Nottingham South
By some way the most disparate constituency of the three in Nottingham, South includes several distinct sets of neighbourhoods, all of interest socially and politically, but which add up in the present electoral climate to maintain a very safe Labour seat.
The first is based on the historic city centre, with its well known landmarks such as the Nottingham Castle that features in the ‘Robin Hood’ legend and films, on its crag above the venerable 'Trip to Jerusalem’ pub. Here too are the Old Market Square, where Nottingham folk meet ‘by the lions’, the Lace Market and the more modern Broad Marsh shopping centre. This is gradually going downhill till one reaches the main railway station. At that point the character changes, as does the city council ward, as Castle becomes Meadows. The latter neighbourhood extends south to the river Trent and the city side of Trent Bridge (both the Test cricket ground and that of Nottingham Forest football club, at present newly restored to the Premier League, are over the river in Rushcliffe constituency). The Meadows was heavily redeveloped with new housing from the 1970s, turning a traditional working class area into what some regarded as a high crime modern wasteland, though matters have improved to an extent as the 21st century has progressed.
www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/gallery/take-look-back-life-meadows-2624018In the most recent Nottingham city council elections, in May 2019, Meadows ward was won very convincingly by Labour (top candidate 67.8%), with an Independent, Liberal Democrats and a Green all ahead of the Tories bringing up the rear with well under 10%. Castle ward was more competitive, with Labour again ahead but a strong showing by the Liberal Democrats (30%) and Green (19.5%) as well. The Conservatives did not finish bottom, because that honour belonged to David Bishop, the perennial Bus Pass Elvis candidate, in one of his last contests before his lamented death in December 2022 at the age of 78. His BBC obituary described him as a ‘Nottingham political character’
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-63839826Moving west from the commercial ‘downtown’ centre, and still within Castle ward, is the old west end of the city, the Park estate, which is spaciously and rather grandly laid out in crescents and ‘circuses’. Then, further west (and in many ways this seat could equally be called Nottingham West as South; indeed its Leen Valley ward is in the city’s north west quadrant) we find the tight knit terraces of Radford and Lenton. These have passed through more than one transformation in a lifetime; well, in my lifetime anyway. When my father worked in the centre of Nottingham in the 1950s and early 1960s, he boarded during the week as a lodger at a friend’s house off the Derby Road, in Rothesay Avenue. Then at first that road rapidly filled up with ‘immigrants’ from the ‘New Commonwealth’, until my father’s host was able to tell anyone who would listen that he was ‘the last white man in the street’ (you could interpret that opinion two ways).
However if one analyses this neighbourhood using the detailed 2022 census maps, one finds that Radford MSOA is 26% Asian and 16% Black, but the largest group is the 46% who are White. In Lenton and Dunkirk, similar but just to the south, over 66% are now in the White category. The clue is given by another set of statistics applied at the same MSOA level. 57% in Radford are full time students. That figure for Lenton & Dunkirk is over 71%. The ‘immigrants’ have themselves largely moved on and been replaced by a ‘permanent temporary’ community of a very different nature - though currently not dissimilar politics: in May 2019 Radford ward voted for Labour with a share of 77%, and Lenton & Wollaton East with around two thirds of all votes.
Further to the west still, we find the fount of the transformation of the inner western city: the main campus of the University of Nottingham, with its lakes, greenery and rolling slopes, generously endowed by Sir Jesse Boot in the 1920s. It is set in traditionally Nottingham’s top residential neighbourhood, Wollaton. To it north is an even larger green space, Wollaton Park, fringed with highly comfortable detached residences on roads like Parkside and Bramcote Lane. Wollaton used to be the site of the most Conservative voting within Nottingham until it was split into two in 2003, when Wollaton East & Lenton Abbey fell to the Liberal Democrats, and Wollaton West remained solidly Tory until 2015, when one Labour candidate topped the poll in a split result. But in May 2019 Labour took all three council seats in the ward for the first time.
