Since the previous election

Sheffield Council election, 2000

Elections to Sheffield Council were held on 4th May 2000. One third of the council was up for election. Previous to this election, two Liberal Democrats – Robert Watson and Trefor Morgan – became Independents...

 both the Liberal Democrats and Labour had suffered one defection each - Ronald Shepherd left the Labour grouping to sit as an Independent and Lib Dem Matthew Dixon defected, firstly as an Independent and then to the Conservatives. In this time an earlier Lib Dem defector, Trefor Morgan, also changed from an Independent to Liberal

Liberal Party (UK, 1989)

The Liberal Party is a United Kingdom political party. It was formed in 1989 by a group of individuals within the original Liberal Party who felt that the merger of the party with the Social Democratic Party, to form the Liberal Democrats, had ended the spirit of the Liberal Party, claiming that...

.

This election was held on the 2nd May 2002, with one third of the council up for election. Following this election, the council returned to no overall control

No overall control

Within the context of local councils of the United Kingdom, the term No Overall Control refers to a situation in which no single party achieves a majority of seats and is analogous to a hung parliament...

, as the sizable swing from Lib Dem to Labour allowed Labour to gain five seats directly from the Lib Dems, and two from earlier defections, making Labour narrowly the largest party with 43 seats to the Lib Dem's 42. Overall turnout was 30.0%.

Election result

This result has the following consequences for the total number of seats on the Council after the elections:

Party		Previous council	New council
	Labour	36	43
	Liberal Democrats	47	42
	Conservatives	2	2
	Green	0	0
	Socialist Alliance	0	0
	Independent Labour	1	0
	UKIP	0	0
	Independent	0	0
	Socialist Labour	0	0
	Socialist Alternative	0	0
	Liberal	1	0
Total		87	87
Working majority

Ward results