Post by andrewp on Feb 13, 2024 15:11:06 GMT
This profile contains content from the original from European Lefty and is updated by me.
In some ways Bristol South might be considered the least interesting of the four ( and from 2024, five) constituencies in the city of Bristol. Over the last 30 years it is the most stable in terms of new development as most of the redevelopment in Bristol has been in the city centre and the new development has mostly been to the North and East of the city. There has been relatively little new housing development at all in South. There is also, by and large, political stability here with Labour having held the constituency continuously since 1935, although the boundaries have changed quite a lot over that time and only 2 of the current 7 wards, Bedminster and Southville, have always been in the constituency. This is the only seat in the South of England outside of London where Labour have had such a run of success. There has been at least one serious wobble for the party here too though.
Bristol South covers the southern third of Bristol, from the South bank of the Avon to the city boundary, excluding a strip down the east of the city which is in Bristol East. It is the most suburban of the Bristol seats, and the only one to lie entirely within the historic area of Somerset. Some of the outer boundaries of Bristol can be quite hard to spot on the ground in places, but not here, as the built-up suburbs of Withywood and Hartcliffe give way to the green fields and the green belt of North Somerset.
This area of the city has never been as industrialised as the city centre areas, although the harbour and the Dry Dock where the SS Great Britain was built are just over the constituency border and a lot of the workers in Bristol’s industry lived in this seat while working elsewhere. In addition, Redcliffe Caves lie just over the border in Bristol West, and it’s not unlikely that they extend under areas of this seat. These are a series of man-made tunnels dug under the city to produce sand for glassmaking. Started in the middle ages, they were in use until the end of the 19th century. Imperial Tobacco once had an office in Hartcliffe, one of the southern suburbs, providing employment for many of the residents of the council houses here, although it has now closed down.
In the inter and post war years some large council estates were built in this seat, as the city centre was war damaged and the slums were cleared. THe largest of these were the inter war Knowle West and the post war Hartcliffe. Both of these are deprived and in some ways quite fierce estates, and are often the focus of regeneration efforts. In the 1980’s this seat had about 50% local authority housing. That figure has now dropped to 23.1%, but is still the highest of any of the Bristol Seats.
The constituency can be split into three parts. The first part is an area that feels like inner city. Southville, most of Windmill Hill and about two thirds of Bedminster ward ( the part east of Winterstoke Road) are predominantly inner city terraced areas. These areas have gentrified a lot over the past 15 years, and are popular with young professionals, who would have moved to Bishopston and Redland in Bristol West a generation before but have been priced out of that area. House prices are higher here- an average of £415k in Windmill Hill and £400k in Bedminster, about fifty percent higher than the average price in say Hartcliffe, and that despite most of the housing stock here being smaller. 56.9% and 61.2% respectively of people in Windmill Hill and Southville are educated to degree level, almost three times the percentage of the outer wards in this same constituency. There is some Green Party history here, the party won its first council seat in Bristol in Southville in 2006, long before they broke through in the Bristol West wards, and the three inner wards are competitive between the Greens and Labour now- in 2021 the Greens won Windmill HIll and Southville and Bedminster elected 1 Labour and 1 Green councillor. The Green’s got 4% in the Bristol South constituency in 2019, but there is a base for them to build on in these three wards, although one suspects their attention will be on Bristol Central.
Up the hill out of the city centre area are the remaining four wards which split into 2 pairs of two. Bishopsworth and Hengrove & Whitchurch Park are mixed suburban wards, both of which contain some very pleasant residential areas. Bishopsworth on the A38 out of Bristol is the whitest ward in Bristol and contains some nice suburban territory, particularly in Headley Park and parts of Highridge, but it does also contain a council estate at Bedminster Down. This ward is the only Conservative ward in the seat, although it is more Conservative than its demographics suggest it might be,which is partly due to Richard Eddy, a long standing Conservative councillor, who polled 600 votes more than his running mate in 2016 and 400 more in 2021. Bishopsworth was marginal in the 1980s but Labour haven’t won it since 1995. The other suburban ward Hengrove and Whitchurch Park is on the very southern edge of the city and is more white van man territory. Only 20.9% of people here have a level 4 qualification and the housing is mostly privately owned but not particularly high status. The Liberal Democrats fairly consistently win this ward at local level, although UKIP did win it once, and Labour poll third.
