Sheffield's new Labour group leader seeks 'brighter future' for city

The newly elected head of Sheffield's Labour group has promised to spearhead a "new generation of leadership".

Tom Hunt has replaced Terry Fox, who resigned ahead of the local election results when it also emerged the city's Labour group had been put under supervision by the national party.

Speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield he said he was "under no illusions of the scale of the task" to rebuild public trust.

Sheffield City Council is set to elect a new leader on Wednesday.

Mr Hunt, who has only been a councillor since 2022, was elected at a meeting on Monday, with Ben Miskell and Fran Belbin elected as deputy leaders of the group.

"I'm under no illusions of the scale of the task at hand, we've just come out of the back of two disappointing sets of election results for us in the city and we have aspirations to lead the city," he said.

"We want to be doing better and the results we've had weren't good enough.

"I've been elected as a fresh face, part of a new generation of leadership in the Labour group."

Analysis by Lucy Ashton, political reporter, BBC Radio Sheffield

Tom Hunt won his Walkley seat with just 98 votes and has only been a councillor for a year so - at first glance, he didn't appear a natural choice for Labour leader.

But his day job as deputy director of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Sheffield means he has extensive experience of working with national policymakers, cross-party MPs and businesses.

And being a new recruit to Sheffield Council means he had no involvement in the street tree dispute and will be seen as the self-proclaimed "fresh start".

It will be a tough job though - there's unrest with colleagues angry at the national party swooping in so he will need to unite the backbenchers.

If he is elected council leader, there are tough decisions ahead with the added complication of a committee system and no overall majority.

His softly spoken, steady manner should neutralise some of the chaos and Labour will be hoping he can make the headway both in the town hall and with voters, which they desperately need.

Asked about the national intervention, he said it was intended to "provide us with more support so we are in the best possible position to win next year's election".

He added that he had not been involved in conversations about Mr Fox's resignation or the decision to make the announcement only after the polls had closed earlier this month.

Labour, which has 39 of the city's 84 seats, was in a coalition with the Green Party, which holds 14, from 2021 to 2022, and has shared power with the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, who have 29 seats, since 2022, when the council switched from a cabinet model to a committee system.

Councillors are set to thrash out a deal on Wednesday over who will lead the authority and Mr Hunt said he would be talking with the leaders of the Lib Dems, Shaffaq Mohammed, and the Greens, Douglas Johnson, in advance.

He said: "Damage has been done, trust has been lost between colleagues in our party, but the bigger picture is that in this city we've got a cost of living crisis that people are really, really hurting from and our job as local politicians, across all parties, to come together for people, to give a brighter future for people in this city."

Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].