Birmingham Hall Green & Moseley
Aug 4, 2023 15:42:06 GMT
Pete Whitehead, Robert Waller, and 2 more like this
Post by John Chanin on Aug 4, 2023 15:42:06 GMT
This is a very heterogeneous seat, whose parts do not sit together well. It was something of a bits left over seat at the last boundary review, confusing observers even more by naming it Hall Green, although only a third of the seat came from the pre-2010 Hall Green. So with the new ward boundaries in Birmingham, and a new boundary review, surely a more coherent seat would emerge? Not a bit of it. Indeed the Boundary Commission has actually made a ward split. At the last local boundary review Kings Heath was reunited in one ward, as requested by residents, but the Commission has chosen to cut the community in half on roughly the old boundary, in order to retain the seat virtually unchanged, although with a gesture to its heterogeneity they have added Moseley to the constituency name. The seat was however oversized, and the western half of Balsall Heath has been added to Ladywood constituency, to bring the seat within acceptable limits.
The seat extends from the city boundary in the south all the way to the inner ring road on the edge of the city centre. Hall Green itself adjoins the Shirley area of Solihull and the boundary is invisible on the ground except that the street signs turn green. The west boundary with Billesley in Selly Oak is along the river Cole, which to the north runs through the constituency in a deep valley. Hall Green is a pleasant suburban area of semi-detached houses, tree-lined and almost entirely owner-occupied. The southern ward remains majority white, is the least deprived ward in Birmingham proper, and forms the only reservoir of Conservative votes in the constituency. The northern ward, and Sparkhill further north have older pre-war housing, and have a majority and growing Muslim population. This is still a middle-class owner-occupied area, but increasingly for Muslim families made good - this was the first area that Muslim middle class families expanded into from the original settlement area in Sparkbrook. It is mostly an area of small terraced houses, predominantly owner-occupied but with significant private renting. However the “hill” part, west of the river Cole rising up towards Moseley, has some large Victorian and Edwardian houses.
Travelling further up the Stratford Road to its boundary with the Warwick Road you come to Sparkbrook, one of the original centres of Muslim settlement. This sits to the west of the industrial corridor formed by the Grand Union canal and the Chiltern railway line, which is a major barrier in this part of the city. The area consists of a lot of small terraced housing, mostly quite old, and a lot of it in poor condition. Sparkbrook ward is the most deprived in the city - the area is miserably poor and run down with high levels of unemployment. The cheap rented housing close to the city centre means there has been an influx of recent immigrants, with a substantial arab community, and some Somalis. The ward is only 9% white, similar to Sparkhill, and was the centre of the strong Respect vote earlier in the century. West of Sparkbrook is Balsall Heath, which contains the Ladypool Road shopping centre, with its fried chicken shops, burger joints, sweet shops, Asian supermarkets, and bridal shops - the nicest in my view of the Muslim area shopping centres. The balti restaurants that used to line the street have mostly gone showing how tastes are changing. Familiar high street chains are notable by their absence in all these shopping centres. Most of Balsall Heath has however been moved to Ladywood constituency in the boundary changes.
Up the hill to the south the seat is different again. Moseley is part of the old middle-class section of Birmingham, built on the hills to the south of the city. Down alongside the river Cole is Moseley Bog, which reputedly inspired Tolkien who came from around here, and Birmingham Council has named the riverside walk the Shire Country Park. Down towards the river Rea, which forms the western edge of the seat, is mostly inter-war housing, surrounding Cannon Hill, Highbury, and Moseley parks, all of which were originally the private grounds of mansions, including Joseph Chamberlain’s house at Highbury Hall. Cannon Hill Park is one of Birmingham’s major parks, containing the Midlands Arts Centre opposite Edgbaston cricket ground, just outside the constituency. Moseley ‘village’ in the middle is an entertainment area with many bars, restaurants, and coffee bars. This is surrounded by large Victorian houses, some of them palatial, and all of them expensive. This is an up market area, with high managerial occupations, still mainly white, and was the most heavily “remain” area of a very split city, as it is well-educated public sector middle-class, rather different from the equally well off outer suburbs. The Liberal Democrats have traditional strength here, with a councillor elected in 2022. To the north Moseley slopes down the hill to Balsall Heath, with the Muslim population rising as the elevation falls. South of Moseley the seat includes the area around Kings Heath High Street - a main shopping centre for south Birmingham, with smaller houses, but demographically increasingly resembling Moseley, which the Boundary Commission has chopped off from the rest of Kings Heath.