The other two wards are the two deprived former council estate wards. Filwood contains the Knowle West council estate, although even here the housing is now 48% owner occupied to 38% social rented. 22.3% of people have a long term health condition in Filwood. The deprived nature of the ward did not stop it voting Liberal Democrat in local elections in the 2000’s but in 2021 Labour held it comfortably with the Greens coming second.
Hartcliffe and Withywood on the very southern edge of the city is still majority social rented housing ( 49.6% to 40.3% owner occupied) and is also a deprived housing estate. 23.8% of people here have a long term health condition and 34% of children are living in a low income family. Just 15.8% of adults here have a degree level qualification, less than a quarter of the level of Southville a few miles away. In 2021 Labour held Hartcliffe & Withywood although the Tories came second and pushed them quite close.
Since the seat adopted broadly its current shape in 1983, boundary changes have been relatively minor. In 1997, Hengrove was added from Bristol East and there were very minor changes in 2010. This time, in the boundary changes Knowle ward ( a relatively middle class area and definitely not to be confused with Knowle West) is moved to Bristol East.
This seat has a working-class labour profile overall, although some of the demographics are not that far from the average. 44.4% of people are in managerial, professional and interim occupations. This figure is higher in some wards, such as Windmill Hill and will be much lower in others, such as Hartcliffe and Withywood. In the old Hartcliffe ward, from before the 2016 boundary changes, that figure is just 20.7%, 12.5% of people are in routine occupations, placing the seat 142nd in England and Wales
It is not as young a constituency as elsewhere in Bristol but it is still younger than average, with only 29.7% of people being aged over 55. It still ranks 83rd on the percentage of socially rented housing and owner occupancy is 56.9%. It is significantly more white than the other seats in Bristol at 90.1% and less educated with 19.6% of people having no formal qualifications.
It is also not a rich seat. in fact, it is the 73rd most deprived in England, making it more deprived than seats like Redcar, Stoke-on-Trent South, and Birmingham, Selly Oak, and only slightly less so than Hyndburn and Stockton North. 29% of its LSOAs are “highly deprived”, which means they are in the 10% most deprived in England. Paddy Ashdown once described health outcomes in Hartcliffe as “comparable to a third world country”. This includes all bar two of the twelve LSOAs mostly or wholly within Hartcliffe & Withywood ward, and all but three of the nine within Filwood ward. The constituency does especially badly on educational deprivation (28th in England) and crime (21st). It also does worse than its average on deprivation affecting children (68th in England). In terms of income, the average weekly pay here is £537 compared £586.50 in Great Britain. Unsurprisingly, it is Bristol’s most deprived seat. Some areas of Bedminster, Bedminster Down, Knowle and Windmill Hill do better, and very small parts are actively wealthy. Hartcliffe, Knowle West and Withywood are the poorest areas.
