.6 Grn 6.1 BNP 4.1 Christian 2.7; Boris polled 68.6%).  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties, the Greens, UKIP and the BNP.

WALTON, Stafford; caused by the death of a long-serving Conservative councillor.  This ward is a suburb of the market town of Stone, located to the south of the town centre on the opposite side of the River Trent.  The ward is bisected by the dual-carriageway A34, the main road to Stafford seven miles to the south.  Walton ward has some of Stone's most desirable areas, but the politics in 2007 didn't reflect that, the three seats splitting Conservative/Labour/Independent; the Tories did however clean up this May when the shares of the vote were C 35.1 Ind 25.7 Lab 22.8 second Ind 9.6.  Candidates for the by-elecion are Conservative, Labour and Independent.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Six by-elections on 27th October:

BLOXWICH EAST, Walsall, West Midlands; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  Arguably the northernmost town of the Black Country, Bloxwich became famous in the nineteenth century as the UK's foremost manufacturer of awl blades, as well as for other light metalworking.  The town was swallowed up into Walsall county borough relatively early, and Walsall Corporation built council houses on much of the land now in this ward, which is entirely on the eastern side of the A34 Walsall-Stafford road; as a result most of the census areas rank highly in the indices of multiple deprivation.  In Walsall this doesn't translate into a safe Labour ward because of Walsall Labour's wacky reputation (perhaps the Boardbashi could enlighten us...?); the three seats split 2C/1Lab when the ward was created in 2004 and stayed that way until this May; Labour held on by just thirteen votes in 2006, the Conservatives held in the following two years with increasing majorities (296 in 2007, 745 in 2008), and Labour held rather more comfortably in 2010 by 248 votes.  The change finally came in May with a Labour gain by just 6 votes (Lab 42.8 C 42.3 UKIP 8.1 Democratic Labour 3.8 LD 2.9), and Labour now have a chance to gain the final Conservative seat in this by-election.  Candidates are Conservative, Labour, UKIP, Greens and English Democrats.

BUDE NORTH AND STRATTON, Cornwall; caused by the resignation of a Lib Dem councillor.  Cornwall's northernmost town, Bude is a Victorian seaside resort with good surfing conditions, while its twin town Stratton, about a mile inland, is a more ancient market town which was once the centre of one of Cornwall's ten hundreds.  Created in 2009 for the unitary Cornwall council, the ward is one of two-and-a-half wards within the area covered by Bude-Stratton town council; it contains the northern half of Bude, all of Stratton and the village of Flexbury just to the north of Bude.  In 2009 it was a straight fight between Conservative and Lib Dem, the Lib Dems winning a landslide by 72.4-27.6; the Lib Dem councillor had previously represented Poughill and Stratton ward on North Cornwall district council.  Poughill and Stratton ward normally split LD/Ind, while Bude ward was safe Lib Dem in 2007 but the two seats split in 2003 between Lib Dem and Mebyon Kernow, the Cornish nationalist movement, who were not far behind the two Lib Dem candidates in 2005 in the former Bude-Stratton county division.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties (and it's been a long time since there was a Labour candidate here, if there ever has been one here) plus an independent amusingly named Louise Emo.  It'll be interesting to see if there's an Emo vote here.

COATBRIDGE NORTH AND GLENBOIG, North Lanarkshire; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor.  Winner of the 2007 Carbuncle award for being most the dismal town in Scotland, Coatbridge's roots go back to the nineteenth century when it became a major centre for ironworking and coalmining; this attracted a huge number of Irish immigrants to the town.  The industrial bust came rather earlier here than it did in many other places, with the coal exhausted by 1920 and only one of the ironworks surviving the Great Depression.  The town's low-lying nature and industrial past has given it good transport links, and there are three railway stations in the ward; Coatbridge Central (one train per hour to Motherwell and Cumbernauld, plus a few peak-hour trains on the Argyle Line to Motherwell, Glasgow Central and beyond) and Coatbridge Sunnyside and Blairhill (four trains an hour on the North Clyde line to Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Queen Street and beyond); this, together with the proximity of the A8 motorway to the south means that distribution is now a major local employer.  The Irish immigration still has its effects today, with around half of the population giving their religion as Roman Catholic in the last census, and led to a political scandal in 1994 when the town was part of Monklands district council; Monklandsgate, as it was known, alleged that there were sectarian spending discrepancies in favour of Coatbridge over Airdrie (a mainly Protestant town to the east) on the grounds that the entire ruling Labour group were Roman Catholic.  This turned out to be false but related allegations of nepotism were upheld; the issue dominated the Monklands East by-election after John Smith died.  This ward, as the name suggests, covers the north of the town together with countryside to the north as far as the edge of Cumbernauld, including the village of Glenboig.  When PR came in for Scottish local government in 2007 Labour won two seats in this ward, the SNP won one and the remaining seat went to an independent, who overtook the Conservatives on SSP and Labour transfers; first preferences were Lab 47.8 SNP 29.4 C 10.6 Ind 9.0 SSP 3.2.  There was a previous by-election in June 2009 after the SNP councillor decided to concentrate on being an MSP, at which Labour gained the SNP seat; first preferences then were Lab 37.2 SNP 30.5 Ind 13.5 C 8.8 Ind 5.3 Grn 2.9 SSP 2.0, the Green candidate being BritainVotes contributor Kristofer Keane; Labour only narrowly won the 2-party preferred, 50.9-49.1.  Coatbridge and Chryston was one of the Labour seats which resisted the SNP tide in May, so this could be an interesting battle to watch.  Candidates this time are just the four main parties.

