Hornchurch & Upminster

[John Chanin]

This seat covers the far north east end of Greater London. North of the A12 Colchester Road is the large LCC overspill estate of Harold Hill, a low-rise cottage estate with much right to buy (less than half the houses are still rented). Between the A12 and the A127 Southend Road is Harold Wood, a typical area of suburban owner-occupied housing. South of the A127 to the east is Upminster - a prosperous suburb on the edge of London. Open country borders it to the south and east. To the west is Hornchurch, which forms a continuous urban area with Romford. The housing here is older and more mixed, but it is still a suburban area. Outside Harold Hill almost all the housing is owner-occupied, but the seat is only average nationally, and below average for London in managerial and professional staff. This is a comfortable middle-class area with a high proportion of people in intermediate occupations. The seat is very white for London, but as elsewhere in the suburbs the ethnic minority population is growing as people move out of the inner city in search of an affordable place to buy.

The 2010 boundary changes reduced Havering borough from 3 seats to 2.5. The Hornchurch seat was abolished, with the two central Hornchurch wards added to the Upminster seat. Upminster from its creation in 1974 had been a Conservative seat until falling to Labour on a 15.5% swing in the 1997 landslide. This aberration was corrected in 2001 as this was one of the five seats nationally regained by the Conservatives in 2001. The Labour strength has always been in Harold Hill, whose presence made the old Romford seat Labour in the 1950s and 1960s, and made the first contests in the new seat close. The two wards covering this area are the only wards in Havering now held by Labour. However as in other old peripheral council estates Labour are not dominant in the same way as they used to be, and both wards were won by UKIP in 2014. Apart from Harold Hill all wards except Emerson Park (really a part of Romford) are won by Residents Groups, but the supposition is that the Conservatives are stronger in Upminster than in Hornchurch when it comes to parliamentary elections. The MP here is Julia Lopez, a former SPAD and Tower Hamlets councillor first elected in 2017.

Havering provided something of a conundrum for the Boundary Commission, as there was no good solution using whole wards. Their initial proposal to move Emerson Park, traditionally part of Hornchurch, albeit part of a continuous urban area, to Romford was not popular. The proposed alternative moves most of Emerson Park back to this constituency, and in order to get it down to the correct size, two more wards are to be split, with small corners of Hacton and St Andrews wards in the Elm Park area being transferred to Dagenham & Rainham. This is an unusual move for the Boundary Commission, but it will have no partisan effect for this seat.

Census data: owner-occupied 75% (85/573 in England & Wales), private rented 9% (562nd), social rented 16% (270th).
                      :White 90%, Black 4%, Asian 3%, Mixed 2%, Other 2%
                      : Managerial & professional 34% (314th), Routine & Semi-routine 25% (413th)
                      : Degree 20% (451st), Minimal qualifications 43% (115th)
                      : Students 3.3% (268th) , Over 65: 19% (154th)

	2010	%	2015	%	2017	%	2019	%
Conservative	27,469	51.4%	27,051	49.0%	33,750	60.2%	35,495	65.8%
Labour	11,098	20.8%	11,103	20.1%	16,027	28.6%	12,187	22.6%
Liberal Democrat	7,426	13.9%	1,501	2.7%	1,371	2.4%	3,862	7.2%
UKIP	2,848	5.3%	13,977	25.3%	3,502	6.2%
BNP	3,821	6.4%	193	0.3%	380	0.7%	510	0.9%
Green	542	1.0%	1,411	2.6%	1,077	1.9%	1,920	3.6%
Others	586	1.1%
Majority	16.371	30.7%	13,074	23.7%	17,723	31.6%	23,308	43.2%

[John Chanin]

Apr 3, 2020 15:11:17 GMT @barnabymarder said:

Also, I have an acquaintance who lives in Emerson Park, and postally she lives in Hornchurch.

The urban area is continuous, and Emerson Park sits between Romford proper and Hornchurch. 

