Castle Point

[John Chanin]

This seat is coterminous with the District of the same name, and the seat is unchanged since 1983. The name comes from Hadleigh castle, a rather disappointing ruin on the top of the cliffs backing the Thames estuary. However there is an excellent Turner painting in the Tate Gallery of the castle in winter, which is a good evocation of its windswept and stormy side.

There are two distinct parts of the constituency (and District). The larger half, to the north, is essentially an extension of the Southend urban area, and is treated as such by the ONS. It is bounded by the Southend arterial road to the north, which separates it from Rayleigh, and by a narrow muddy channel of the Thames to the south. The A13 London Road runs through the middle of the constituency. North of the A13 there are 2 residential areas separated by open land. Hadleigh to the east is very much an extension of Southend West with middle-class owner-occupied housing. Thundersley to the west is really quite run down, lots of small houses and flat blocks, built in the immediate post-war period and showing their age. Between the two is the anomalously plush little village of Daws Heath with its large houses, surrounded by countryside. To the south of the A13 there is the Hadleigh country park, with the c2c railway line running through it to the station at South Benfleet. South Benfleet is not quite as run down as Thundersley, but it isn’t rich either.

The smaller southern half of the seat is Canvey Island - a strange and isolated place, with just 2 roads connecting it to the mainland. It is low lying and densely packed with housing, with an old oil refinery to the west, and an attempt at a beach on the estuary shore, rather spoiled by the sea walls cutting it off from the town, built after the 1953 floods which drowned the island. The inland shore is uninhabited marsh, but there is some higher ground to the east of the island known as Canvey Heights. Global warming is a threat here, and new building has been limited because of the threat of flooding. One recent social trend has been the immigration of a number of Haredi jews, abandoning expensive Hackney for the cheap housing on Canvey - a group for whom the isolation is not a problem.

This seat notoriously is one of the poorest seats to be safely Conservative - very much the epitome of proudly nationalistic south Essex. It is almost wholly owner-occupied with one of the top 10 percentages in the country, and no council housing to speak of. It is also almost entirely white. The seat is also distinctive for its high level of workers in intermediate occupations, and is perhaps the worst educated seat in southern England. Local politics consists of a stand off between Conservative Benfleet, and the Canvey Island Independents, who hold almost all the seats on the island. Since Benfleet is bigger they are a permanently impotent minority, and at a national level Canvey has proved fertile ground for UKIP. This was one of the District councils that went Labour from a near zero start in 1995, and unsurprisingly the inexperienced councillors made a pig’s ear of running the council. No Labour councillor has been seen here now for many years.

Nationally Labour followed up their 1995 victory by a surprise win at the 1997 general election with an astonishing 17% swing, one of the highest in the country. However this was one of the 5 seats (3 of them in south Essex) which reverted to the Conservatives in 2001. The returning MP Bob Spink became increasingly detached from the Conservatives, resigning the whip in 2008, and then linking with UKIP, although he stood for re-election in 2010 as an independent. This was one of the strongest areas for UKIP in the last decade. The present MP is Rebecca Harris, first elected in 2010. The seat is now very safe for the Conservatives.

Annoyingly Castle Point District is 400 votes too small to remain a constituency on its own in the present boundary review. Adding a Southend ward (as in the original proposals) or a Rayleigh ward is distinctly sub-optimal. The Boundary Commission has therefore solved the problem by adding 1600 voters from the village of North Benfleet in Basildon District. This will have no effect on results.