NEWCHAPEL, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor.  The north-eastern corner of Newcastle-under-Lyme district, this ward covers a surprisingly hilly area between the towns of Kidsgrove and Biddulph which was once part of Kidsgrove Urban District, running from Newchapel itself at the southern end, through Harriseahead to the hilltop village of Mow Cop, which straddles the Staffordshire/Cheshire border along the hill of the same name, which rises to a summit of 335 metres (1100 feet).  (Incidentally, Mow Cop is visible from higher parts of Bolton on a good day and can be easily identified by the TV mast at the summit: )

The ward's two census areas are both in the middle of the deprivation indices.  The politics of the ward are quite interesting; when it was created in 2002 the Lib Dems won both seats, but promptly lost them in 2003 (to the Conservatives) and 2004 (to Labour; there was no Conservative candidate that year, presumably they messed up their nomination papers).  The Conservatives decisively gained the Labour seat in 2008 but performed relatively poorly in a February 2010 by-election which saw a close three-way race for second place won by UKIP, who are very well organised in this borough (C 33.5 UKIP 23.8 Lab 22.2 LD 20.5).  Labour gained the ward in May by 50 votes (Lab 32.7 C 27.3 Ind 18.1 UKIP 15.4 LD 6.5) and will now be looking to gain the other seat.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP.

THORNTON DALE AND THE WOLDS, North Yorkshire County Council; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor in order to care for his wife.  This is an enormously-sized division covering a swathe of countryside between Norton, Pickering and Scarborough; from the northern end it runs along the Whitby-Pickering road past the Hole of Horcum, down to the beautiful village of Thornton-le-Dale on the Pickering-Scarborough road (Thornton Dale ward), then across the low-lying Vale of Derwent to take in some small villages up on the Yorkshire Wolds (Rillington, Sherburn and Wolds wards).  With the exception of Thornton-le-Dale, which is more upmarket, most of the census areas are in the middle of the deprivation indices.  The 2009 result (C 61.5 LD 29.7 Lab 8.8 ) suggests that this should be an easy Conservative hold.  The by-election is a straight C/LD fight.

WYRESIDE, Lancashire County Council; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  This county division is basically the rural northern half of the Fylde peninsula, covering the area between Garstang and the Wyre estuary together with a few villages on the south side of the Wyre, the largest of which is Great Eccleston.  The main settlements in the ward are Pilling, Preesall, Hambleton and Knott End-on-Sea, from which the ferry to Fleetwood departs that is the only link between Fleetwood and the rest of the Lancaster and Fleetwood parliamentary constituency.  It's an agricultural and surprisingly low-lying area, with the main road from Pilling to Lancaster once regularly flooded by high tides.  All of the division's census areas are within the 40% least deprived in England with the exception of Knott End, which has a significant retiree population.  The division is safe Tory and wasn't seriously contested in 2009, the shares of the vote then being C 65.9 Grn 21.1 Lab 13.1; in 2005 it was a straight fight between Tory and Labour, the Conservatives winning by 64.2-35.8.  I'm not sure of the reason for the Green strength as the Greens only stood in one of the constituent district wards in May (Pilling, polling 21%), but this division does border the Green-held county division of Lancaster Central.  The same Green candidate is contesting the by-election along with candidates from the Conservatives, Labour and UKIP.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

By-elections on 3rd November, two in the Scottish Highlands and two in the English Midlands.

INVERNESS SOUTH, Highland Council; caused by a Labour councillor being found guilty of a £43,000 benefit fraud.  This is one of five multi-member wards named after the city of Inverness, capital and main administrative centre of the Highlands.  Unlike the other four wards, it contains very little of the actual city itself, the main population centres being Inverness suburbs such as Westhill, Inshes and Milton of Leys.  The ward also includes a large rural area to the south east, including the Culloden battlefield and following the A9 and the Highland railway line to Slochd Summit.  In 2007 the shares of the vote were SNP 27.0 LD 23.0 Ind 22.4 Lab 17.1 C 10.5, with the four seats being shared SNP/LD/Lab/Ind; all four councillors were brand new, with the Labour candidate the only one with previous electoral experience having unsuccessfully fought Inshes as an independent in 2003.  Inshes would appear to be rather less well-off than the rest of the ward and is presumably the source of the Labour vote.  The by-election has attracted a large field of candidates, with the four main parties being joined by the Greens, the Christian Party and an Independent.

OBAN NORTH AND LORN, Argyll and Bute; caused by the death of an SNP councillor.  This is a very large ward in the Scottish Highlands covering the northern end of the old county of Argyll, an area which was once the district of Lorne (which, through various aristocratic connections, is the source of all those Lorne place-names in Canada), together with the northern part of the port of Oban.  The ward also includes some islands in Loch Linnhe, the largest of which is Lismore.  The largest settlement wholly in the ward is probably Dalmally, on the road and railway line east towards Crianlarich and birthplace of the late Labour leader John Smith.  Much of the local economy is based on tourism, with a year-round employer being the Cruachan Dam hydroelectric power station (a fact which once won me a bottle of beer in a quiz for being the only person to correctly answer the relevant question ).  First preferences in 2007 were Ind 54.6 SNP 22.4 LD 14.6 C 8.5, with the first two seats going to two incumbent independent councillors and the SNP and Lib Dems sharing the other two.  The by-election sees two independent candidates (one of whom stood unsuccessfully in 2007) along with candidates from the SNP, Lib Dems and Conservatives.

SYSTON RIDGEWAY, Leicestershire County Council; caused by the death of a Conservative councillor.  Located six miles north-east of Leicester on the Fosse Way and the road to Melton is the town of Syston.  These days it's a commuter town for the city of Leicester, with Syston station having hourly trains to Leicester and Nottingham on the so-called Ivanhoe Line, and its politics basically reflects that.  This county division combines the eastern half of the town with the even richer villages of Queniborough and Rearsby to the north and a rural area to the east as far as South Croxton.  Only one of the division's six-and-a-half census areas (in central Syston) is within England's most deprived 40%, while two-and-a-half are in the least deprived 20%.  Shares of the vote in 2009 were C 52.6 BNP 19.4 LD 17.4 Lab 10.6; the BNP have performed well in this part of Leicestershire over the last few years and in May they held their seat in East Goscote ward of Charnwood council (one of only two seats the BNP won in May).  East Goscote ward borders this division and the BNP councillor is standing in this by-election against the three main parties.

