Biography

The 2012 North East Lincolnshire Council election took place on 3 May 2012 to elect members of North East Lincolnshire Council in England.^[1] This was on the same day as other 2012 United Kingdom local elections.

Council make up

After the 2012 local election, the political make up of the council was as follows:^[2]

Party	Number of councillors
Labour	25
Conservative	12
Liberal Democrats	4
UKIP	1
Green	0
Independent	0

Labour won a majority of the seats on the authority for the first time since the 1999 local elections, making considerable gains from the Liberal Democrats who failed to win a single seat on the council at these elections. Labour gained a seat in Park ward - once seen as the safest Lib Dem ward on the council and only ever won by Lib Dem candidates since the creation of the authority. The Liberal Democrats were also reduced to just four seats - below their previous low point of just 5 seats after the 1999 local elections.

The Conservatives won no wards within the Great Grimsby constituency on the authority - only the second time this had happened in the authority's history, the first being the inaugural elections in 1995. UKIP also won their first seat on the authority in Scartho, a seat that was considered safe for the Conservatives, having won it at every local election since 1999.^[3]

UKIP also made considerable progress in many other wards which they would go on to win over the next few years, including Humberston & New Waltham, where at these elections, UKIP came little over 200 votes short of defeating Conservative councillor and Grimsby Town Football Club chairman John Fenty, a seat which UKIP would gain at a by-election in 2013 following the death of Fenty's fellow councillor, John Colebrook, and successfully held this seat when it was next up for election in 2014.

Ward results

Croft Baker

Croft Baker 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Terry Thurogood	1327
	UKIP	Philip Raymond Wilson	448
	Liberal Democrats	Leanor Mary Pidgen	418
	Conservative	Debbie Landymore	364
Majority			879
	Labour gain from Liberal Democrats		Swing

East Marsh

East Marsh 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Jon-Paul Howarth	789
	Liberal Democrats	Jeanette Mary McLeod Ferguson	335
	UKIP	Henry Richard Hudson	215
	Conservative	Phillip John Dumbrell	105
	Green	Martin Leslie Reed	61
Majority			454
	Labour gain from Liberal Democrats		Swing

Note: Jon-Paul Howarth theoretically holds his seat, as he was elected as a Liberal Democrat when the seat was last fought in 2008, but quit the party to sit as an Independent, and went on to defect to the Labour Party mid-term.

Freshney

Freshney 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Cliff Barber	1043
	Conservative	David Anthony Hasthorpe	332
	UKIP	Stephen Whittingham	332
	Liberal Democrats	Kevin Bakr	112
	Independent	Keith Watkin	87
Majority			711
	Labour gain from Liberal Democrats		Swing

Note: Cliff Barber theoretically holds his seat, as he was elected as a Liberal Democrat when the seat was last fought in 2008, but defected to the Labour Party mid-term. Watkin is a former West Marsh councillor from 1999 to 2010.

Haverstoe

Haverstoe 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Bill Parkinson	1447
	Labour	Rhys Harrison	889
	Liberal Democrats	Roy Horobin	365
Majority			558
	Conservative hold		Swing

Heneage

Heneage 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Ros James	1039
	Liberal Democrats	Stephen Hocknell	366
	UKIP	Jamie Stephen Watkinson	304
	Conservative	Karen Lesley Webb-Meek	244
	Independent	Mark Smith	51
Majority			673
	Labour gain from Liberal Democrats		Swing

Note: Ros James theoretically holds her seat, as she was elected as a Liberal Democrat when the seat was last fought in 2008, but defected to the Labour Party mid-term. Hocknell is a former councillor who represented the ward from 2003 to 2011.

Humberston & New Waltham

Humberston & New Waltham 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	John Fenty	1231
	UKIP	Stephen William Harness	1001
	Labour	Tim Mickleburgh	596
Majority			230
	Conservative hold		Swing

Immingham

Immingham 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	David Aaron Watson	1407
	Conservative	Stewart Swinburn	1045
Majority			362
	Labour gain from Conservative		Swing

Note: Swinburn is a former councillor who lost his seat the previous year after serving two terms as an Immingham councillor.

Park

Park 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Matthew Craig Barrow	808
	Liberal Democrats	Geoffrey Richard Lowis	696
	Conservative	Bob Callison	655
	UKIP	Timothy John Veal	453
	Green	Jacqueline Vessey	158
Majority			112
	Labour gain from Liberal Democrats		Swing

Note: This was the first time that Park had been won by any party other than the Liberal Democrats and to date remains Labour's only victory in the ward in a local election since North East Lincolnshire Council's creation.

Scartho

Scartho 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	UKIP	Ronald Edward Shepherd	931
	Conservative	Sally Michelle Dixon	718
	Labour	Marian Jervis	630
	Liberal Democrats	Bernardette Chapman	144
	Green	Victoria Anne Dunn	96
Majority			213
	UKIP gain from Conservative		Swing

Notes: This was the second occasion (the first being 1995 when Labour won all three seats) that the Conservatives failed to win a council seat in Scartho, and the first time UKIP won a seat on the authority. Dixon previously contested this ward as a Liberal Democrat in 2010 and 2011.

South

South 2012

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Ray Oxby	968
	UKIP	John Matthew Stockton	421
	Liberal Democrats	Ernie Brown	264
	TUSC	Karen Michelle Manley	54
Majority			547
	Labour gain from Liberal Democrats		Swing

Note: Ernie Brown previously contested Great Grimsby in the 2010 general election and the Scartho ward in 2011 as an Independent.

Sidney Sussex

Sidney Sussex 2016

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Christopher David Shaw	1098
	UKIP	Scott Owen	329
	Conservative	Richard Hardy	298
	Liberal Democrats	Nicola Dawn Hocknell	169
Majority			769
	Labour hold		Swing

Yarborough

Yarborough 2016

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Jane Diana Hyldon-King	1067
	Liberal Democrats	Leslie Bonner	765
	UKIP	James David Cairns	482
Majority			422
	Labour gain from Liberal Democrats		Swing

Note: Hyldon-King previously represented Freshney from 1995 to 2003, and again from 2004 to 2008. Bonner previously represented this ward from 2007 to 2011.

References