Census data: owner-occupied 83% (5/573 in England & Wales), private rented 10% (530th), social rented 5% (572nd).
                      :White 97%, Black 1%, Asian 1%, Mixed 1%, Other 1%
                      : Managerial & professional 29% (440th), Routine & Semi-routine 29% (299th)
                      : Degree 15% (556th), Minimal qualifications 48% (32nd)
                      : Students 1.9% (559th), Over 65 22% (70th)

	2010	%	2015	%	2017	%	2019	%
Conservative	19,806	44.0%	23,112	50.9%	30,076	67.3%	33,971	76.7%
Labour	6,609	14.7%	6,283	13.8%	11,204	25.1%	7,337	16.6%
Liberal Democrat	4,232	9.4%	801	1.8%	1,049	2.3%	2,969	6.7%
UKIP (Spink)	12,174	27.0%	14,178	31.2%	2,381	5.3%
Green			1,076	2.4%
Others	2,205	4.9%
Majority	7,632	17.0%	8,934	19.7%	18,872	42.2%	26,634	60.2%

[jamie]

Good summary. I would add that Labour are stronger on Canvey Island than the mainland, albeit very much relatively so.

[The Bishop]

One small point, Labour got a clutch of councillors here in 1991 so their win four years later wasn't literally "from zero". It was still remarkable, though.

A reason for their total disappearance now is that the then council leader was a key figure in setting up Canvey Independents, taking Labour votes and members with him.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

There was also the fairly disreputable campaign of Terry Holding, details of which I will leave to others to discover.

[froome]

Canvey Island has a fascinating medieval history linked to the Dutch, who built its first sea wall in 1618, and then used the island as a base for provisions later that century when England and Holland were at war. At that time, there will have been a considerable Dutch population there which was merging with the English one. There are still some Dutch street names, and if you explore its bland housing, there are still two old but well preserved Dutch houses hidden away amidst the estates. At the end of the 19th century there was an attempt to transform Canvey island into a resort larger than even Blackpool, with an enormous Winter Garden, and much work began on this before the developer went bankrupt.

The island now has a sea wall or rather embankment that is so high that none of the island's residents can ever see the sea from their houses, which must be depressing, though obviously necessary given its history of flooding.

[Deleted]

Apr 2, 2020 11:11:19 GMT froome said:

Canvey Island has a fascinating medieval history linked to the Dutch, who built its first sea wall in 1618, and then used the island as a base for provisions later that century when England and Holland were at war. At that time, there will have been a considerable Dutch population there which was merging with the English one. There are still some Dutch street names, and if you explore its bland housing, there are still two old but well preserved Dutch houses hidden away amidst the estates. At the end of the 19th century there was an attempt to transform Canvey island into a resort larger than even Blackpool, with an enormous Winter Garden, and much work began on this before the developer went bankrupt.

The island now has a sea wall or rather embankment that is so high that none of the island's residents can ever see the sea from their houses, which must be depressing, though obviously necessary given its history of flooding.

In my former incarnation I posted a link to an article about this (in response to your good self, in fact).

[froome]

Apr 2, 2020 11:39:50 GMT @goodoldcause2 said:

Apr 2, 2020 11:11:19 GMT froome said:

Canvey Island has a fascinating medieval history linked to the Dutch, who built its first sea wall in 1618, and then used the island as a base for provisions later that century when England and Holland were at war. At that time, there will have been a considerable Dutch population there which was merging with the English one. There are still some Dutch street names, and if you explore its bland housing, there are still two old but well preserved Dutch houses hidden away amidst the estates. At the end of the 19th century there was an attempt to transform Canvey island into a resort larger than even Blackpool, with an enormous Winter Garden, and much work began on this before the developer went bankrupt.

The island now has a sea wall or rather embankment that is so high that none of the island's residents can ever see the sea from their houses, which must be depressing, though obviously necessary given its history of flooding.

In my former incarnation I posted a link to an article about this (in response to your good self, in fact).

Ah yes, I remember that now. It must have been quite a few years ago. I wonder how many Canvey residents would believe you if you told them there had been plans to build a 6 mile long greenhouse there with a railway running through the middle of it.

[therealriga]

Apr 2, 2020 10:18:42 GMT The Bishop said:

One small point, Labour got a clutch of councillors here in 1991 so their win four years later wasn't literally "from zero". It was still remarkable, though.

A reason for their total disappearance now is that the then council leader was a key figure in setting up Canvey Independents, taking Labour votes and members with him.

