Sunderland's newest councillor 'over the moon' after Labour wins Redhill by-election

Councillor John Usher clinched victory in the Redhill ward poll with 709 votes, compared to the 386 received by the Liberal Democrat candidate Steve Donkin in second.

City Council leader, Cllr Graeme Miller, said he was delighted at the result, which shows Labour “are back”.

The by-election took place on Thursday evening to fill the vacancy left by Keith Jenkins, a former UKIP and later independent councillor, who stepped down from the local authority in January 2022.

Cllr Usher said the result showed their hard work in the area over recent weeks and months has paid off.

He said: “I’d just like to thank everybody that voted and who came out and especially given the fact it was raining and stuff like that, I’m absolutely over the moon, delighted.

“We’ve done a lot of hard work, we’ve been doing this for about six weeks now, we’ve been out on Thursday, we’ve done a 12 hour shift, 8 till 8.

“In the main on the doorsteps it was positive for Labour so I’m really pleased about that, and we took votes away from the Tories which was good, so overall very happy.”

He added he is keen to ensure the party delivers on its manifesto and tackles issues such as fly-tipping and providing free replacement bins if they are stolen.

Cllr Usher said: “We’ve been out with groups like the Friends of Bunny Hill and people like that, doing litter-picks, we’ve been over at Downhill Pond.

“We haven’t just been going out campaigning, we’ve been helping the local groups and giving them funding as well, so that’s been really good and obviously gets us noticed and gets us out there.”

He also praised the support of Labour colleagues in Sunderland and across the North East in supporting him on the campaign trail.

Labour’s Cllr Miller added: “I was very confident coming in here that this was a good strong Labour win.

“It was vital that we took this seat, took a UKIP seat out and gave us an extra Labour councillor.

“I’m delighted, the team has worked hard, we’ve taken a seat back for Labour and the opposition have been clearly shown that we are back.”

In total five candidates were vying for the position, with Conservative Sue Leishman picking up 196 votes to finish third, ahead of UKIP and Green candidates.

Cllr Niall Hodson, leader of the Wearside Liberal Democrats, congratulated Cllr Usher, but warned the result shows they will be challenging the Labour Party across the city in the upcoming local elections.

He said: “It shows that they are really vulnerable to the threat from the Lib Dems across Sunderland, we’ve come from nowhere to come in a strong second place here just like in Hetton last year.

“It shows that anywhere in Sunderland we can pose the strongest challenge to Labour.”

Cllr Usher joins fellow Labour representatives Alison Smith and Paul Stewart as elected members for the Redhill ward.

The total turnout for the by-election was 18% with 1,417 votes cast out of a total electorate of 7,860.

Results in full for the Redhill by-election:

Steve Donkin (Liberal Democrat) 386

Helmut Izaks (Green Party) 35

Sue Leishman (Conservative) 196

Ian Lines (UKIP) 85

John Usher (Labour) 709

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