YOXALL, East Staffordshire; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor who "wants to spend more time on his farm" - he was elected for the first time in May so perhaps decided that being a local councillor wasn't for him.  East Staffordshire is a starkly divided local government district, with the brewing town of Burton upon Trent normally outvoted by the Tory town of Uttoxeter and the rural area, of which this ward is a part: it consists of several villages on or just off the A515 Lichfield-Ashbourne road, with Yoxall itself at the south end, Newborough at the north end and Hoar Cross in between.  May's result was C 79.3 Lab 20.7, which from Labour's point of view is an improvement on the 87-13 drubbing they got in 2007.  The by-election is another straight C/Lab fight.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Four by-elections on 10th November, all in marginal wards in urban England.

ALDBOROUGH, Redbridge, North London; caused by the resignation of a Labour councillor.  One of the few wards in Greater London that contains any kind of rural area, this is the largest ward in Redbridge, running along the north side of the A12 Eastern Avenue up to the Barking/Dagenham border, and including the Fairlop Waters Country Park.  The population of the ward is almost entirely squeezed into the south-west corner in the Aldborough Hatch area and the eastern part of Barkingside.  It is served by Newbury Park and Barkingside underground stations on the Hainault Loop of the Central Line. 

The ward's census areas are mostly in the middle or slightly below the middle of the deprivation indices; an interesting indicator from the 2001 census is a high Jewish population (12.6%).

In 2010 this was a split ward with Labour gaining one seat from the Conservatives who held the other two; shares of the vote were C 43.5 Lab 41.3 LD 15.2.  At the 2008 GLA elections the Conservatives led Labour 38.5-31.9 in the list vote and Boris led Ken by 45.3-37.6.  With this ward being in the traditionally marginal constituency of Ilford North, and the Coalition currently running the hung Redbridge council, this by-election could be an interesting pointer.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus the Greens, the BNP and UKIP.

ST MARGARET'S, Ipswich; caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor.  This ward covers the north of the town, running from the edge of the town centre around Christchurch Park to the northern edge of the town.  Mostly it is a well-off area with the exception of the area around Christchurch Park which is much more working-class.

The ward consistently voted Lib Dem from 2002 to 2010 but was normally marginal, and there were some very close battles with the Conservatives, particularly in 2007 (majority 43) and 2008 (majority 45).  After years of trying, the Conservatives finally made a gain in May by just 60 votes (C 37.0 LD 35.1 Lab 21.3 Grn 6.7), but the Conservative councillor has now resigned after just four months in office.  The Lib Dems will be looking to gain the seat back.  Candidates for the by-election are just the three main parties.

ST MARY'S, Islington; caused by the disqualification of a dissident Labour councillor who failed to attend any meetings of the council or its committees in six months.  The heart of Islington, this ward stretches north along the A1 Upper Street from the Angel to the Highbury Corner roundabout and then north-west along the southern edge of the Holloway Road.  It is served by Highbury and Islington station, a major interchange for the North London Line, the newly-extended East London Line, the Victoria Line and the Moorgate branch of the mainline rail network; the Moorgate branch's Essex Road station is also in the ward.

Islington has a trendy reputation (Boris Johnson lives in this ward), but this is not yet reflected in the census figures; four of the ward's seven census areas are in the 20% most deprived in England, and the other three aren't much better off.

This ward elected three Lib Dem councillors when it was created in 2002, but one of the Lib Dem councillors defected to Labour in 2005 (the one whose disqualification caused this by-election).  She held her seat in her new colours in 2006 and Labour gained a second seat in the ward in 2010, when the Lib Dems generally performed poorly in a parliamentary constituency they were targeting.  It will be interesting to see whether any Labour gain from not being in national government any longer is offset by them now running Islington council.  Shares of the vote in 2010 were Lab 32.9 LD 32.0 C 20.1 Grn 11.9 Ind 3.2; in 2008 Ken beat Boris 42.7-37.0.  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus the Greens and the BNP.

SPARKBROOK, Birmingham; caused by the resignation due to ill-health of high-profile Respect councillor and party leader Salma Yaqoob.

Where do I start when describing Sparkbrook?  It's an extremely depressed inner-city ward in southern Birmingham, including the Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath areas just outside the middle ring road.  It is one of the largest wards in England by electorate, with 19,661 people eligible to vote in May's election.  It has about twenty census areas, every single one of which is in the most deprived 20% in England.  It is the home of the Balti Triangle, Birmingham's equivalent of Manchester's Curry Mile or London's Brick Lane.  But there's one thing above all that defines its politics: the 59% of the population who (on slightly different boundaries) gave their religion in the 2001 census as Muslim.

That fact has made Sparkbrook the only stronghold of the Respect party outside London, starting in 2006 when Yaqoob gained a seat from Labour on an enormous swing from the Lib Dems, who topped the poll here in 2004 and won two out of three seats.  Respect gained the two Lib Dem seats in 2007 and 2008 and held a by-election in September 2009 after one of their councillors went bankrupt.  Yaqoob was re-elected in 2010, polling more than 5,000 votes, and on the same day came a creditable second in the general election in Birmingham Hall Green, polling 25.1% to 32.9% for Labour; she could have cause to curse the boundary changes which abolished the much more strongly Muslim seat of Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath.  However, a change came in May when Labour gained a seat (shares of the vote were Lab 49.8 Respect 38.8 LD 6.5 C 2.8 Grn 2.2). 

Labour now have a chance to gain a second seat, and have selected a high-profile candidate in the shape of Victoria Quinn, partner of the veteran Labour group leader Sir Albert Bore, while Respect have selected their former councillor who lost his seat in May.  The support of the local mosques could be crucial in deciding the result.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Islington has a trendy reputation (Boris Johnson lives in this ward), b

Doesn't he live in St Peter's? I recall it being mentioned when there was a by-election in St Peter's last month (to replace the daughter of the Councillor who caused this by-election). Or has he moved home in search for the next local by-election?

He may well have moved since 2008.  The Statement of Persons Nominated for the last mayoral election gave an address for Boris which is definitely in this ward.

Al - thanks for the correction.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Six by-elections on 17th November, including an unusual double by-election.