To find any Conservative representation that year within the Nottingham South division, one has to travel to the final distinct section of the constituency. There is a section of the seat south of the Trent. This mainly consists of Clifton, which has a very large social housing estate but as overspill on the very south western edge of the city boundaries in the 1950s. This is mainly in Clifton East ward which elected three ‘Nottingham Independents’ in 2019 but has generally been strongly Labour in general elections. However there are other elements in this sector too. One is a main campus of Nottingham’s other university, Trent, which is west of the A453 and near the original Clifton village. There is also fairly up-market private housing development. All this is in Clifton West ward, along with the separate community of Wilford. The neighbourhoods in Clifton West are over 70% owner occupied in the 2021 census, and this was the only ward in the South constituency that elected Conservatives in May 2019; previously Clifton’s wards had been divided North as South which weakened the Tory element.
The element that ties together the whole Nottingham South constituency is epitomized by the presence of the two universities, in essence one on each side of the river Trent, and the student accommodation that spreads beyond the campuses themselves. As well as the figures for Lenton & Dunkirk and Radford mentioned above, the 2021 census revealed that 23% of the residents of Clifton North were full time students, 43% in Lenton Abbey, University & Wollaton Park, 57% in The Park and Castle, 42% in City Centre & Trent Bridge (which covers the Meadows). To use a fashionable phrase, Nottingham South could be described as Student Central. Overall the proportion for the constituency as a whole is 34.5%, which is unsurpassed in any set in England and Wales, no.1 out of 573. With the present political preferences of young people in general and the highly educated in particular, this will undoubtedly help Labour. However this should not be overestimated, as some will not be registered and some will not vote here, especially if elections should happen to fall outside term time. In May 2019 the turnout in Lenton & Wollaton East ward was only 21%, in Radford only 17% - the two lowest in the city in the two wards with the most students.
However generally speaking Nottingham South is essentially a Labour seat for other reasons too: despite population movements by ethnic minority residents away from the student areas, it was still only 65% white in 2021, a five per cent reduction from 2011.The managerial and professional worker proportion was still in the bottom decile of all seats in England and Wales. South was won by the Conservatives in its first contest in 1983 and held until 1992. This was basically because of Labour’s poor showing at both national and regional level in 1983 and 1987; in 1992 Alan Simpson managed to claim Labour’s inheritance in South, ousting Martin Brandon-Bravo by over 3,000 votes with a 5% swing. Since then Labour has only been seriously challenged once, in 2010, when in Lilian Greenwood’s first contest the majority over the Tories fell to 1,772. Her share increased by more than 10% in 2015 and by nearly 15% in 2017, meaning that it had risen from 37% to over 62% in just two cycles. It fell back by 7% in December 2019, but the Tories did not benefit; there was very little traction for Brexit here, with the party of that name only getting 4% in that general election, and indeed it was the Liberal Democrats who advanced most. This is not surprising in a seat which is estimated to have voted to Remain in the EU in 2016, by around 54% to 46%.
Labour’s position is very strong in Nottingham South now, and this will not be challenged by the forthcoming boundary changes. Castle ward in the city centre is proposed to be transferred to the Nottingham East division and Leen Valley to North, and in exchange Bilborough picked up from North. This will make South even more diverse, as Bilborough is a very working class ward based on large social housing estates and with relatively few students, but it is at least as strongly Labour as Castle and Leen Valley are in most circumstances.
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/b65f7782-658b-4c4a-9cba-59c16c807f77/a3-maps/EM_38_Nottingham%20South%20BC.pdfNottingham South may not quite retain its position as the most full time student-heavy constituency in the entire country, but it still won’t be far off. Even without the students, South increasingly looks like a one-horse race. Given their sharp decline since 2019, it would not be at all surprising if the Conservatives return no councillors at all within the seat in the May 2023 Nottingham city council elections, including in the more favoured residential areas. The local and indeed national political landscape has changed dramatically since the Tories won those first contests here back in the 1980s.
Census statistics in post above
Posted in response to the request of
John Chanin for more Nottingham detail.
