2007 Sunderland City Council election

Before the election the council had 57 Labour, 13 Conservative, 4 independent and 1 Liberal Democrat councillors. In the period since the previous local elections in May 2006, three councillors had left their parties to sit as Independents: Peter Maddison leaving the Liberal Democrat Group in July 2006, and Bryn Sidaway (Hendon) and George Blyth (Doxford) leaving the Labour Group in November 2006.^[3] Blyth's ward colleague Mike Tansey had previously left the Labour Group to sit as an Independent in November 2005, and stood for re-election as an Independent candidate in this election.^[4]

25 seats were contested in the 2007 elections with a total of 111 candidates standing.^[5] These included a full 25 each from the Labour, Conservative and British National Party, as well as 16 independents, 15 Liberal Democrats, 2 Respect, 2 British First Party and 1 from the United Kingdom Independence Party.^[5]

As at the 2006 election this election saw Sunderland have three polling stations open for 10 days before election day in an attempt to make voting more convenient for voters.^[6]

The results had Labour stay in control of the council but with a smaller majority.^[7] The Conservatives gained 3 seats from Labour in St Chads, Washington East and Washington South to hold 16 seats compared to 54 for Labour.^[8] The 2 Conservative gains in Washington were the first time the party had won seats in the town since it became part of Sunderland council.^[9] Labour also lost one seat to an independent in Copt Hill, but regained another in Doxford where the sitting independent councillor, Mike Tansey, had originally been elected for the Labour Party.^[7] This meant there remained 4 Independents on the council, as well as 1 Liberal Democrat who was not defending a seat in the election.^[8] Overall turnout in the election was 34%, up on 32% at the 2006 election.^[9]

Sunderland local election result 2007^[2][10]

Party		Seats	Gains	Losses	Net gain/loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/−
	Labour	17	0	4	4	68	43.3	31,148	2.8%
	Conservative	7	3	0	3	28	28.1	20,223	0.3%
	Independent	1	1	0	1	4	8.3	5,992	7.6%
	BNP	0	0	0	0	0	10.6	7,653	4.0%
	Liberal Democrats	0	0	0	0	0	8.7	6,293	7.0%
	British First Party	0	0	0	0	0	0.5	335	0.5%
	Respect	0	0	0	0	0	0.3	224	0.3%
	UKIP	0	0	0	0	0	0.1	72	0.1%

This resulted in the following composition of the Council:

†Mike Tansey had been elected in 2004 as a Labour candidate, but subsequently left the party to sit as an Independent councillor. The result was technically a hold for Labour although Tansey, the incumbent, lost his seat.