This seat has been Labour since 1935. It has only had a non-Labour MP for four years since 1929, as Conservative Noel Ker Lindsay won it with a 21.8% majority in 1931. Labour won it on large majorities from 1945 until 1983. In 1983 the boundaries in Bristol were quite radically changed with a reduction of one seat. The seat that was effectively abolished was Bristol North East but the knock on effect was that a part of Tony Benn’s very marginal Bristol South East was added to Bristol South leading to a very brutal selection battle between Benn and Michael Cocks, sitting member for Bristol South. Cocks won first the selection battle and then the seat, holding on by 8.9% but then faced an ongoing battle within the Labour Party and was deselected for the 1987 election in favour of the left wing Dawn Primarolo. Labour had their biggest scare ever in Bristol South that year as Primarolo won it by just 1,404 votes or 2.7%: she would later become minister for public health and then children, young people and families under Gordon Brown. Primarolo’s last election in 2010 was relatively close, with the LibDems finishing second on 28.7% and cutting Labour’s majority to under ten points. Its MP since 2015 has been Labour’s Karin Smyth, a former NHS manager. The collapse of the LibDem vote has seen it become a safe Labour seat again, and Smyth’s current majority stands at 17.8% after a 9.5% fall in the Labour vote in 2019. Whilst the Conservatives only increased their share by 2% in 2019, their 32.7% was their highest share since 1987.
There is a good case to be made that this is Bristol’s most socially conservative seat, although it’s not really saying much: this is Bristol after all. It voted just 52.9% remain in the referendum, the lowest of the Bristol’s constituencies. Again the constituency was quite divided on that matter. At 66.4%, Hartcliffe & Withywood recorded the highest leave vote in the city. By contrast, the inner ward of Bedminster voted 63.9% remain, and the central wards of Southville and Windmill Hill voted 75.9% and 72.8% remain respectively, tipping the seat from leave to remain overall.
Brexit will clearly have impacted this seat, and Labour’s 9.5% drop in 2019 will have been down to several factors. The Tories will have been the main beneficiaries in the council estates, while the LibDems will have done better in Southville and Windmill Hill, especially the latter. That said, it is unlikely that the political alignments have been changed too drastically.
The removal of Knowle reduces Labour’s notional majority by 800 or so but increases its percentage majority. Overall, this is a safe Labour seat, with a steady Tory minority, that shows little sign of long-term change. Labour’s loss of vote share in 2019 still sees them ahead of their 2005, 2010 and 2015 results
Notional ( R & T)
Lab 24,917 51.6%
Con 15,840 32.8%
LD 3,012. 6.2%
Green 2,445 5.1%
BP 2,054. 4.3%
In some ways Bristol South might be considered the least interesting of the four ( and from 2024, five) constituencies in the city of Bristol. Over the last 30 years it is the most stable in terms of new development as most of the redevelopment in Bristol has been in the city centre and the new development has mostly been to the North and East of the city. There has been relatively little new housing development at all in South. There is also, by and large, political stability here with Labour having held the constituency continuously since 1935, although the boundaries have changed quite a lot over that time and only 2 of the current 7 wards, Bedminster and Southville, have always been in the constituency. This is the only seat in the South of England outside of London where Labour have had such a run of success. There has been at least one serious wobble for the party here too though.
Bristol South covers the southern third of Bristol, from the South bank of the Avon to the city boundary, excluding a strip down the east of the city which is in Bristol East. It is the most suburban of the Bristol seats, and the only one to lie entirely within the historic area of Somerset. Some of the outer boundaries of Bristol can be quite hard to spot on the ground in places, but not here, as the built-up suburbs of Withywood and Hartcliffe give way to the green fields and the green belt of North Somerset.
This area of the city has never been as industrialised as the city centre areas, although the harbour and the Dry Dock where the SS Great Britain was built are just over the constituency border and a lot of the workers in Bristol’s industry lived in this seat while working elsewhere. In addition, Redcliffe Caves lie just over the border in Bristol West, and it’s not unlikely that they extend under areas of this seat. These are a series of man-made tunnels dug under the city to produce sand for glassmaking. Started in the middle ages, they were in use until the end of the 19th century. Imperial Tobacco once had an office in Hartcliffe, one of the southern suburbs, providing employment for many of the residents of the council houses here, although it has now closed down.
In the inter and post war years some large council estates were built in this seat, as the city centre was war damaged and the slums were cleared. THe largest of these were the inter war Knowle West and the post war Hartcliffe. Both of these are deprived and in some ways quite fierce estates, and are often the focus of regeneration efforts. In the 1980’s this seat had about 50% local authority housing. That figure has now dropped to 23.1%, but is still the highest of any of the Bristol Seats.
