Labour’s Sefton grip tightens, but Southport remains contested ground

Results in the 2024 local election for Sefton Council were devoid of any major shocks, with Labour winning 17 of the 22 contested seats across the borough.

Labour needed just two seats to confirm it would hold overall control of Sefton Council.

The election in Southport was a closely contested affair, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats both securing three seats, and the Conservatives managing to secure a single seat in Duke’s ward.

The Liberal Democrats won the popular vote in Southport (the number of votes cast regardless of ward boundary) for a second consecutive year by 550 seats.

While Southport’s Conservatives will be pleased with Councillor Mike Prendergast’s successful defence of his seat in Duke’s, there was little else to celebrate. The party saw fewer votes than in 2023 in six of the seven Southport wards and has lost 3,337 votes in Southport since this set of seats were last contested in 2021. Their popular vote in Southport is at its lowest since 2016.

Councillor Prendergast, the Conservative leader on Sefton Council, will contest the parliamentary seat for West Lancs in the coming general election.

Liberal Democrat candidates Lynne Thompson and John Dodd held their seats (Ainsdale and Meols, respectively) at a canter, while in Kew, Daniel Lewis gave Labour’s Jennifer Corcoran a closer race than most were expecting. Their vote in the ward was at its highest in 9 years but wasn’t enough to oust the sitting Labour councillor.

The Liberal Democrats also managed to hold Cambridge, with newly elected Mike Sammon successfully defending Sinclair D’Albuquerque’s seat – cueing some friendly arguments about whether the seat was a gain or a hold given that Cllr D’Albuquerque won the seat for the Conservatives before defecting to the Liberal Democrats.

The Green Party earned the highest number of votes it had ever received in a Sefton Council election, 5,445, and successfully took a seat in Church ward. However, the success was not replicated in Southport, where, with 1,410 votes, it still trails 700 votes behind its peak success in 2015.

Given Labour’s solid grip on the ward, a win for newly elected Labour’s Dave Neary in Norwood was never really in doubt. Labour’s effort to secure votes here has been substantial. As a comparison, it’s worth noting that in 2010, the ward was such a lost cause for Labour that they declined to field a candidate.

Sonya Kelly retained her seat for Labour in Birkdale and remains the only Labour representative ever to win in the ward that is otherwise a Lib Dem stronghold. Liberal Democrat Erin Harvey, who will stand for MPs seat in the coming months, trailed by just 78 votes.

While solid results were clear in Kew, Birkdale and Norwood, the dominance Labour enjoys elsewhere in Sefton is still not immediately obvious across the Southport wards.

With a general election looming, Labour has its eye on the first-ever Southport MP in the coming months but is not picking up votes in Duke’s, Meols, and Cambridge as it might hope and certainly needs. Votes did rise in those three wards, but not at the level Labour will require to send a Southport MP to Parliament. The pending boundary change will complicate matters significantly. Tonight’s local results combined with the national picture have set up a significant three-way battle that is too close to call.