As I remember it, there was a really mad swing? 35-4 in Conservatives' favour to something like 34-5 in Labour's favour? But yes, there were Labour councillors there.

[Deleted]

Apr 2, 2020 21:28:09 GMT therealriga said:

Apr 2, 2020 10:18:42 GMT The Bishop said:

One small point, Labour got a clutch of councillors here in 1991 so their win four years later wasn't literally "from zero". It was still remarkable, though.

A reason for their total disappearance now is that the then council leader was a key figure in setting up Canvey Independents, taking Labour votes and members with him.

As I remember it, there was a really mad swing? 35-4 in Conservatives' favour to something like 34-5 in Labour's favour? But yes, there were Labour councillors there.

36-3 to 34-5 according to Wikipedia. Apparently Labour also held the council for three years in the seventies?

[finsobruce]

Apr 2, 2020 21:34:24 GMT @europeanlefty said:

Apr 2, 2020 21:28:09 GMT therealriga said:

As I remember it, there was a really mad swing? 35-4 in Conservatives' favour to something like 34-5 in Labour's favour? But yes, there were Labour councillors there.

36-3 to 34-5 according to Wikipedia. Apparently Labour also held the seat for three years in the seventies?

Nope. Bernard Braine held the previous seat of South East Essex from 1955 to 1983, and then Castle Point until 1992.

Labour won SE Essex in 1923-4, 1929-31 and 1945-50 (when it was abolished).

[Deleted]

Apr 2, 2020 21:39:07 GMT finsobruce said:

Apr 2, 2020 21:34:24 GMT @europeanlefty said:

36-3 to 34-5 according to Wikipedia. Apparently Labour also held the seat for three years in the seventies?

Nope. Bernard Braine held the previous seat of South East Essex from 1955 to 1983, and then Castle Point until 1992.

Labour won SE Essex in 1923-4, 1929-31 and 1945-50 (when it was abolished).

sorry, I meant to type council and forgot what I was saying mid sentence

[therealriga]

Apr 1, 2020 12:59:04 GMT John Chanin said:

This was one of the District councils that went Labour from a near zero start in 1995, and unsurprisingly the inexperienced councillors made a pig’s ear of running the council. 

Curious about that bit. If they made such a hash of running the council, why where they comfortably re-elected in 1999?

[Clark]

Apr 1, 2020 12:59:04 GMT John Chanin said:

This seat is coterminous with the District of the same name, and the seat is unchanged since 1983. The name comes from Hadleigh castle, a rather disappointing ruin on the top of the cliffs backing the Thames estuary. However there is an excellent Turner painting in the Tate Gallery of the castle in winter, which is a good evocation of its windswept and stormy side.

There are two distinct parts of the constituency (and District). The larger half, to the north, is essentially an extension of the Southend urban area, and is treated as such by the ONS. It is bounded by the Southend arterial road to the north, which separates it from Rayleigh, and by a narrow muddy channel of the Thames to the south. The A13 London Road runs through the middle of the constituency. North of the A13 there are 2 residential areas separated by open land. Hadleigh to the east is very much an extension of Southend West with middle-class owner-occupied housing. Thundersley to the west is really quite run down, lots of small houses and flat blocks, built in the immediate post-war period and showing their age. Between the two is the anomalously plush little village of Daws Heath with its large houses, surrounded by countryside. To the south of the A13 there is the Hadleigh country park, with the c2c railway line running through it to the station at South Benfleet. South Benfleet is not quite as run down as Thundersley, but it isn’t rich either.

The smaller southern half of the seat is Canvey Island - a strange and isolated place, with just 2 roads connecting it to the mainland. It is low lying and densely packed with housing, with an old oil refinery to the west, and an attempt at a beach on the estuary shore, rather spoiled by the sea walls cutting it off from the town, built after the 1953 floods which drowned the island. The inland shore is uninhabited marsh, but there is some higher ground to the east of the island known as Canvey Heights. Global warming is a threat here, and new building has been limited because of the threat of flooding. One recent social trend has been the immigration of a number of Haredi jews, abandoning expensive Hackney for the cheap housing on Canvey - a group for whom the isolation is not a problem.

