A SERVING Newcastle city councillor is set to contest the Hexham parliamentary seat for the Liberal Democrats at the next general election.

Nick Cott, the councillor for the Fawdon and West Gosforth ward, was adopted as the candidate following a selection process.

A former leader of the city council’s Liberal Democrat group, Councillor Cott also served in the city council’s cabinet when the Liberal Democrats ran the council between 2004 and 2011.

Cllr Cott has also been active in politics on a national level, having previously served on a ministerial advisory group at the Department for Education, in relation to work he had done with the Local Government Association. And while he currently lives in Newcastle, he grew up in the Tyne Valley and studied at Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School (QEHS).

Speaking on the announcement of his candidacy, Cllr Cott said: “I am delighted to have been selected to contest Hexham following a ballot of local Liberal Democrat members. It is an enormous privilege to have been selected for the constituency in which I grew up.

“I always enjoy being in the constituency and now I have the opportunity to be here more often. I am looking forward to working with my Liberal Democrat team to listen to the concerns of local people and to put forward reasons for them to support the Liberal Democrats.

“People are angry with this Conservative Government and are looking for an alternative. The Liberal Democrats have shown we are challengers here having won a council by-election which deprived the Conservatives of their overall majority in County Hall.

“Now there is a chance for residents to vote Liberal Democrat to affect change at Westminster too. People deserve better than the Conservatives in Hexham.

“As the local MP, I would work together with the people in the area to tackle major issues of concern, such as access to services, transport, and education, and deal with the cost of living crisis. I want to see a better, brighter and fairer future for everyone.”

It is not the first time Cllr Cott has run for parliament – he previously stood in the Newcastle North constituency in 2019, coming in third behind Labour’s Catherine McKinnell and the Conservatives’ Mark Lehain. Before that, he twice contested the Newcastle Central seat, placing third and fourth in 2017 and 2015 respectively.

He will be up against the Conservative incumbent Guy Opperman and fellow QEHS alumni Joe Morris for the Labour Party in the battle for the Hexham constituency. The seat is considered a safe Tory seat, and has been held by the party since 1951, when speaker Douglas Clifton Brown – himself a former Tory – moved to the House of Lords.

While Labour has placed a somewhat distant second in the last three general elections, unlike Labour, the Liberal Democrats do have some history in the seat. The precursor Liberal party held the seat for the majority of the years between 1885, when it was formed, and 1924 when Clifton Brown regained the seat from Victor Finney.