By-elections to be held for four Lancaster City Council seats

Four by-elections for seats on Lancaster City Council are to be held the death of two councillors and the resignation of two others.

The first election has been called for November 11 in the University and Scotforth Rural ward after Coun Jack O'Dwyer-Henry quit as its Eco-Socialist Independent.

He was one of five Labour councillors to resign from the party and form the Eco-Socialist group last year.

Jack graduated from Lancaster University this year and has returned to Belfast, where he has become strategy and communications officer with the Northern Ireland Green Party.

Coun Stewart Scothern, Conservative representative for Upper Lune Valley, will have a civic funeral today (October 14) at 11am at Beetham Hall Crematorium.

He died in hospital on October 1, aged 73.

Stewart lived at Slyne-with-Hest, where he also was a member of the parish council.

After five years as city councillor for Carnforth and Millhead, Coun John Reynolds has resigned for personal reasons.

He also has resigned as a member of Carnforth Town Council.

Last year he left the Labour Party and became an Independent councillor.

The fourth by-election will be in Bare after the death in May aged 68 of Coun Stephie Barber, former leader of the Conservative group.

Couns Dwyer-Henry, Scothern and Barber were elected to the city council in 2019 and Coun Reynolds in 2016.

The current political make-up of the council is currently:

Labour 14 seats, Conservatives 11, Greens 10, Morecambe Bay Independents 9, Independents 6, Eco-Socialists 4, Liberal Democrats 2, with 4 vacancies.