Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, South Tyneside, North Tyneside, and Hartlepool councils are all staging local elections on Thursday, May 7
Votes being counted in the local elections in 2024 at Gateshead International Stadium.(Image: Craig Connor/ChronicleLive)
Thousands of voters in the North East will be heading to the polls next for local elections that could redefine the region’s political landscape. May 7 promises to be a fascinating election day and one that will have enormous implications for the future of our towns and cities.
Critical elections are being held in Tyne and Wear, as well as in Hartlepool, with Labour’s dominance of the region under threat.
What elections are being held in the North East this year?
Local council elections are being held in each of the five boroughs of Tyne and Wear this May – in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, South Tyneside, and North Tyneside. For the first four of those, this year is an ‘all out’ election.
That means that every single council seat in each area will be contested, rather than the usual one-third, after boundary reviews took place. 78 councillors will be elected in Newcastle, 66 in Gateshead, 75 in Sunderland, and 54 in South Tyneside.
In North Tyneside, only a third of seats are being contested – with one councillor to be elected for each of its 20 wards. That is also the case in Hartlepool, where 12 out of its total 36 seats are up for grabs.
When is polling day?
Polling stations will be open from 7am to 10pm on Thursday, May 7. Photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence, is now required to vote in person at local elections in England. Lists of candidates standing in each area will be published following the close of nominations on Thursday, April 9.
Why are local elections not being held everywhere?
The county councils in Durham and Northumberland hold their elections once every four years and last did so in May 2025, meaning their next polls will be in 2029. Unitary authorities in Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees, and Darlington also run elections on a four-year cycle and are next due in 2027.
The next elections for the North East mayor and Tees Valley mayoral posts will be in May 2028.
What is at stake?
These elections have the potential to radically reshape the balance of power in the North East. Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, and South Tyneside councils are all run by Labour at the moment, but the national polls suggest that Sir Keir Starmer’s party could be in for a brutal election day across the country. Because those four areas are staging all out elections, opposing parties will be hoping to capitalise on a major chance for them to seize power in areas long viewed as Labour heartlands.
Following a landslide victory in County Durham in 2025, all eyes will be on whether Reform UK can repeat that success elsewhere in the North East. Nigel Farage chose Sunderland to launch the party’s local elections campaign last week and has predicted Reform will take a majority on Wearside and in Gateshead, where the council has come under heavy criticism over issues like the closure of the A167 flyover.
In Newcastle, Labour has seen its number of councillors dwindle over the past few years and now runs a minority administration. The Lib Dems have been the opposition party in the city since Labour returned to power in 2011 and have long hoped that these elections could offer them a repeat of the 2004 poll that took them to control of the Civic Centre. Both Reform and the Greens, who have a growing presence in the city and have been bolstered by the recruitment of ex-North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll, are eyeing major gains too – making Newcastle an intriguing contest to watch.
The iron grip Labour once held on South Tyneside has eroded heavily over recent years, too. Greens and independents have been making substantial inroads in South Tyneside at recent elections and will hope to do so once again, with Reform surely hoping to be in the mix too.
Labour has 17 seats to defend in North Tyneside, but its current dominance of the authority means that its majority is safe at these elections. Labour could lose its majority in Hartlepool, however, where it currently holds 21 of 36 council seats.
When will the results be announced?
All of the five Tyne and Wear councils will be conducting their vote count during the daytime on Friday, May 8, rather than overnight immediately after the polls close.
Those holding all out elections are expected to split their counting between morning and afternoon sessions, with the final wards being declared by around 5pm on the Friday. Hartlepool Borough Council is due to hold its count overnight, announcing its results through the early hours.
When is the deadline for registering to vote?
The deadline for registering to vote is 11.59pm on Monday, April 20. You can so online at gov.uk/register-to-vote
Can I get a postal vote?
The deadline for applying to vote by post is 5pm on Tuesday, April 21. The deadline for applying to vote by proxy is 5pm on Tuesday, April 28.
And the deadline for applying for a Voter Authority Certificate, a free document that you can apply for if you do not have a valid form of photo ID, is 5pm on Tuesday, April 28.
