Prior to the 2018 election, the predecessor ward most closely corresponding to Hunslet and Riverside was City and Hunslet ward, containing Leeds city centre since 2004. From 1980 to 2022, the councillors in these wards all belonged to the Labour Party. In May 2022, however, the ward elected a councillor from the Green Party; the same election saw a similar departure in the neighbouring ward of Middleton Park, which elected a councillor from the Social Democratic Party.[4][5]
^According to Michael Meadowcroft, on a date unconfirmed, Pedder was expelled from the Liberal Party after resigning as the party group's Chief Whip before a council meeting: "He immediately applied to join the Labour party. Labour, being conscious of Pedder's mercurial and sometimes capricious personality, delayed admitting him to membership and so he withdrew his application. He then contested Hunslet... as an independent [candidate]" in 1978.[6]
^Blake was previously a Weetwood ward councillor from 1996 until she lost her seat in 2000.