The demographic data below doesn’t really describe the seat very well. The mostly Muslim working class north of the seat is among the poorest and worst educated in Birmingham. Meanwhile the Moseley area is one of the richest and best educated. Suburban Hall Green is somewhere in between. The one thing all sections have in common is a low proportion of social housing for a big city, and a growing amount of private renting.
Overall this is one of two seats in Britain with a Muslim majority, and its interesting recent political history reflects this. At the first election for the new seat in 2010, longstanding Labour MP Roger Godsiff, first elected for Small Heath in 1992 (a seat that contained virtually no part of the present seat), faced a serious challenge from Salma Yaqoob of Respect. While this faded in 2015, it is fair to say that Godsiff was not wholly popular locally, either in the white middle-class part of the seat, or the Muslim working-class part, where there are political differences both between Kashmiris and Punjabis, and a cohort of noisy fundamentalists. The latter made national news not long ago with their demonstrations outside Anderton Park School in this constituency. The reselection process was well under way when the 2019 election was called, Godsiff having lost the trigger vote in all wards. The Labour National Executive made the sensible decision to deselect Godsiff, and nominated local Kashmiri councillor Tahir Ali as the candidate, and now the new MP. Godsiff stood as an independent and managed a surprising 8% of the vote. Both parts of the constituency voted Remain at the 2016 referendum, with the highest percentage in the Midlands at 66%, and in normal circumstances this is a very safe Labour seat.
Census data: Owner-occupied 59% (412/575 in England & Wales), private rented 25% (120th), social rented 16% (233rd).
: White 30%(568th), Black 6%(126th), South Asian 50%(5th), Mixed 4%(134th), Other 10%(60th)
: Managerial & professional 38% (296th), Routine & Semi-routine 30% (234th)
: Degree 33% (260th), Minimal qualifications 35% (73rd)
: Students 12% (68th), Over 65: 12% (512th)
: Muslim 54% (2nd)
Boundaries: The new seat is made up of 94% from Hall Green, 4% from Selly Oak, and 3% from Yardley
90% of the old Hall Green seat is in the new one, with 8% going to Ladywood, and 2% to Selly Oak
The seat extends from the city boundary in the south all the way to the inner ring road on the edge of the city centre. Hall Green itself adjoins the Shirley area of Solihull and the boundary is invisible on the ground except that the street signs turn green. The west boundary with Billesley in Selly Oak is along the river Cole, which to the north runs through the constituency in a deep valley. Hall Green is a pleasant suburban area of semi-detached houses, tree-lined and almost entirely owner-occupied. The southern ward remains majority white, is the least deprived ward in Birmingham proper, and forms the only reservoir of Conservative votes in the constituency. The northern ward, and Sparkhill further north have older pre-war housing, and have a majority and growing Muslim population. This is still a middle-class owner-occupied area, but increasingly for Muslim families made good - this was the first area that Muslim middle class families expanded into from the original settlement area in Sparkbrook. It is mostly an area of small terraced houses, predominantly owner-occupied but with significant private renting. However the “hill” part, west of the river Cole rising up towards Moseley, has some large Victorian and Edwardian houses.
Travelling further up the Stratford Road to its boundary with the Warwick Road you come to Sparkbrook, one of the original centres of Muslim settlement. This sits to the west of the industrial corridor formed by the Grand Union canal and the Chiltern railway line, which is a major barrier in this part of the city. The area consists of a lot of small terraced housing, mostly quite old, and a lot of it in poor condition. Sparkbrook ward is the most deprived in the city - the area is miserably poor and run down with high levels of unemployment. The cheap rented housing close to the city centre means there has been an influx of recent immigrants, with a substantial arab community, and some Somalis. The ward is only 9% white, similar to Sparkhill, and was the centre of the strong Respect vote earlier in the century. West of Sparkbrook is Balsall Heath, which contains the Ladypool Road shopping centre, with its fried chicken shops, burger joints, sweet shops, Asian supermarkets, and bridal shops - the nicest in my view of the Muslim area shopping centres. The balti restaurants that used to line the street have mostly gone showing how tastes are changing. Familiar high street chains are notable by their absence in all these shopping centres. Most of Balsall Heath has however been moved to Ladywood constituency in the boundary changes.