HILLHEAD, Glasgow; caused by the death of an SNP councillor.

In the days when Glasgow parliamentary seats had district names rather than compass points, Hillhead was one of the most famous names, with famous MPs to match.  Its two last MPs before its abolition in 1997 were George Galloway and Roy Jenkins, and it's hard to think of a more diverse pair of famous names than that.  Jenkins won the 1982 by-election for the SDP after the death of Glasgow's last Conservative MP, Sir Tam Galbraith (father of Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House of Lords). 

That this was the last Conservative seat in Glasgow indicates that Hillhead is rather different from the rest of the city.  The current ward stretches out from the edge of the city centre along the Great Western Road and is served by the Hillhead, Kelvingrove and St Georges Cross subway stations.  In the middle of the ward is the Glasgow University complex, which fills the area with students, while the west end of the ward includes some of the most desirable parts of Glasgow.

The student vote makes this if not the strongest Green ward in the whole of Scotland, probably one of the strongest.  First preferences in 2007 were Lab 25.3 SNP 21.1 Grn 18.6 LD 18.3 C 10.2 Solidarity 3.8 SSP 2.0 9% Growth Party 0.6, with the top four parties all winning one seat each.  With the vote that fragmented, transfers will be crucial.  Candidates are the four main parties, the Greens, UKIP (whose candidate was the 9% Growth Party candidate last time) and an outfit called Britannica.

POULTON NORTH, Warrington, Cheshire; caused by the death of a Lib Dem councillor.  To quote my preview of the previous by-election here on 28th July:

This is an area of new town development in the north-east of Warrington, just south of the huge M6-M62 junction at Croft.  The deprivation indices show that the ward is quite starkly divided, with the Blackbrook area (the south-west corner of the ward) being one of the most deprived areas in England and the Fearnhead area next it one of the least deprived.  This social division produced a safe Lib Dem ward in 2007 and 2008 (the Lib Dems polled 59.9% in 2008) but Labour gained by 31 votes in 2010 and gained a second seat in May by 238 votes (Lab 46.9 LD 39.2 C 13.9).  Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP.

The July by-election resulted in a Lib Dem hold; shares of the vote were LD 48.3 Lab 39.1 C 8.3 UKIP 4.2.  However, the new Lib Dem councillor (who had previously lost his seat in May) suddenly died less than two months into his term of office, so this ward is now going to the polls for the third time in just over six months.  Candidates for this by-election are, again, the three main parties plus UKIP.

RUABON, Wrexham; caused by the death of a Plaid Cymru councillor.

The village of Ruabon can be found six miles south-west of Wrexham on the main road to Llangollen and Oswestry, and is a stop on the Shrewsbury-Chester railway line.  It was once known for mining and brick-making.  Confusingly, the Ruabon ward only consists of the northern half of the village, the southern half being in the Penycae and Ruabon South ward.

The ward was a very narrow Labour win in 2004, just two votes ahead of an independent, but the Labour councillor lost his seat in 2008 to Plaid Cymru, coming in a poor third behind an independent candidate.  Shares of the vote in 2008 were PC 43.8 Ind 32.2 Lab 23.9.

The by-election is being contested by the same independent candidate from 2008 along with new Plaid, Labour and Conservative candidates.

SALTHILL, Ribble Valley, Lancashire; caused by the resignation of a Lib Dem councillor.

Salthill ward covers the east of the Norman market town of Clitheroe.  In the shadow of Pendle Hill, Clitheroe is a centre for tourism in the Ribble Valley and the Forest of Bowland, with an hourly train service to Blackburn and Manchester and a surprising amount of industry given that only one of the town's census areas is in the wrong half of the deprivation indices, and it's not in this ward.

Clitheroe is normally a stronghold for the Lib Dems in the very Tory district of Ribble Valley, with the Lib Dems having controlled the town council for many years, but Salthill ward is more marginal and its two seats have been split between the Lib Dems and Tories since 2003.  In May the Tories topped the poll and there was a surprisingly good performance from the UKIP candidate, who beat the Tory and Lib Dem running-mates to finish third just 43 votes behind the Lib Dem councillor; shares of the vote were C 29.4 LD 24.2 UKIP 20.3 Ind 16.2 Lab 9.9.

Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties plus UKIP.

WEST WIGHT, Isle of Wight; caused by the death of an Independent councillor.

The west of the Isle of Wight is generally sparsely populated, and this is the largest ward on the island by area.  The main settlement in the ward is the tiny town of Yarmouth, one of the three ports of entry to the island thanks to its ferry service over the Solent to the Hampshire town of Lymington.  The ward also includes much of the island's north-west coast, almost as far as the outskirts of Cowes, as well as some inland villages such as Shalcombe.

The island was re-warded in 2009 and the only previous result is from that year: Ind 53.5 C 46.5.  To confuse matters, the defeated Conservative candidate in 2009 had been elected in 2005 for the predecessor ward of Shalfleet and Yarmouth - as an Independent.  The Conservatives are standing again and are joined by the Lib Dems and UKIP, although the Lib Dems may now be wondering why they bothered to stand, having been forced to disown their candidate after allegations of financial impropriety involving him and a local Masonic lodge.

ZETLAND, Redcar and Cleveland; a double by-election caused by the resignations of two Liberal Democrat councillors over a dispute as to whether they were eligible to stand for election - they are (or in one case were) teachers at the foundation Eston Park School which is funded by the council. 

The only ward in England beginning with Z, it is named after the Marquess of Zetland, who was the lord of the manor, and the Zetland lifeboat, first stationed here in 1802 and now the world's oldest surviving lifeboat.  Appropriately, the Zetland ward is located on the seafront, next to the wide, long sandy beach for which Redcar (pronounced REDDker, for those who didn't know) should be famous; indeed the town took the part of Dunkirk in a recent film.  However, at the same time as the town was being developed as a seaside resort, it was also developing as a steelworking centre, and by the twentieth century there was a major steelworks and ICI chemical works completely filling the gap between Redcar and Middlesbrough. 

