DESPITE continued DUP support in this seven-DEA unionist stronghold, the party will be hoping the downward trend of the 2019 election across the area doesn’t continue when voters return to the polls this month.
Four years ago, with just 65 total votes behind its 2014 election tally, the DUP finished with five less councillors in the chamber at 15 seats, and four percent less of the overall vote share, at almost 37 per cent.
The blame for that surprising outcome can be laid firmly at the feet of the Alliance Party, which jumped from 12 per cent of the overall area vote in 2014 to an impressive 23.6 percent, giving them nine seats – two more than the previous term.
Their Lisburn and Castlereagh result was the party’s best across any of the north’s 11 council areas, and underlines the threat faced by the DUP in leader Jeffrey Donaldson’s home turf by the rise of the middle ground.
In 2021, the DUP’s representation in the chamber shrank again by one, as councillor Nathan Anderson quit to become an independent, after claiming his former party should have taken a tougher stance on abortion law in the north.
The DUP will be hoping that its Stormont boycott gamble over the NI Protocol doesn’t see them losing out further as parties which have backed the Windsor Framework make gains.
The UUP, which cautiously welcomed the framework as an “important stepping stone” towards protocol changes, has been on a slow but steady upward trend in Lisburn and Castlereagh, winning three further council seats in 2019 – making 11 in total – with just 1.6 per cent extra of the overall vote.
Meanwhile, the SDLP will be waiting to see if its own small slice of the vote share - 8.7 percent in 2019 – will be diluted by nationalist voters switching to Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin managed to get two of its own councillors into the chamber last time around - their first since the creation of the L&CC ‘super council’ was formed - by boosting their vote from 4.7 to 5.4 per cent.
This saw the SDLP lose one seat, dropping from three to two, despite increasing its vote share by less than a percentage point to 5.4.
However, last year saw councillor Simon Lee, who was elected in 2019 as a Green Party candidate, quit the Greens and join the SDLP, bringing the nationalist party back to three seats.
Three Green candidates will now be trying to benefit from any increase on 2019’s 1.7 percent share of the vote for the party.
Meanwhile, former SDLP MLA Pat Catney - previously a Lisburn councillor – is hoping to make a return to local politics after losing his Stormont seat last May.
As for the TUV, the hardliner unionist party will be hoping to see a return to the L&CC chamber after a four-year absence by banking on disillusioned unionists turning from both the DUP and UUP.
It saw its vote share from 2014 more than halve to just 2.3 percent last time around, and is hoping one of its three candidates – including its former council rep Andrew Girvin – can clinch back a seat.
Castlereagh East
Samantha Burns - DUP
David Drysdale - DUP (sitting)
Andrew Girvin - TUV
Martin Gregg - Alliance (sitting)
John Laverty - DUP (sitting)
Hazel Legge - UUP (sitting)
Sharon Lowry – Alliance (sitting)
Sharon Skillen – DUP (sitting)
Terry Winchcombe - Green Party
Castlereagh South
Daniel Bassett - Sinn Féin
Ryan Carlin - Sinn Féin (sitting)
Nancy Eaton - Alliance
John Gallen - SDLP (sitting)
Michelle Guy - Alliance (sitting)
Jacinta Hamley - Green Party
Michael Henderson - UUP (sitting)
Brian Higginson - DUP
Simon Lee - SDLP (sitting)
Martin McKeever - Alliance
Andrew Miller - Independent
William Traynor - DUP
Downshire East
James Baird - UUP (sitting)
Kurtis Dickson - Alliance
John Drake - SDLP
Stewart Ferris - TUV
Andrew Gowan - DUP (sitting)
Uel Mackin - DUP (sitting)
Aaron McIntyre - Alliance (sitting)
Alex Swan - UUP (sitting)
Downshire West
Allan Ewart - DUP (sitting)
Owen Gawith – Alliance (sitting)
William Leathem - DUP
Alan Martin - UUP
Liz McCord - UUP
Caleb McCready - DUP (sitting)
Siobhán Murphy - Sinn Féin
Luke Robinson - Green Party
Gretta Thompson – Alliance
Killultagh
Thomas Beckett - DUP (sitting)
Stuart Brown - Independent
Claire Kemp - Alliance
Gary McCleave - Sinn Féin
Ross McLernon - UUP (sitting)
Jack Patton - SDLP
James Tinsley – DUP (sitting)
Laura Turner - UUP
Lisburn North
Paul Burke - Sinn Féin
Scott Carson – DUP (sitting)
Pat Catney - SDLP
Jonathan Craig – DUP (sitting)
Linsey Gibson (UUP)
Gary Hynds - Independent
Stephen Martin – Alliance (sitting)
Nicola Parker - Alliance
Nicholas Trimble - UUP (sitting)
Lisburn South
Andrew Ewing - DUP (sitting)
Aisling Flynn - Sinn Féin
Dee French - SDLP
Alan Givan - DUP (sitting)
Amanda Grehan - Alliance (sitting)
Peter Kennedy - Alliance
Stewart McEvoy - TUV
Tim Mitchell - UUP (sitting)
Jenny Palmer - UUP (sitting)
Paul Porter - DUP (sitting)
