2002 Hartlepool Council Election
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Hartlepool Hartlepool ( ) is a seaside resort, seaside and port town in County Durham, England. It is governed by a unitary authority borough Borough of Hartlepool, named after the town. The borough is part of the devolved Tees Valley area with an estimat ...
Borough Council in the
ceremonial county Ceremonial counties, formally known as ''counties for the purposes of the lieutenancies'', are areas of England to which lord-lieutenant, lord-lieutenants are appointed. A lord-lieutenant is the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, monarch's repres ...
of
County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...
in
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
were held on 2 May 2002. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under
no overall control In the context of local authorities in the United Kingdom no overall control (NOC; ) is a situation in which no single political group achieves a majority of seats, comparable to a hung parliament. Of the 248 councils who had members up for elec ...
. At the same time an election took place for a directly elected mayor, which was won by
independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
candidate
Stuart Drummond Stuart Drummond (born 29 November 1973) is a British politician, who was the first and only directly elected mayor of Hartlepool in North East England.Oliver Wright, ''Monkey business turns serious for Hartlepool''. The Times. London (UK): May ...
.


Mayoral election


Campaign

Five candidates stood in the election for mayor, one each from the three main political parties and two independents. The Labour candidate for mayor was Leo Gillen, a local businessman who had led the campaign in favour of introducing a directly elected mayor. The Liberal Democrats selected the leader of the council since 2000, Arthur Preece, as their candidate for mayor, while the Conservatives chose
councillor A councillor, alternatively councilman, councilwoman, councilperson, or council member, is someone who sits on, votes in, or is a member of, a council. This is typically an elected representative of an electoral district in a municipal or re ...
Stephen Close. The first independent candidate, Stuart Drummond, was better known as
H'Angus the Monkey H'Angus the Monkey is the official mascot of Hartlepool United. The name "H'Angus" is a pun of the word hang and the name Angus, and is derived from the monkey hanger legend of Hartlepool. The mascot made his debut on 31 October 1999, during Har ...
the official
mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, sports team, university society, society, military unit, or brand, brand name. Mascots are als ...
for the local
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
team Hartlepool United F.C. The other independent candidate was Ian Cameron, another local businessman. Drummond campaigned on a pledge to give free
banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...
s to all school
pupils The pupil is a hole located in the center of the iris of the eye that allows light to strike the retina.Cassin, B. and Solomon, S. (1990) ''Dictionary of Eye Terminology''. Gainesville, Florida: Triad Publishing Company. It appears black becau ...
under 11 in Hartlepool. He received backing from the football club who paid his deposit and he promised that he would attempt to keep a local
sports centre A leisure centre, sports centre, or recreation centre is a purpose-built building or site, usually owned and provided by the local government authority, where people can engage in a variety of sports and exercise, and keep fit. Typical facilit ...
open, improve sporting facilities, tackle crime and reduce the number of councillors. His candidacy began as something of a joke but became more serious as he attracted support during the campaign. A
supplementary voting system The contingent vote is a two-stage Voting system, electoral system that elects a single representative, in which the winner receives a majority of votes. It uses ranked voting. The voter ranks the candidates in order of preference, and when ...
was used in the mayoral election with second preferences being used if no candidate received over half of the vote. A local
bookmaker A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays out bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds In probability theory, odds provide a measure of the probability of a particular outco ...
initially made Drummond a 100–1 outsider in the mayoral election but soon had to suspend betting after receiving a lot of bets from local people.


Results

Stuart Drummond won the mayoral election defeating the Labour candidate Leo Gillen on second preferences. Drummond said that his victory was due to disillusionment with local politicians and said that he was serious about doing a good job for Hartlepool as mayor. Local Member of Parliament
Peter Mandelson Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, (born 21 October 1953) is a British politician, lobbyist and diplomat who has served as British Ambassador to the United States since February 2025. A member of the Labour Party, Mandelson serve ...
praised Drummond on his victory and described him as being "very committed". However other political opponents described the results as having made Hartlepool "a laughing stock".


Council election

In the previous election in 2000 the Labour Party had lost control of the council which since then had been run by a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. Elections took place in 16 of the 17 wards with only Greatham ward not holding an election. Most attention was on the mayoral election but there was a large swing of 14.2% to Labour in the council election. However they were only able to gain one seat in Seaton ward from the Conservatives. After the election, the composition of the council was: * Labour 23 *
Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Liberal Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties have usually followed liberalism as ideology, although they can vary widely from very progr ...
12 *
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
8 *
Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
4


Summary of results


Ward results


References

{{United Kingdom local elections, 2002
Hartlepool Hartlepool ( ) is a seaside resort, seaside and port town in County Durham, England. It is governed by a unitary authority borough Borough of Hartlepool, named after the town. The borough is part of the devolved Tees Valley area with an estimat ...
2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...
Mayoral elections in England 2000s in County Durham May 2002 in the United Kingdom