The steelworks was controversially closed in February 2010, and in the general election three months later Labour sensationally lost the Redcar parliamentary seat to the Liberal Democrats.  This wasn't entirely unexpected - the Lib Dems had had some huge gains in local by-elections in Redcar since 2007 - but still stunning considering the failure of the Lib Dems to break through in most urban areas at that election.

The local Liberal Democrats followed through in the 2011 council election by gaining seats in Redcar town where they topped the poll in five of the six wards, only working-class Kirkleatham holding out against the yellow tide.  Two of the Lib Dem gains came in this socially-mixed marginal ward, which had been split Lab/C in 2007 with the Lib Dems very close behind, and narrowly elected two Conservative councillors over Labour in 2003.  On May's figures (LD 50.0 Lab 35.4 C 14.6) the ward looks safe, but it remains to be seen how much of that Lib Dem lead was due to tactical voting by Conservatives.

The by-election sees two candidates each from the three main parties plus a single UKIP candidate.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Five by-elections on 24th November:

BEAVER, Ashford, Kent; caused by the death of Labour councillor Brendan Naughton.

One of the boom towns of modern Britain thanks to its location and good transport links, Ashford is an old market town which became a major railway junction in the nineteenth century.  It is now linked to London and the Channel Ports by the M20 motorway and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, with high-speed trains taking just 37 minutes to reach St Pancras.

The growth of Ashford has meant the town has spilled outside its old boundaries to swallow up several surrounding villages, and Beaver ward (named after Beaver Lane), which was originally the south-west corner of the town, is now just part of the urban sprawl.

Beaver ward is a fairly working-class area and was safe Labour in 2003. Unusually it has been swinging towards the Conservatives ever since then, and in May the two Labour candidates were just 29 and 27 votes ahead of the Conservatives; the Ashford Independents, a well-organised localist group with five Ashford councillors, finished in a strong third place.  Shares of the vote in May were Lab 38.8 C 36.4 Ashford Ind 24.8.

Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties, the Ashford Independents and the Greens.  All the candidates are based in the town except for the Labour candidate, who is from the nearby town of Tenterden.


GREAT HORTON, Bradford; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Rev Paul Flowers, who as well as being a Methodist minister is also the chairman of the Co-operative Bank.

This ward is south-west of the city centre just outside the ring road.  It's a heavily deprived area, particularly in the Lidget Green area at the northern end of the ward.  Perhaps connected with that, the ward has a large Asian population (19.3% Pakistani, 9.2% Indian according to the 2001 census).

These sort of factors make the ward prone to strange results, and there were some very strange results in Bradford when the ward was created in 2004 - the three seats in this ward split 2 Labour 1 Conservative, with huge differences in the votes of the Conservative and Labour candidates and allegations of electoral fraud thrown around.  The Conservative councillor was sent to prison in early 2006 in connection with a fatal hit-and-run accident in his taxi, and Labour gained his seat in a double-vacancy election that year.  Since then it has been plain sailing for Labour here as their vote has grown and the ward turned into a stronghold; in May shares of the vote were Lab 75.4 C 15.4 LD 9.2.

Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties, the Greens and UKIP.


HAZLEMERE SOUTH, Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Bob Bate after he posted a tweet comparing gay marriage to marriage with animals.

The village of Hazlemere is a suburb of High Wycombe, located just north-east of the town on the Amersham Road.  Southern Buckinghamshire has some of the UK's most expensive/unaffordable property, and all six of Hazlemere's census areas are in the 20% least deprived in England. 

This being southern Buckinghamshire, these demographics translate into a very safe Tory ward, which had a 28-point Tory lead in May this year (C 54.7 Ind 26.6 LD 18.7) and wasn't even contested in 2007.  Even in the adverse circumstances of this by-election the Tories should have no trouble holding on.


LAKENHAM, Norfolk; caused by the resignation of Liberal Democrat councillor Fiona Williamson, who is moving abroad.

Lakenham is a working-class ward within the city of Norwich, located at the south end of the city between the Ipswich Road and the River Yare.

The county council division has the same boundaries as the Norwich City Council ward of the same name, so the ward effectively goes to the polls each year.  During the Blair and Brown years it was a Lab/LD marginal ward, with Labour usually winning narrowly except in 2008 and at the last county council election in 2009 (LD 31.6 Lab 26.8 UKIP 15.7 C 13.2 Grn 12.7).  Labour started to pull away in the 2010 city council election (which was delayed until September because of a botched attempt to make the city a unitary council) and on this May's result (Lab 41.6 LD 21.3 Grn 18.5 C 11.8 UKIP 6.7) the ward now looks safe for them; not good for the Lib Dems who are defending this by-election and a city coucil seat next year, in a parliamentary seat they hold.  The Greens have beaten the Conservatives to third place in the ward at the last two elections.

The by-election features candidates from the three main parties, the Greens and UKIP.


WENDRON, Cornwall; caused by the death of Independent councillor Mike Clayton.

Wendron is a rural ward which essentially covers the countryside between Camborne and Helston.  The largest settlements in the ward are Wendron itself, Crowan and Sithney.

The ward, particularly around Wendron itself and Carnmellis, has a history of tin-mining going back for centuries, and the former Wheal Roots tin mine near Wendron is now a tourist attraction under the name of Poldark Mine, after the Poldark novels which were set in the general area.  Perhaps because of the long mining history, this is a fairly poor area. 

Local politics in this part of Cornwall tends to be dominated by independents, and in 2009 Wendron ward elected Mike Clayton, who had previously represented a smaller Wendron ward on Kerrier district council.  Clayton had a decent enough majority but won with less than a third of the vote, and the candidates placed second to fifth all polled over 10% (Ind 31.7 MK 19.9 C 15.5 UKIP 13.0 LD 10.0 Ind 6.9 Lab 3.0); runner-up was Loveday Jenkin of the Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow, who had previously been a district councillor for the ward including Crowan.

Jenkin is standing again for Mebyon Kernow and is joined by the three main parties and independent candidate Phil Martin, who is a former district councillor for the ward including Sithney.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Here's grey

More surprised at your colouring of the Ashford Independents than your Teale for MK - you usually leave them black.

