2011 Sunderland City Council election

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One third of 75 seats onSunderland City Council 38 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Party Labour Conservative Independent Seats before 52 18 4 Seats won 21 3 1 Seats after 56 14 4 Seat change 4 4 0   Fourth party   Party Liberal Democrats Seats before 1 Seats won 0 Seats after 1 Seat change 0
Map of the 2011 Sunderland City Council election results.Labour in red,Independents in grey andConservatives in blue.
Majority party before election Labour Majority party after election Labour

The2011 Sunderland Council election took place on 5 May 2011 to elect members ofSunderlandMetropolitan Borough Council inTyne and Wear, England. One third of the council was up for election and theLabour Party stayed in overall control of the council.^[1][2]

Before the election Labour ran the council with 52 seats, compared to 18Conservatives, 1Liberal Democrat and 4independents, with 1 of the 4 independents being described as an "Independent Conservative".^[3] 26 seats were being contested in the election with 2 seats being available in Sandhillward, aftercouncillor Jim Scott stood down from the council.^[3]

Labour were hopeful of making gains due to a backlash against the national Conservative led government and risingunemployment.^[3] However the Conservatives hoped the nationalcouncil tax freeze and pension increases would help the party do well and blamed the previous Labour government for the economic situation.^[3] Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats said they would focus on local issues and targeted Millfield ward.^[3]

Other candidates included 7 from theGreen Party and 3 from theUnited Kingdom Independence Party.^[3] However theBritish National Party did not put up any candidates, after contesting every seat in some previous elections.^[3]

The results saw Labour increase their majority on the council after gaining 4 seats from the Conservatives to have 56 councillors.^[4][5] The gains came in the wards of St Chad's, St Peter's,Washington East and Washington South and left the Conservatives with 14 seats.^[4][5] The Liberal Democrats had a bad election, coming fourth in many seats, after a drop in their share of the vote.^[5] Meanwhile, independent Colin Wakefield held his seat in Copt Hill by 428 votes over Labour.^[5] Neither the Green Party or the United Kingdom Independence Party won any seats, but the Greens came third in 6 of the 7 seats they had contested and the United Kingdom Independence Party came second inHetton.^[6] Overallturnout in the election was 35.1%.^[4]

Sunderland kept up its position as a quick counter of results, with the first result inPallion being declared at 10.53pm, after the polls had closed at 10pm.^[5] The council was also the first to finish counting with the final results being declared at 1am.^[7] The Labour leader of the council Paul Watson held the seat in Pallion and put Labour's success down to the cuts being made by the national government^[5] and as an endorsement of the city council.^[6] The Conservative group leader Paul Morrissey meanwhile said his party had suffered due to being in government nationally.^[6]

Sunderland local election result 2011^[8]

Party		Seats	Gains	Losses	Net gain/loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/−
	Labour	22	4	0	4	84.6	60.3	49,898	11.3%
	Conservative	3	0	4	4	11.5	25.7	21,303	0.5%
	Liberal Democrats	0	0	0	0	0	5.1	4,185	13.2%
	Independent	1	0	0	0	3.8	4.6	3,782	0.6%
	Green	0	0	0	0	0	2.4	1,979	2.1%
	UKIP	0	0	0	0	0	2.0	1,654	2.0%

This resulted in the following composition of the council:

• 2011 English local elections
• Sunderland City Council elections
• 2010s in Tyne and Wear

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