New independent councillor joins South Tyneside Council after Primrose by-election

Candidates and supporters gathered at South Shields Town Hall on Thursday night (June 27) as ballots were counted and election results announced for the three-way contest.

Independent candidate Joan Hamilton, a former shop steward at the local authority, was elected to the Jarrow seat with a 219-vote majority over the Labour Party’s Kevin Brydon.

Green Party candidate Darius Seago also came third behind Labour with around 100 votes.

The by-election was triggered shortly after the May 2024 local elections following the resignation of Primrose ward councillor Paul Milburn over health reasons.

Cllr Hamilton, who will join the local authority’s South Tyneside Alliance Group of independent councillors, said she had “big shoes to fill”.

Speaking at South Shields Town Hall after the by-election result was announced, she said: “I’ve been involved in this circle for years of my life and from being a young age, I’ve been a trade unionist all my life since the age of 17.

“To finally get to this stage it just shows that anybody can do it if you have got the right mindset.

“I’m overwhelmed that people have put their trust in me, the way I look at it is, I want people to be happy and people to be safe in their own environment in their own homes.

“While I take an interest in what’s happening across the country and the world my main priority is where you live and to make sure people are safe, happy and living a good life.

“If I can help in any way to do that, that’s my aim”.

Joan Hamilton recently stood to become an independent councillor in the borough’s Monkton ward on May 2, 2024, but was unsuccessful and came second behind the Labour Party.

However, the Primrose ward has consistently voted for independents in recent local elections, with independents gaining seats from Labour in 2019, 2021 and 2022 and incumbent independent councillors holding seats in 2023 and 2024.

Results from Thursday’s by-election mean that independent councillors hold three out of three council seats in the Primrose ward.

Cllr Hamilton described her predecessor Paul Milburn as a “gentleman” and said she was looking forward to working with Primrose councillors and “taking in the experience of people around me and learning from it”.

She added that she has an interest in adult social care, which she hopes to explore further in the councillor role, including helping people “to be able to live in their own home environment with a wrap-around service”.

Cllr Hamilton said the latest by-election result was a reflection of the work of Primrose’s independent councillors but also voters “turning away from Labour because of the current political situation within the local authority”.

This includes the recent ‘inadequate’ rating of the council’s children’s services department by Ofsted, and the industrial dispute between the council and refuse staff.

When standing for election in May, 2024,  Joan Hamilton said her aim was “to put people before politics with no party whip to control my decisions”.

Cllr Hamilton, who was once a Labour Party member, said the party’s whip system can lead to councillors “going with the majority” and being left “with no voice” if the whip is taken away.

The councillor added she looked forward to working with the South Tyneside Alliance Group as the official opposition, which includes independent councillors from across the borough, and thanked residents for their support.

She added: “I think you have to work together even though you all have different views, you can have discussions where you don’t agree with each other without falling out.

“It’s business and you walk out the room and everything is back to normal, you can’t take it to heart because somebody doesn’t agree with you.

“Being independent means you do your own thing, you do what you see as right and what your residents want.

“I’m completely overwhelmed by the residents’ support and I hope that I can live up to their expectations.

“It’s quite overwhelming to think that I have come from a working class background, I was one of ten children, and we struggled from day to day.

“It doesn’t matter what background you come from, you can still strive to do what you want to do to fulfil your ambitions”.

Councillor David Kennedy, leader of the South Tyneside Alliance Group, congratulated Cllr Hamilton and said she would be a “worthy addition” to the group.

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Cllr Kennedy, who is also a Primrose ward councillor, said: “When we lost Paul we felt it was a massive loss to the Primrose ward but I’m sure that Joan has got big enough feet to fill his boots.

“I’m sure she will be welcomed in the ward and do a fantastic job and we have got every faith in her that she’s going to be equally as good a councillor as the one we have lost”.

Joan Hamilton was elected to the council with 762 votes, and was followed by the Labour Party’s Kevin Brydon with 543 votes and the Green Party’s Darius Seago with 102 votes.

The total turnout for Primrose ward was 23.3 per cent with 1,414 votes cast out of a total electorate of 6,070, which marks a drop since the May 2024 elections, where the turnout in the ward was almost 30 per cent.

The political share of South Tyneside Council after the by-election is now 28 Labour Party councillors, 15 independent councillors and 11 Green Party councillors.