I've been accused of being many things in my time, but that's the first time I've been accused of being a Cornish nationalist.

Two by-elections on Tuesday 1st December, in two very different Conservative areas of southern England.

BRENT, Somerset County Council; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Alan Ham.

Not to be confused with a rather more well-known London borough, the county division of Brent can be found on the Somerset Levels, covering the countryside between Burnham-on-Sea and Weston-super-Mare.  It has the M5 Sedgemoor service area at its geographic centre; the service area was once known as Brent Knoll, after the isolated hill nearby which dominates the surrounding landscape and gives its name to this division.

While Somerset county council is often closely fought between the Tories and Lib Dems, with lots of marginal divisions, this is not one of them partly thanks to a large personal vote for Alan Ham, who originally gained the seat off the Liberals (on slightly different boundaries) in a 1988 by-election, and saw his vote grow to almost 70% at his final re-election in 2009 (C 69.9 LD 24.7 Lab 5.4).  At Sedgemoor district council level the two-and-a-half wards covered by the division (Berrow, Knoll and part of Axevale) are also safely Conservative; when the Lib Dems gained the local parliamentary seat of Wells last year this was probably not one of the areas which voted for them.

This time Labour have decided not to waste their time standing and the by-election is a two-horse race between the Tories and Lib Dems.  The Tories have selected a controversial local farmer and Axevale district councillor, while the Lib Dem candidate is a Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge town councillor who narrowly failed to get elected to Sedgemoor council in May in a previously safe Lib Dem ward.

RAYLEIGH CENTRAL, Rochford, Essex; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Tony Humphries.

Part of the badly-planned urban sprawl of South Essex, the market town of Rayleigh can be found six miles north-west of Southend-on-Sea.  On the site of a Norman castle and medieval royal hunting ground, the town has expanded greatly in recent years thanks to overspill from London, to which it is linked by the A127 arterial road and a station on the Liverpool Street-Southend Victoria line.

The town is covered by eight wards of Rochford council; this ward is rather misnamed in that it doesn't cover the town centre but instead is a residential area east of the town centre, bounded to the south by the Eastwood Road.

While Rochford council was Lib Dem controlled from 1994 to 1998, South Essex as a whole swung a mile to the right during the Blair years and the Conservatives now have a strong council majority with a rather fragmented opposition; the eight opposition councillors consist of four Lib Dems (all in western Rayleigh), two Residents and two Greens, following a Green Party gain at a by-election in June this year, and there have been good votes in the district for UKIP, BNP and English Democrat candidates.  The Green gain was in the rather isolated Hullbridge ward; Rayleigh Central is very different in that the Lib Dems are normally the nearest opposition to the Conservatives. 

The ward was reasonably close when it was created in 2002, with the two Conservative councillors having majorities of 105 and 76, but this wasn't followed up by the Lib Dems, who allowed the Conservatives to win unopposed in 2004 and have trailed in a distant second ever since.  The most recent result in 2010 looked rather more encouraging from the Lib Dem point of view (C 54.7 LD 30.9 English Democrats 14.4), but that was on the same day as the most recent general election and there is still a long way to go for the Tories to lose this one.

Candidates for the by-election are again Conservative, Lib Dem and English Democrat.  The Conservative candidate is a former chairman of Rayleigh town council, the Lib Dem candidate is the wife of the leader of the Lib Dem group on the district council, and the English Democrat candidate came a creditable second in Hullbridge ward in May.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Just the one by-election on 8th December.

HAMILTON WEST AND EARNOCK, South Lanarkshire; caused by the death of an independent councillor.

Twelve miles south-east of Glasgow on the M74 to England, Hamilton is the main administrative centre of South Lanarkshire, although it is not the council's largest town (that's East Kilbride).  This ward, as the name suggests, covers the west of the town together with the suburb of Earnock (which has now been swallowed up by the town) and a rural area towards East Kilbride.

First preferences in 2007 were Lab 38.1 SNP 25.1 Ind 22.6 C 9.6 Grn 2.6 SSP 2.0, with Labour winning two seats, the SNP one and an independent, whose policy was to oppose the then Labour-controlled council's policy on local high schools, also being elected.  (Since 2007 the council has been controlled by a Labour/Conservative coalition.)  The ward is part of the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency at Holyrood; this seat was one of the SNP gains in May.

Just three candidates have been nominated for the by-election, Labour, SNP and Conservative.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

By-elections on 15th December:

FELTHAM AND HESTON: see separate thread.


CLARE AND SHUTTERN, Mid Devon District Council; caused by the resignation of Conservative councillor Nigel Burrough.

Clare and Shuttern is a very rural ward, covering the sparsely-populated countryside north of Tiverton along the Exe Valley as far as the Somerset border.  The largest settlement in the ward is the village of Bampton.

When the ward was created in 2003 it elected a Conservative and an Independent councillor, but the Conservatives gained the second seat in 2007 and held the two seats fairly easily in 2011 against only Independent opposition.  The ward is part of the Tiverton West electoral division, which the Conservatives narrowly gained from an Independent in 2009.

The Conservatives have nominated for the by-election their Tiverton West county councillor Polly Colthorpe, who was a district councillor for this ward (and once deputy leader of Mid Devon council) until May this year.  The more successful Independent candidate from May, Bampton parish councillor Terry Knagg, is standing again and there is also a UKIP candidate.


COOMBE VALE, Kingston upon Thames Royal Borough Council, South London; a rare double by-election caused by the resignations of Conservative councillors James White (who has since died) and Robert-John Tasker (who has got a job in the USA).

Probably a more pressing priority for the south-west London Lib Dems than the Feltham and Heston by-election is this council by-election in a marginal C/LD ward.  Coombe Vale ward can be found to the north-west of New Malden railway station on the South Western Main Line, and is basically bounded by Coombe Road and Traps Lane to the east and Coombe Lane West to the north.  This is a very affluent commuter area, with the main demographic pecularity being a very large Korean population (although most of the Koreans living here wouldn't be eligible to vote).