On Upminster you are correct about 1974 - I didn't check the size of the majority, and had forgotten how close it was.  That is about Harold Hill, and the way that what once was a hugely Labour council estate has continually moved away from Labour over the course of 50 years, as a result both of demographic and political change. I'll see about perhaps emphasising this a bit more. 

[greenhert]

Apr 3, 2020 15:10:26 GMT @barnabymarder said:

I'd change the bit about Upminster always being a safe Conservative seat - the Tories were only a few hundred ahead of Labour there in October 1974. It then swung very heavily to the Conservatives in 1979.

694 votes to be precise. Had Dick Leonard (Labour MP for Romford from 1970-74) been selected for Upminster in February 1974 he would have held it, if only by margins in the low hundreds, in both 1974 elections (it was notionally Labour upon its creation for the 1974 general election).

[peter]

A couple of points I would like to add. Hornchurch and Upminster is, by London standards, a geographically large constituency and contains farms. Emerson Park was always part of the Hornchurch UDC and therefore the Hornchurch constituency. Harold Hill is very different from the originally four wards that it joined in 1974. They three Harold Hill (ex Romford) wards (Gooshays, Heaton and Hilldene) voted Labour by overwhelming margins. Even in 1968 Labour recorded, 61, 57 and 64% in each of these three wards. When built, there were many complaints that the estate was isolated, but as John has said this has changed. Many early residents were from slum clearance in Bethnal Green and there are accounts of how different it was for them, central heating, bathrooms inside toilets and gardens made an enormous change. It was on Harold Hill that Margaret Thatcher came with Horace Cutler and local MP, John Loveridge, to hand over the deeds of the first RTB sale, a clip of which can be seen on you tube.

Emerson Park has roads with very large houses, often with equally large gardens and much security.

I disagree that Upminster would have been won by Labour in 1974. The three Labour wards were placed with four of the most Conservative wards from Hornchurch. Importantly, we have the 1973 GLC election to go by as an indicator. This was contested on the new London constituency boundaries. There were ten constituencies that the Conservatives failed to win in 1973 but won in the February 1974 election. Upminster was not amongst these with a Conservative majority of 740 in 1973.

The ten constituencies were: Hendon North, Hampstead, Croydon Central, Croydon North East, Croydon North West, Brentford and Isleworth, Ilford North, Richmond, Carshalton and Sutton and Cheam. Eight of these were won by Labour and two (Richmond and Sutton and Cheam) by the Liberals. In the October 1974 nine of the ten were retained by the Conservatives, the exception being Ilford North. The closest Conservative Labour contest in 1973 was Chislehurst, with a Conservative majority of 38.

Upminster was certainly considered to be marginal in 1974 but all actual evidence pointed to the fact that it would be marginally Conservative.

[Pete Whitehead]

Jul 31, 2020 22:48:21 GMT peter said:

A couple of points I would like to add. Hornchurch and Upminster is, by London standards, a geographically large constituency and contains farms. Emerson Park was always part of the Hornchurch UDC and therefore the Hornchurch constituency. Harold Hill is very different from the originally four wards that it joined in 1974. They three Harold Hill (ex Romford) wards (Gooshays, Heaton and Hilldene) voted Labour by overwhelming margins. Even in 1968 Labour recorded, 61, 57 and 64% in each of these three wards. When built, there were many complaints that the estate was isolated, but as John has said this has changed. Many early residents were from slum clearance in Bethnal Green and there are accounts of how different it was for them, central heating, bathrooms inside toilets and gardens made an enormous change. It was on Harold Hill that Margaret Thatcher came with Horace Cutler and local MP, John Loveridge, to hand over the deeds of the first RTB sale, a clip of which can be seen on you tube.

Emerson Park has roads with very large houses, often with equally large gardens and much security.

I disagree that Upminster would have been won by Labour in 1974. The three Labour wards were placed with four of the most Conservative wards from Hornchurch. Importantly, we have the 1973 GLC election to go by as an indicator. This was contested on the new London constituency boundaries. There were ten constituencies that the Conservatives failed to win in 1973 but won in the February 1974 election. Upminster was not amongst these with a Conservative majority of 740 in 1973.

