Need to know

North East local election stories you might have missed from the campaign trail

May 7 promises to be a huge local election day for the North East as voters in Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and Hartlepool elect new councillors

As voters across the North East prepare to head to the polls for a crunch set of local council elections on May 7, here are some of the stories you may have missed from the campaign trail…

• Nigel Farage chose Sunderland to kick off Reform UK’s local election campaign in March and declared the May 7 polls a “referendum on Keir Starmer and this Labour government”. Mr Farage also made headlines after claiming that a Sunderland AFC director had invited him to a match at the Stadium of Light, which he later said he would not be doing when he returned to the North East to visit high streets in South Shields and Gateshead.
• Reform expelled one of its election candidates in Gateshead after it emerged that David Prior was formerly a member of the British National Party (BNP). Another of its Gateshead Council candidates, Linda McFarlane, has also come under pressure over “appalling” posts on social media.
• Labour’s North East mayor, Kim McGuinness, clashed with Nigel Farage over plans for a major expansion of wind farms off our region’s coastline. She later branded Reform “charlatans who will lie and cheat their way into power”, with Labour alleging that they could pose a threat to promised regeneration plans in places like Gateshead town centre.
• Sir Keir Starmer was in Newcastle in April, as the Prime Minister came under mounting pressure over the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal, and insisted that his party’s candidates were in good spirits – despite predictions that Labour could be in for a bruising election day.
• Green leader Zack Polanski came to Tyneside to call for faster action to bring bus services back into public hands, while also addressing concerns over antisemitism among some of his party’s candidates. The Greens have withdrawn support for several candidates in Newcastle following allegations of antisemitic social media posts, while one was also found to have admitted to environmental offences in court last year.
• Kemi Badenoch promised to prove that her Conservative Party had “changed” when she came to Sunderland, where she also spoke about the cost of energy bills.
• Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, meanwhile, urged voters to reject “nasty, divisive politics” and took aim at Reform’s record since winning control of Durham County Council last year.
• The tone of the election campaign has been a hot topic, particularly following the vandalism of a Labour councillor’s home in Newcastle. Lemington councillor Stephen Barry-Stanners found vile messages spraypainted on the outside of his house, reading “Peedo Scum” and “Peedo live here”.
• Voters in some of our region’s key election battlegrounds have been having their say too. The Newcastle east end seat of Walker is a target for both Reform and the Greens, with locals there urging whoever takes control of the city council to deal with long-standing complaints over anti-social behaviour and drug dealing around Walker Park.
• People in Sunderland urged Labour to “regain the trust” of the public, in a city that the party has controlled since the council was created in the 1970s. And in the Gateshead villages of Crawcrook and Greenside, local businesses also shared their dissatisfaction with Labour since the 2024 general election.