This seat notoriously is one of the poorest seats to be safely Conservative - very much the epitome of proudly nationalistic south Essex. It is almost wholly owner-occupied with one of the top 10 percentages in the country, and no council housing to speak of. It is also almost entirely white. The seat is also distinctive for its high level of workers in intermediate occupations. Local politics consists of a stand off between Conservative Benfleet, and the Canvey Island Independents, who hold almost all the seats on the island. Since Benfleet is bigger they are a permanently impotent minority, and at a national level Canvey has proved fertile ground for UKIP. This was one of the District councils that went Labour from a near zero start in 1995, and unsurprisingly the inexperienced councillors made a pig’s ear of running the council. No Labour councillor has been seen here now for many years.

Nationally Labour followed up their 1995 victory by a surprise win at the 1997 general election with an astonishing 17% swing, one of the highest in the country. However this was one of the 5 seats (3 of them in south Essex) which reverted to the Conservatives in 2001. The returning MP Bob Spink became increasingly detached from the Conservatives, resigning the whip in 2008, and then linking with UKIP, although he stood for re-election in 2010 as an independent. This was one of the strongest areas for UKIP in the last decade. The present MP is Rebecca Harris, first elected in 2010. The seat is now very safe for the Conservatives.

Census data: owner-occupied 83% (5/573 in England & Wales), private rented 10% (530th), social rented 5% (572nd).
                      :White 97%, Black 1%, Asian 1%, Mixed 1%, Other 1%
                      : Managerial & professional 29% (440th), Routine & Semi-routine 29% (299th)

	2010	%	2015	%	2017	%	2019	%
Conservative	19,806	44.0%	23,112	50.9%	30,076	67.3%	33,971	76.7%
Labour	6,609	14.7%	6,283	13.8%	11,204	25.1%	7,337	16.6%
Liberal Democrat	4,232	9.4%	801	1.8%	1,049	2.3%	2,969	6.7%
UKIP (Spink)	12,174	27.0%	14,178	31.2%	2,381	5.3%
Green			1,076	2.4%
Others	2,205	4.9%
Majority	7,632	17.0%	8,934	19.7%	18,872	42.2%	26,634	60.2%

Enjoyed reading your Essex profiles and how nationalistic they are, particularly South Essex - why do you think South Essex is so like this?  I just took a Google Maps tour around Benfleet and saw numerous houses and cars with Union Jack and St George's flags - people seem to be low educated, generally well off, very pro Brexit and staunchly Conservative. Not really my type of people lol

[Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells]

Jun 9, 2021 9:08:37 GMT Clark said:

Apr 1, 2020 12:59:04 GMT John Chanin said:

This seat is coterminous with the District of the same name, and the seat is unchanged since 1983. The name comes from Hadleigh castle, a rather disappointing ruin on the top of the cliffs backing the Thames estuary. However there is an excellent Turner painting in the Tate Gallery of the castle in winter, which is a good evocation of its windswept and stormy side.

There are two distinct parts of the constituency (and District). The larger half, to the north, is essentially an extension of the Southend urban area, and is treated as such by the ONS. It is bounded by the Southend arterial road to the north, which separates it from Rayleigh, and by a narrow muddy channel of the Thames to the south. The A13 London Road runs through the middle of the constituency. North of the A13 there are 2 residential areas separated by open land. Hadleigh to the east is very much an extension of Southend West with middle-class owner-occupied housing. Thundersley to the west is really quite run down, lots of small houses and flat blocks, built in the immediate post-war period and showing their age. Between the two is the anomalously plush little village of Daws Heath with its large houses, surrounded by countryside. To the south of the A13 there is the Hadleigh country park, with the c2c railway line running through it to the station at South Benfleet. South Benfleet is not quite as run down as Thundersley, but it isn’t rich either.