The ten constituencies were: Hendon North, Hampstead, Croydon Central, Croydon North East, Croydon North West, Brentford and Isleworth, Ilford North, Richmond, Carshalton and Sutton and Cheam. Eight of these were won by Labour and two (Richmond and Sutton and Cheam) by the Liberals. In the October 1974 nine of the ten were retained by the Conservatives, the exception being Ilford North. The closest Conservative Labour contest in 1973 was Chislehurst, with a Conservative majority of 38.

Upminster was certainly considered to be marginal in 1974 but all actual evidence pointed to the fact that it would be marginally Conservative.

Funnily enough another forum member sent me the 1970 notional results (ITV) a couple of days ago and I commented in reply that while I was aware that Upminster had been a notional Labour seat, I wasn't also aware that Hornchurch had been notionally Conservative. That surely confirms that they were incorrect given the subsequent actual results in those constituencies (both GLC and Parliamentary).

I guess the problem is that they would have been using the 1968 local elections primarily and as you point out, Labour held up relatively well in Harold Hill while their vote collapsed in the core areas of Romford where they were strong (eg. in Oldchurch down from over 70% in 1964 to just over 30% in 1968). Therefore it's likely they overstimated the extent to which the Romford Labour vote in 1970 was concentrated in Harold Hill and correspondingly underestimated the Labour vote in the wards which remained within Romford (Collier Row, Mawney, Oldchucrh and Central).
The other problem for them (as it has been for all of us engaged in this activity, at least until the GLA elections came along) is the persistent strength of Residents Associations in the wards formerly in Hornchurch urban district, particularly Cranham and Upminster which might lead to an underestimation of true Conservative support there

[peter]

Absolutely. Cranham has voted Resident at every council election since 1964, which is quite a record.

The May 1974 election followed the GE and the Conservatives with fresh canvass records won Upminster holding it until 1990, apart from the loss of a single seat in 1982 which they regained in 1986. The GLA data shows how strong the Conservative vote is in these words outside of the borough council elections.

[Deleted]

Good to see an Essex seat that still votes like one.

[jw]

Aug 1, 2020 7:24:12 GMT peter said:

Absolutely. Cranham has voted Resident at every council election since 1964, which is quite a record.

The May 1974 election followed the GE and the Conservatives with fresh canvass records won Upminster holding it until 1990, apart from the loss of a single seat in 1982 which they regained in 1986. The GLA data shows how strong the Conservative vote is in these words outside of the borough council elections.

Cranham was first won by the RA in 1957, and as a genuine third party, not Tories in disguise. It was considered an anti-Suez vote at the time. The RA went on to become the largest party on Hornchurch UDC by 1962. When the London Borough of Havering was formed in 1965, it merged with the very red Borough of Romford which was run by Mr, and Mrs, Arthur Latham and the RA in strongly Labour voting Rainham ward prevented Labour from winning an overall majority on the first LBC. Labour never forgave the RA for joining a joint administration with Conservatives. 55 years on the RA still holds most of its original wards making it by my reckoning the strongest consistently victorious third force in local elections in England, holding and indeed extending its original power base throughout that time. Hacton and Cranham wards always RA and Upminster every year except 1968.

[The Bishop]

Aren't there the Epsom/Ewell Residents, who have been winning elections for even longer?

[finsobruce]

Aug 2, 2020 9:12:30 GMT The Bishop said:

Aren't there the Epsom/Ewell Residents, who have been winning elections for even longer?

They formed in 1937 (they are actually a coalition of various residents groups) and on their website say they have been running the council for eighty years...

[londonseal80]

Upminster itself is actually very similar to some of the wards in the north of Epsom and Ewell. So no surprise they have a similar voting pattern.