The constituency can be split into three parts. The first part is an area that feels like inner city. Southville, most of Windmill Hill and about two thirds of Bedminster ward ( the part east of Winterstoke Road) are predominantly inner city terraced areas. These areas have gentrified a lot over the past 15 years, and are popular with young professionals, who would have moved to Bishopston and Redland in Bristol West a generation before but have been priced out of that area. House prices are higher here- an average of £415k in Windmill Hill and £400k in Bedminster, about fifty percent higher than the average price in say Hartcliffe, and that despite most of the housing stock here being smaller. 56.9% and 61.2% respectively of people in Windmill Hill and Southville are educated to degree level, almost three times the percentage of the outer wards in this same constituency. There is some Green Party history here, the party won its first council seat in Bristol in Southville in 2006, long before they broke through in the Bristol West wards, and the three inner wards are competitive between the Greens and Labour now- in 2021 the Greens won Windmill HIll and Southville and Bedminster elected 1 Labour and 1 Green councillor. The Green’s got 4% in the Bristol South constituency in 2019, but there is a base for them to build on in these three wards, although one suspects their attention will be on Bristol Central.
Up the hill out of the city centre area are the remaining four wards which split into 2 pairs of two. Bishopsworth and Hengrove & Whitchurch Park are mixed suburban wards, both of which contain some very pleasant residential areas. Bishopsworth on the A38 out of Bristol is the whitest ward in Bristol and contains some nice suburban territory, particularly in Headley Park and parts of Highridge, but it does also contain a council estate at Bedminster Down. This ward is the only Conservative ward in the seat, although it is more Conservative than its demographics suggest it might be,which is partly due to Richard Eddy, a long standing Conservative councillor, who polled 600 votes more than his running mate in 2016 and 400 more in 2021. Bishopsworth was marginal in the 1980s but Labour haven’t won it since 1995. The other suburban ward Hengrove and Whitchurch Park is on the very southern edge of the city and is more white van man territory. Only 20.9% of people here have a level 4 qualification and the housing is mostly privately owned but not particularly high status. The Liberal Democrats fairly consistently win this ward at local level, although UKIP did win it once, and Labour poll third.
The other two wards are the two deprived former council estate wards. Filwood contains the Knowle West council estate, although even here the housing is now 48% owner occupied to 38% social rented. 22.3% of people have a long term health condition in Filwood. The deprived nature of the ward did not stop it voting Liberal Democrat in local elections in the 2000’s but in 2021 Labour held it comfortably with the Greens coming second.
Hartcliffe and Withywood on the very southern edge of the city is still majority social rented housing ( 49.6% to 40.3% owner occupied) and is also a deprived housing estate. 23.8% of people here have a long term health condition and 34% of children are living in a low income family. Just 15.8% of adults here have a degree level qualification, less than a quarter of the level of Southville a few miles away. In 2021 Labour held Hartcliffe & Withywood although the Tories came second and pushed them quite close.
Since the seat adopted broadly its current shape in 1983, boundary changes have been relatively minor. In 1997, Hengrove was added from Bristol East and there were very minor changes in 2010. This time, in the boundary changes Knowle ward ( a relatively middle class area and definitely not to be confused with Knowle West) is moved to Bristol East.
This seat has a working-class labour profile overall, although some of the demographics are not that far from the average. 44.4% of people are in managerial, professional and interim occupations. This figure is higher in some wards, such as Windmill Hill and will be much lower in others, such as Hartcliffe and Withywood. In the old Hartcliffe ward, from before the 2016 boundary changes, that figure is just 20.7%, 12.5% of people are in routine occupations, placing the seat 142nd in England and Wales
It is not as young a constituency as elsewhere in Bristol but it is still younger than average, with only 29.7% of people being aged over 55. It still ranks 83rd on the percentage of socially rented housing and owner occupancy is 56.9%. It is significantly more white than the other seats in Bristol at 90.1% and less educated with 19.6% of people having no formal qualifications.
