Lucy Ashton
Lucy Ashton reports on the point where South Yorkshire politics meets everyday life, tracking how local power struggles, planning decisions and party shifts affect people, places and services across the region. She is a senior political reporter for the BBC, working with BBC Sheffield and focusing on politics in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. Her coverage centres on councils, mayors and councillors, following decisions from the committee room through to voters, workers and families.
South Yorkshire local elections and council control
Ashton devotes significant attention to local elections and council control in South Yorkshire, treating them as central to understanding regional politics. She reports live from counts and election centres, filing updates on declarations, turnout and shifts in party control in places such as Barnsley, Doncaster and Rother Valley. In coverage of local election results, she tracks Reform UK and Green gains, Labour losses and the resulting coalitions, showing how changes in council composition affect who runs key authorities. Her pieces from election counts follow the process closely, describing verification, late-running counts and tight margins while highlighting how national parties and smaller challengers fare at ward level.
She also explains the different layers of voting in South Yorkshire, including council seats and directly elected mayors, clarifying the powers attached to each role.
Planning laws, local plans and regeneration
Planning policy and long-term development strategies are another core strand of Ashton’s work.
She covers Local Plans as live political issues, reporting on delays, government intervention and controversies around proposals to build on green belt land. In Sheffield, she sets out how the city’s long-awaited Local Plan is meant to shape development over the next decade and why proposed housing sites in the green belt have provoked such opposition.
She reports on the council seeking help from central government to resolve rows over building on multiple green belt sites, detailing both the political stakes and the planning mechanics. Ashton also follows Doncaster’s planning agenda, including changes to its Local Plan following shifts in planning laws and regeneration schemes such as the Doncaster Waterfront project.
In Doncaster, she reports on plans for film and TV studios and a creative industries hub on the waterfront, connecting regeneration ambitions with the city’s broader economic strategy.
Reform UK and shifting party loyalties
Ashton’s political reporting pays close attention to the rise of Reform UK and changing party loyalties in South Yorkshire.
In Barnsley, she documents voters switching from Labour to Reform, using interviews and local case studies to explain why long‑standing Labour supporters backed a different party in recent council elections. Her reporting shows Reform taking all three seats in a ward that had previously been part of a Labour‑run authority, and tracks how that result contributed to Reform gaining overall control of the council.
She links these local shifts to national figures by covering Nigel Farage’s visits to South Yorkshire, including his meetings with residents during the general election and a subsequent rally at Doncaster Racecourse. In her coverage of a rally in Doncaster, she reports Farage’s claim that renewed debate over Brexit could “open the door” to Reform, setting that statement within the local political context. Through election analyses and result round‑ups, Ashton places South Yorkshire outcomes within wider Yorkshire trends, showing where Labour faces its toughest challenges from Reform and other parties.
The human impact of politics on workers, families and councillors
Alongside electoral and party coverage, Ashton writes frequently about the human impact of political decisions on workers, families and elected representatives. In Barnsley, she reports on nursery workers being balloted over strike action after pensions changes, explaining how a previous transfer of council‑run nurseries to the private sector has affected staff terms and conditions.
Her coverage sets out the timeline of that transfer and the dispute, connecting council decisions and privatisation to current industrial tensions.
In Rawmarsh, within the chancellor’s constituency, she reports on working families who earn just above benefits thresholds and are struggling with the cost of living, giving space to local charities’ warnings about deprivation levels. That piece shows how national welfare rules and local deprivation data translate into day‑to‑day pressure on households in specific wards. Ashton also examines the pressures on councillors themselves, reporting on resignations and party switches among newly elected members and the lack of emotional support available to them.
In that work, she traces individual councillors’ short time in office, their reasons for stepping down and the impact of party changes on council dynamics, underscoring the personal strain of public service at local level.
4 more politics journalists.
Abbi Garton-Crosbie
Abbi Garton-Crosbie is a multimedia political reporter who treats independence as a live process shaped by Holyrood power struggles, party manoeuvres and grassroots pressure. She works at The National, a pro-independence newspaper, covering how political power is contested and exercised in contemporary Scotland, with a core focus on parties, parliament and the mechanics of constitutional change. She reports on parliamentary votes, government strategy around future independence referendums, and elections across Scotland in the wider context of devolution in Wales and Northern Ireland. Her work centres on party leadership, resignations and internal conflict, including long-form interviews with senior politicians and coverage of emerging and smaller parties. She examines far-right activity, protest politics and movement organisation, and runs policy-driven reporting on rent caps, AI data centres, health boards and public services, across written, video and podcast formats.
Abubakar Ahmadu Maishanu
Abubakar Ahmadu Maishanu is a politics reporter with Premium Times who treats politics as a system of rules, contests and consequences rather than personalities. He focuses on power struggles, security shocks and governance disputes shaping party competition in northern Nigeria, especially how violence, corruption investigations and economic strain intersect with political authority. He reports on Bauchi’s 2027 governorship race, APC primaries and PRP realignment, tracking defections, party constitutions and factional manoeuvring. His coverage of Jigawa and Yobe follows power-sharing fights, candidate substitutions and Tinubu reelection mobilisation efforts. He links banditry and local security crises in Kano and Zamfara to political structures, using precise locations and casualty figures. His investigative work on alleged shady dealings around the Dala Inland Dry Port and reporting on soaring cooking gas prices add a corruption and economic hardship lens.
Aisha Iqbal
Aisha Iqbal covers local and regional politics for the BBC, with a distinct focus on grassroots power and how local decisions shape trust, representation and public services. She reports on Bradford Council decisions, waste services, cultural funding, regeneration grants and the use of public money. She also covers grooming gangs, community safety, political trust, elections, Muslim voters, Gaza, ceasefire campaigns and the links between faith, foreign policy and representation. Her work includes culture and public figures when they intersect with civic identity, including a feature on David Hockney. She connects committee-room votes, neighbourhood disputes and national debates, showing who gains, who loses and how communities respond. She reports across broadcast and online platforms in a clear, explanatory style. Earlier, she covered politics, culture and consumer issues for regional newspapers.
Alessia Simona Maratta
Alessia Simona Maratta stands out for showing how political decisions, regulations and conflicts ripple through communities, pairing national and global stories with on-the-ground voices and clear policy explanations. She is a digital reporter, producer and editor with Global News’ network news desk, covering breaking news, crime, politics, public health, housing, labour, immigration, environment and climate, social issues and features. Her recent work spans politics, public health regulation, labour and technology, and human-interest features that ground complex issues in everyday experience. She reports on politics, policy and community impact, public health and social debates, and labour and regulation at the intersection of technology, globalization and worker rights. Alongside hard news, she produces features that use individual stories, straightforward narrative arcs and accessible explanations to connect history, science and policy to everyday life.