Until 2006 Kingston upon Thames council tended to seesaw between the Conservatives and Lib Dems at every election.  When this ward was created in 2002 the Lib Dems were on the up and they won two of the three seats in the ward, the top two Conservative candidates dead-heating for the final seat which had to be decided by lots.  In 2006 the Lib Dems lost five seats on the council, and two of them were in this ward as the Conservatives won all three seats with a convincing majority.  The Tories held all three seats in 2010 but with much smaller majorities of 311, 89 and 79 votes.  The Lib Dems will hope to follow through with two gains in the by-election, while the Tories can point out that this ward is in the Richmond Park constituency which the Tories gained off Lib Dem Susan Kramer last year.  An interesting fight is in prospect.

The by-election has pairs of candidates from the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Labour, the Christian Peoples Alliance and the Greens together with a single UKIP candidate.  One of the Conservative candidates is Lynne Finnerty; she will presumably be hoping to take the Tory vote share beyond last time's...


FRISBY ON THE WREAKE, Melton District Council, Leicestershire; caused by the death of Conservative councillor Nigel Angrave.

One of Britain's more unintentionally humerous ward names, this conjures up in my mind an image of an out-of-control frisbee causing Fentonesque chaos.  (On the other hand it's not the most humorous ward as anyone who has ever heard the Bolton pronounciation of Tonge with The Haulgh will attest.)  The truth is more bucolic: this is rolling Leicestershire countryside between Leicester and the pork pie town of Melton Mowbray, consisting of the villages of Grimston and Hoby on the north side of the River Wreake, and Rotherby, Kirby Bellars and Frisby on the Wreake itself on the opposite bank.

Nigel Angrave was elected unopposed for the ward in 2003 and 2007.  He did face a contested election in May but easily defeated the Labour candidate by 71.0% to 29.0%.  The ward is part of the safe Conservative county division of Asfordby.

The by-election again has Conservative and Labour candidates, with two independents also standing.


SHETLAND CENTRAL, Shetland Islands Council; caused by the resignation of Iris Hawkins, who is getting married.  This is the last local by-election in Scotland before May's full council elections.

Shetland is by far the most northerly council in the UK, and with this by-election taking place in mid-December there are less than six hours of daylight on polling day (sunrise 0903, sunset 1456) which must be some sort of record.

As the name suggests, this ward covers the centre of the Shetland Mainland west of Lerwick, from Girlsta in the north to Scalloway in the south.  At the centre of the ward is Lerwick/Tingwall Airport, from which flights depart to various outlying islands.  The ward also covers the islands of Tronda, West Burra and East Burra which are connected to Mainland by a series of causeways, together with some smaller uninhabited islands.  The main centre of population is Scalloway, a harbour on the west coast with strong historical links to Norway (the "Shetland Bus" Second World War resistance movement had its home here) and is now a service base for the recently-developed Schiehallion oil field.

You can't talk about the Shetland Islands Council without mentioning oil; the islands have Europe's largest oil terminal at Sullom Voe, and over the years the Council has built up an enormous oil fund making it one of the richest councils in the UK.  (London and Edinburgh, please take note.)  As North Sea oil declines, this ward could play its part in the next generation of energy, with an enormous windfarm planned covering almost the entire Central ward - the Scottish Ministers are currently dithering over whether to say yes or no to the idea.  Unfortunately the council is also running a huge deficit which has led to the closure of the secondary school in Scalloway, and there are various allegations that the council has been dipping into the oil fund to try to plug the deficit, with most of the people involved in the running of the oil fund having been sucked into the controversy.

Elections in Shetland are basically non-partisan and until PR was brought in were often uncontested.  The 2007 election returned Iris Hawkins, who had previously represented the single-member Scalloway ward, and new councillors Andrew Hughson and Betty Fullerton; all three of them polled over 21% of first preferences and were a long way ahead of the other five candidates.  The by-election sees six candidates, in alphabetical order:

* Stephen Morgan is the outgoing head of children's services at the council.
* Clive Richardson is an official Conservative candidate.
* Davie Sanderson is the chairman of Scalloway Community Council and runs Shetland Aquaculture; there is a fisheries college in Scalloway.
* Ian Scott was the runner-up in 2007, polling 10.8% of first preferences, and also lost to Hawkins in 2003 in Scalloway ward.  He is standing on an anti-cuts platform.
* Scotty van der Tol came bottom of the poll in 2007 with 19 votes (1.6%), when he was known as Scotty Dyble.  He is a UKIPper who favours independence for Shetland.
* Robert Williamson is a GMB union rep.

Pretty much anybody could win out of that lot, except possibly van der Tol.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

A rare Monday by-election today.

19th December: WORLINGHAM, Waveney DC, Suffolk; a rare Monday by-election caused by the resignation of ex-Conservative councillor and favourite subject of Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs column Andrew Draper.  Draper left the Conservative group in August after he was convicted of drink-driving and assaulting a police officer, but remained on the council as an independent until finally resigning in November after being charged with sending an offensive email to a police officer and possessing a prohibited weapon.

Waveney council covers the north-eastern corner of Suffolk and is named after the River Waveney, which here forms the boundary with Norfolk.  The main town in the district is Lowestoft, and the district also includes the towns of Beccles, Bungay, Halesworth and Southwold.  The village of Worlingham is effectively an eastern suburb of Beccles; the Worlingham ward also includes the villages of North Cove and Barnby on the road to Lowestoft, together with part of the Broads National Park to the north.

For the most part Waveney is a classic Conservative/Labour battle with the Labour vote concentrated in Lowestoft and the Conservatives cleaning up in the rural areas, although as often happens there are some deviations from this pattern; in particular, the Green Party are very strong in Beccles.

Draper's decision in August to stay on as a councillor probably had
something to do with the political balance of the council: before his resignation there were 23 Conservative councillors, 23 Labour, one Green (in Beccles North) and one Independent councillor, with the Conservatives forming the administration with the support of the Independent councillor, who is chairman of the council.   Waveney ditched elections by thirds this year and moved to whole council elections every four years; with the next elections not being until 2015 that is a long time to rely on the council chairman's casting vote.

