Labour has managed to retain its South Jesmond seat with the victory of Lesley Storey in Thursday’s elections for Newcastle City Council. Storey clinched the seat vacated by former councillor Judy Pearce, who resigned suddenly after less than a year due to health reasons.

And in North Jesmond, incumbent Liberal Democrat Gerry Keating fought off three contenders to comfortably win another term.

Storey won 679 votes, followed by Clare Andrews (Green Party) with 489, Deborah Burns (Liberal Democrats) with 360, Ian MacGilp (Conservative Party) with 286 and Martin Levy (Communist Party) with 24. The race between the frontrunners was relatively close, with the Greens putting in a strong showing to come second ahead of the Lib Dems. The Labour share of the vote was 36.9% – in last year’s elections (when all three seats were up for grabs) Labour won a 56.5% share of the vote

But in North Jesmond, the Lib Dems triumphed by a greater margin. Keating nabbed 1018 votes, followed by Alex Hay (Labour and Co-operative Party) on 577, Tony Waterston (Greens) on 267 and Kitty Lau (Conservatives) on 169. The Lib Dem share of the vote in North Jesmond was 50.1% – last year, when all three seats were up for grabs, the Lib Dem share of the vote was 38.7%

Keating told JesmondLocal he was “very pleased” to be re-elected. “I’m ready to say that it was beyond my wildest expectations,” he said, thanking locals for showing confidence in him. “I’ve worked very, very hard over the last few years, and the work has clearly borne fruit on this occasion.”

Storey was jubilant about her win. “I’m absolutely delighted, really tired and just so grateful to the people of South Jesmond for voting for me, and now the hard work really, really starts. So I’m just looking forward to getting to know you all and meeting you and working on making priorities for the ward. Thank you so much.”

The election featured a lot of familiar faces. Clare Andrews, Ian MacGilp, Deborah Burns and Martin Levy all ran and lost last year in South Jesmond, so it was second time unlucky in 2019. In North Jesmond, Alex Hay, Kitty Lau and Tony Waterston also ran unsuccessfully last year, although in 2018 Waterston ran in South Jesmond.

It was a smaller election than in 2018, when all 78 ward seats were contested. This year 27 seats were up for election – one per ward everywhere except Monument, where a second seat was in contention after Councillor Rosie Hogg (Labour) resigned.

The polls closed at 10pm at 123 polling stations, and then the vote-count got underway at the Sports Central complex at Northumbria University.

All of the Jesmond candidates showed up for the later stages of counting, except for Ian MacGilp, who reportedly does not come to these events. Alex Hay made a brief appearance, but apparently left after feeling unwell. He received hospital treatment earlier this week, forcing him to miss a hustings event on Tuesday organised by JesmondLocal.

Across England and Northern Ireland, more than 8,000 posts were contested in local council and mayoral elections.

In Newcastle, there will be another result announced today, namely the winner of the election to become the first Mayor of North of Tyne.