It is also not a rich seat. in fact, it is the 73rd most deprived in England, making it more deprived than seats like Redcar, Stoke-on-Trent South, and Birmingham, Selly Oak, and only slightly less so than Hyndburn and Stockton North. 29% of its LSOAs are “highly deprived”, which means they are in the 10% most deprived in England. Paddy Ashdown once described health outcomes in Hartcliffe as “comparable to a third world country”. This includes all bar two of the twelve LSOAs mostly or wholly within Hartcliffe & Withywood ward, and all but three of the nine within Filwood ward. The constituency does especially badly on educational deprivation (28th in England) and crime (21st). It also does worse than its average on deprivation affecting children (68th in England). In terms of income, the average weekly pay here is £537 compared £586.50 in Great Britain. Unsurprisingly, it is Bristol’s most deprived seat. Some areas of Bedminster, Bedminster Down, Knowle and Windmill Hill do better, and very small parts are actively wealthy. Hartcliffe, Knowle West and Withywood are the poorest areas.
This seat has been Labour since 1935. It has only had a non-Labour MP for four years since 1929, as Conservative Noel Ker Lindsay won it with a 21.8% majority in 1931. Labour won it on large majorities from 1945 until 1983. In 1983 the boundaries in Bristol were quite radically changed with a reduction of one seat. The seat that was effectively abolished was Bristol North East but the knock on effect was that a part of Tony Benn’s very marginal Bristol South East was added to Bristol South leading to a very brutal selection battle between Benn and Michael Cocks, sitting member for Bristol South. Cocks won first the selection battle and then the seat, holding on by 8.9% but then faced an ongoing battle within the Labour Party and was deselected for the 1987 election in favour of the left wing Dawn Primarolo. Labour had their biggest scare ever in Bristol South that year as Primarolo won it by just 1,404 votes or 2.7%: she would later become minister for public health and then children, young people and families under Gordon Brown. Primarolo’s last election in 2010 was relatively close, with the LibDems finishing second on 28.7% and cutting Labour’s majority to under ten points. Its MP since 2015 has been Labour’s Karin Smyth, a former NHS manager. The collapse of the LibDem vote has seen it become a safe Labour seat again, and Smyth’s current majority stands at 17.8% after a 9.5% fall in the Labour vote in 2019. Whilst the Conservatives only increased their share by 2% in 2019, their 32.7% was their highest share since 1987.
There is a good case to be made that this is Bristol’s most socially conservative seat, although it’s not really saying much: this is Bristol after all. It voted just 52.9% remain in the referendum, the lowest of the Bristol’s constituencies. Again the constituency was quite divided on that matter. At 66.4%, Hartcliffe & Withywood recorded the highest leave vote in the city. By contrast, the inner ward of Bedminster voted 63.9% remain, and the central wards of Southville and Windmill Hill voted 75.9% and 72.8% remain respectively, tipping the seat from leave to remain overall.
Brexit will clearly have impacted this seat, and Labour’s 9.5% drop in 2019 will have been down to several factors. The Tories will have been the main beneficiaries in the council estates, while the LibDems will have done better in Southville and Windmill Hill, especially the latter. That said, it is unlikely that the political alignments have been changed too drastically.
The removal of Knowle reduces Labour’s notional majority by 800 or so but increases its percentage majority. Overall, this is a safe Labour seat, with a steady Tory minority, that shows little sign of long-term change. Labour’s loss of vote share in 2019 still sees them ahead of their 2005, 2010 and 2015 results
Notional ( R & T)
Lab 24,917 51.6%
Con 15,840 32.8%
LD 3,012. 6.2%
Green 2,445 5.1%
BP 2,054. 4.3%
