The 2023 Sunderland City Council election took place on 4 May 2023 to elect members of Sunderland City Council. There were 25 of the 75 seats of the council up for election, being the usual third of the council. The election took place at the same time as other local elections across England.
Labour retained its majority on the council. The Liberal Democrats overtook the Conservatives to become the largest opposition party. The Liberal Democrats were led into the election by Niall Hodson, but he was replaced as party leader after the election by Paul Edgeworth.
25 of the 75 seats will be up for election
Since the first election in 1973, Sunderland has been a strongly Labour council, which consistently achieves over 60% control of the council. However, in recent years they have lost seats to the Conservatives, UKIP and Liberal Democrats. The seats up for election this year were last elected in 2019. In that election, Labour lost 10 seats, The Conservatives gained 4 and Liberal Democrats gained 3.
In 2022, Labour defied speculation they would continue to haemorrhage, Leader Graeme Miller commented that "It was a good night" for his party because they "stopped the rot".
Since the last election, three councillors have defected from the Conservatives, one to Labour, one to Reform UK, and one who currently sits as an Independent and is not standing for re-election. In the last election the Conservatives were outperformed by the Liberal Democrats, who gained one more seat. There was speculation that the Liberal Democrats could take over from the Conservatives as the main opposition party on the council.
In the last council, the composition of the council was:
After the election, the composition of the council was:
An asterisk next to a candidate's name denotes an incumbent councillor. All changes shown below are in relation to the 2019 local election.
The election in Hendon was countermanded due to the death of the Conservative candidate, Syed Ali. It was held on 15 June.
Iain Scott was elected in a by-election on 30 September 2021 due to the death of the incumbent Labour councillor Doris Turner.
John Usher was elected in a by-election on 3 March 2022 due to the resignation of the incumbent Independent councillor Keith Jenkins.
Pam Mann won this seat in 2019 as a UKIP candidate.