As can be seen the council is evenly split 24-24 between the administration and the opposition, so a Conservative loss in the Worlingham by-election could result in Labour taking control of the council with the support of the Green councillor.  So, will the Conservatives lose this by-election?

In almost any other circumstances I would confidently say no - it's a safe ward and in recent years has usually given the Conservative candidate over half the vote, with Labour finishing a fairly strong second and the Greens picking up about 15% in third.  However, on the other side of the equation is the circumstances of Draper's resignation, which could provide a boost to the opposition parties.  Still, given past form in the ward the Conservatives have to start as strong favourites and a Labour (or Green) gain would be a real shock.

The by-election sees candidates from the three main parties, the Greens and UKIP.  The Lib Dems are standing in the ward for the first time since 2007 and UKIP last stood here in 2002.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Three tomorrow in the last by-elections of the year, and it's the Urban W's: Walsall, Wembley and Westbourne.

WEMBLEY CENTRAL, Brent LBC, North London; caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Jayesh Mistry.

Wembley is, of course, internationally famous for association football, with Wembley Stadium being the home of the England football team and traditional venue for major domestic matches such as the FA Cup final, as well as this year's and next year's Champions League final.  The original stadium (which was demolished in 2000) was built in the 1920s as the centrepiece of the British Empire Exhibition, which provided one impetus for the major inter-war housing developments that turned Wembley from a detached Middlesex town into part of the London urban sprawl. 

This ward doesn't include the stadium but is instead based on the town centre and Wembley Central station on the West Coast Main Line, which is also served by the Euston-Watford line of the London Overground and the Bakerloo line of the Underground; parts of the ward are also served by Alperton underground station on the Uxbridge branch of the Piccadilly Line.

Wembley is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the UK, and the 2001 census found a non-white population in Wembley Central ward of 77%, one of the highest figures in the country.  Indians were the largest ethnic group forming almost 40% of the population; 39% gave their religion as Hindu and 15% as Muslim.  The ward is generally economically working-class, with all but one of its census areas in the most deprived 20%-40% in England.

Since its creation in 2002 this has consistently been a Lib Dem/Labour marginal ward at Brent council level.  The Lib Dems won all three seats in 2002 with majorities of 120, 93 and 54, and held all three seats in 2006 with majorities of 205, 111 and 90, and held a by-election in 2009 with a majority of 261 after one of their councillors was found guilty of fraud.  Labour gained the ward in 2010 with majorities of 527, 230 and 155 on a much higher turnout.  At the 2008 GLA elections Labour carried the ward with 37.9% to 21.1% for the Lib Dems, 14.7% for the Conservatives and 10.9% for the Greens, while Ken beat Boris by 53.1% to 24.7%.

Candidates for the by-election are the three main parties, all of whom are standing Asian candidates, plus the Greens, who aren't.

WESTBOURNE, Brighton and Hove; caused by the resigation of Conservative ex-Leader of the Council Brian Oxley.

This ward is in Hove, actually.  It runs down from Aldrington railway station to the seafront, with Westbourne Street and Westbourne Villas running along the centre of the ward.  Hove has traditionally seen itself as socially superior to Brighton, which has a brasher reputation, but interestingly the demographics of this ward don't reflect this - five of the ward's six census areas are in the wrong half of the deprivation indices and the other is right in the middle.

Despite this, the ward was safe Conservative in 2003 (when Labour won Brighton and Hove council for the last time) and 2007, when the Conservatives were a handful of seats off a majority and Oxley became Leader of the Council.  In 2011, the Greens famously became the largest party on the still-hung council and now have a minority administration here - the first Green administration on any principal council in Britain.  Most of the Green vote is in Brighton, but the Green surge was felt here and turned the ward into a three-way marginal - C 35.5 Lab 29.5 Grn 26.3 LD 7.6 European Citizens Party 1.1.

The Green administration is apparently pretty popular so if there is any further increase in their vote a Green gain cannot be ruled out.  Labour can look to the demographics (although they were nowhere near winning in 2003 when they controlled the city council), while the Conservatives will be looking to make the ward safe again.

For some reason a lot of candidates have come out of the woodwork for this one, and the four main parties are joined by UKIP, the Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts and the European Citizens Party.

BIRCHILLS LEAMORE, Walsall MBC, West Midlands; caused by the death of Labour councillor Joan Barton.

Drive down the M6 into the Black County, taking care to avoid the toll road, and just after the M54 joins a view opens out on the left-hand side of an unambiguously industrial landscape with several prominent blocks of high-rise flats.  This is Leamore, part of Birchills Leamore ward.

As the name suggests, the ward covers two distinct parts of the borough of Walsall.  Birchills is located just outside the town centre ring road in the south-east corner of the ward, while Leamore is a large council estate in the west of the ward on the opposite side of a canal, hard up against the M6 as stated.  The ward scores very highly on the deprivation indices; apart from Pouk Hill in the south-west corner every census area in the ward is in the most deprived 20% in England.

In Walsall demographics like this don't necessarily produce a safe Labour ward, because the local Labour party has an extremely wacky reputation.  Labour won all three seats in 2004 comfortably enough, but their councillor who was up in 2006 defected to the Conservatives and came within 70 votes of being re-elected in her new colours.  One of the Labour councillors resigned in 2008 over child porn allegations and Labour then lost the by-election to the Conservatives by 103 votes.  Labour got the seat back in 2010, but only by 171 votes, before performing much more strongly this May.

Candidates for the by-election are Labour, Conservative, Greens, UKIP and the English Democrats; the Conservative candidate was the winer of the 2008 by-election.

Finally, it is obligatory to mention Slade because IT'S CHRISTMAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSS!: Noddy Holder grew up in Leamore and the cover of Ambrose Slade's first album Beginnings is a photograph of the band on Pouk Hill.

On that note, it may be an opportune time to wish the people reading these previews (both of them) a Merry Christmas.  There will be a new thread in time for the first council by-elections of the new year on 12th January.