The smaller southern half of the seat is Canvey Island - a strange and isolated place, with just 2 roads connecting it to the mainland. It is low lying and densely packed with housing, with an old oil refinery to the west, and an attempt at a beach on the estuary shore, rather spoiled by the sea walls cutting it off from the town, built after the 1953 floods which drowned the island. The inland shore is uninhabited marsh, but there is some higher ground to the east of the island known as Canvey Heights. Global warming is a threat here, and new building has been limited because of the threat of flooding. One recent social trend has been the immigration of a number of Haredi jews, abandoning expensive Hackney for the cheap housing on Canvey - a group for whom the isolation is not a problem.

This seat notoriously is one of the poorest seats to be safely Conservative - very much the epitome of proudly nationalistic south Essex. It is almost wholly owner-occupied with one of the top 10 percentages in the country, and no council housing to speak of. It is also almost entirely white. The seat is also distinctive for its high level of workers in intermediate occupations. Local politics consists of a stand off between Conservative Benfleet, and the Canvey Island Independents, who hold almost all the seats on the island. Since Benfleet is bigger they are a permanently impotent minority, and at a national level Canvey has proved fertile ground for UKIP. This was one of the District councils that went Labour from a near zero start in 1995, and unsurprisingly the inexperienced councillors made a pig’s ear of running the council. No Labour councillor has been seen here now for many years.

Nationally Labour followed up their 1995 victory by a surprise win at the 1997 general election with an astonishing 17% swing, one of the highest in the country. However this was one of the 5 seats (3 of them in south Essex) which reverted to the Conservatives in 2001. The returning MP Bob Spink became increasingly detached from the Conservatives, resigning the whip in 2008, and then linking with UKIP, although he stood for re-election in 2010 as an independent. This was one of the strongest areas for UKIP in the last decade. The present MP is Rebecca Harris, first elected in 2010. The seat is now very safe for the Conservatives.

Census data: owner-occupied 83% (5/573 in England & Wales), private rented 10% (530th), social rented 5% (572nd).
                      :White 97%, Black 1%, Asian 1%, Mixed 1%, Other 1%
                      : Managerial & professional 29% (440th), Routine & Semi-routine 29% (299th)

	2010	%	2015	%	2017	%	2019	%
Conservative	19,806	44.0%	23,112	50.9%	30,076	67.3%	33,971	76.7%
Labour	6,609	14.7%	6,283	13.8%	11,204	25.1%	7,337	16.6%
Liberal Democrat	4,232	9.4%	801	1.8%	1,049	2.3%	2,969	6.7%
UKIP (Spink)	12,174	27.0%	14,178	31.2%	2,381	5.3%
Green			1,076	2.4%
Others	2,205	4.9%
Majority	7,632	17.0%	8,934	19.7%	18,872	42.2%	26,634	60.2%

Enjoyed reading your Essex profiles and how nationalistic they are, particularly South Essex - why do you think South Essex is so like this?  I just took a Google Maps tour around Benfleet and saw numerous houses and cars with Union Jack and St George's flags - people seem to be low educated, generally well off, very pro Brexit and staunchly Conservative. Not really my type of people lol

Ex-East Londoners who are mostly self-made, have a rosy vision of what London and Britain used to be like in the olden days and times have changed, they have found it maybe difficult to adapt. 

[Robert Waller]

2021 Census

Owner occupied 80.4% 6/573
Private rented 14.1% 475/573
Social rented 5.5% 572/573
White 94.9%
Black 1.3%
Asian 1.7%
Mixed 1.6%
Other 0.5%
Managerial & professional 29.7% 350/573
Routine & Semi-routine 24.3% 272/573
Degree level 18.5% 570/573
No qualifications 23.9% 67/573


2011 same criteria

Degree level 14.6% 556/573
No qualifications 29.9% 70/573

[Pete Whitehead]

Notional result 2019 on the proposed new boundaries

Con	34569	76.5%
Lab	7575	16.8%
LD	3008	6.7%
Oth	62	0.1%
Majority	26994	59.7%