Up the hill to the south the seat is different again. Moseley is part of the old middle-class section of Birmingham, built on the hills to the south of the city. Down alongside the river Cole is Moseley Bog, which reputedly inspired Tolkien who came from around here, and Birmingham Council has named the riverside walk the Shire Country Park. Down towards the river Rea, which forms the western edge of the seat, is mostly inter-war housing, surrounding Cannon Hill, Highbury, and Moseley parks, all of which were originally the private grounds of mansions, including Joseph Chamberlain’s house at Highbury Hall. Cannon Hill Park is one of Birmingham’s major parks, containing the Midlands Arts Centre opposite Edgbaston cricket ground, just outside the constituency. Moseley ‘village’ in the middle is an entertainment area with many bars, restaurants, and coffee bars. This is surrounded by large Victorian houses, some of them palatial, and all of them expensive. This is an up market area, with high managerial occupations, still mainly white, and was the most heavily “remain” area of a very split city, as it is well-educated public sector middle-class, rather different from the equally well off outer suburbs. The Liberal Democrats have traditional strength here, with a councillor elected in 2022. To the north Moseley slopes down the hill to Balsall Heath, with the Muslim population rising as the elevation falls. South of Moseley the seat includes the area around Kings Heath High Street - a main shopping centre for south Birmingham, with smaller houses, but demographically increasingly resembling Moseley, which the Boundary Commission has chopped off from the rest of Kings Heath.
The demographic data below doesn’t really describe the seat very well. The mostly Muslim working class north of the seat is among the poorest and worst educated in Birmingham. Meanwhile the Moseley area is one of the richest and best educated. Suburban Hall Green is somewhere in between. The one thing all sections have in common is a low proportion of social housing for a big city, and a growing amount of private renting.
Overall this is one of two seats in Britain with a Muslim majority, and its interesting recent political history reflects this. At the first election for the new seat in 2010, longstanding Labour MP Roger Godsiff, first elected for Small Heath in 1992 (a seat that contained virtually no part of the present seat), faced a serious challenge from Salma Yaqoob of Respect. While this faded in 2015, it is fair to say that Godsiff was not wholly popular locally, either in the white middle-class part of the seat, or the Muslim working-class part, where there are political differences both between Kashmiris and Punjabis, and a cohort of noisy fundamentalists. The latter made national news not long ago with their demonstrations outside Anderton Park School in this constituency. The reselection process was well under way when the 2019 election was called, Godsiff having lost the trigger vote in all wards. The Labour National Executive made the sensible decision to deselect Godsiff, and nominated local Kashmiri councillor Tahir Ali as the candidate, and now the new MP. Godsiff stood as an independent and managed a surprising 8% of the vote. Both parts of the constituency voted Remain at the 2016 referendum, with the highest percentage in the Midlands at 66%, and in normal circumstances this is a very safe Labour seat.
Census data: Owner-occupied 59% (412/575 in England & Wales), private rented 25% (120th), social rented 16% (233rd).
: White 30%(568th), Black 6%(126th), South Asian 50%(5th), Mixed 4%(134th), Other 10%(60th)
: Managerial & professional 38% (296th), Routine & Semi-routine 30% (234th)
: Degree 33% (260th), Minimal qualifications 35% (73rd)
: Students 12% (68th), Over 65: 12% (512th)
: Muslim 54% (2nd)
Boundaries: The new seat is made up of 94% from Hall Green, 4% from Selly Oak, and 3% from Yardley
90% of the old Hall Green seat is in the new one, with 8% going to Ladywood, and 2% to Selly Oak
2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | |
Labour | 42,143 | 77.6 | 35,889 | 67.8 | 34,279 | 66.3 |
Conservative | 8,199 | 15.1 | 7,381 | 13.9 | 7,772 | 15.0 |
Liberal Democrat | 3,137 | 5.8 | 3,673 | 6.9 | 3,703 | 7.2 |
Brexit | 877 | 1.7 | 997 | 1.9 | ||
Green | 831 | 1.5 | 818 | 1.5 | 869 | 1.7 |
Godsiff (Ind) | 4,273 | 8.1 | 4,119 | 8.0 | ||
| Majority | 33,944 | 62.5 | 28,508 | 53.9 | 26,507 | 51.2 |