[peter]

I have just rechecked the voting record for Upminster ward. It voted RA in 1968 by over 800m votes. It returned a full slate of Conservative councillors in 1974 and 1978, two Conservatives out of three in 1982 (Geoff Lewis won for the RA), three Conservatives in 1986 and RA at all eight elections since 1990, including the combined local/parliamentary election in 2010.In 1964 there were 27 Labour councillors (18 from Romford and 9 from Hornchurch), 16 Conservatives ( 9 from Hornchurch and 7 from Romford) and 12 Residents/RA be underestimated. councillors (all from Hornchurch). At the first meeting the council elected 4 Conservative Aldermen, 3 Labour Aldermen and 2 RA Aldermen. The RA/Resident wards in 1964 were; Cranham, Hacton, Rainham and Upminster. The two RA Aldermen were from Cranham and Upminster resulting in by elections in those wards. In terms of organising a coalition the skills of Jack Moultrie who was on the UDC and elected for Emerson Park in 1964 (he also became an Alderman) should not be underestimated. Prior to his tenure in Hornchurch he had been a councillor in Dagenham representing Chadwell Heath.

[jw]

Aug 2, 2020 9:12:30 GMT The Bishop said:

Aren't there the Epsom/Ewell Residents, who have been winning elections for even longer?

But the difference is that the Epsom and Ewell RA was little more than a Tory front Group. In 1973 the tories only contested one ward, leaving the RA unchallenged.


Right from the start in Hornchurch and then Havering the RA fought both Lab and Con    

[londonseal80]

Aug 4, 2020 20:15:13 GMT jw said:

Aug 2, 2020 9:12:30 GMT The Bishop said:

Aren't there the Epsom/Ewell Residents, who have been winning elections for even longer?

But the difference is that the Epsom and Ewell RA was little more than a Tory front Group. In 1973 the tories only contested one ward, leaving the RA unchallenged.


Right from the start in Hornchurch and then Havering the RA fought both Lab and Con    

Like Epsom and Ewell, nearby Beddington and Wallington was another RA stronghold where the Tories never contested until it was merged into the London Borough of Sutton. The RA were also very strong in Croydon in the early elections particularly in Bensham Manor, Thornton Heath and East wards.

[neilm]

Aug 2, 2020 20:53:08 GMT peter said:

I have just rechecked the voting record for Upminster ward. It voted RA in 1968 by over 800m votes.

With 800 million votes, it sounds like the IRA was doing the voting.

[finsobruce]

Aug 6, 2020 14:54:58 GMT neilm said:

Aug 2, 2020 20:53:08 GMT peter said:

I have just rechecked the voting record for Upminster ward. It voted RA in 1968 by over 800m votes.

With 800 million votes, it sounds like the IRA was doing the voting.

I think you overestimate the power of the Independent Residents Association.

[neilm]

Aug 6, 2020 15:35:45 GMT finsobruce said:

Aug 6, 2020 14:54:58 GMT neilm said:

With 800 million votes, it sounds like the IRA was doing the voting.

I think you overestimate the power of the Independent Residents Association.

They haven't gone away, you know.

[finsobruce]

Aug 6, 2020 16:50:20 GMT neilm said:

Aug 6, 2020 15:35:45 GMT finsobruce said:

I think you overestimate the power of the Independent Residents Association.

They haven't gone away, you know.

The Continuity Residents are still holding out in the allotments I believe.

[neilm]

Aug 6, 2020 18:15:54 GMT finsobruce said:

Aug 6, 2020 16:50:20 GMT neilm said:

They haven't gone away, you know.

The Continuity Residents are still holding out in the allotments I believe.

Provisionally, they might come on board.

[timrollpickering]

Aug 4, 2020 20:15:13 GMT jw said:

Aug 2, 2020 9:12:30 GMT The Bishop said:

Aren't there the Epsom/Ewell Residents, who have been winning elections for even longer?

But the difference is that the Epsom and Ewell RA was little more than a Tory front Group. In 1973 the tories only contested one ward, leaving the RA unchallenged.

Right from the start in Hornchurch and then Havering the RA fought both Lab and Con    

The 1930s minute book for the Epsom Conservative Association suggests somewhat otherwise - there were RA councillors and Aldermen who were members of the local Conservatives but there were also members who opposed the RA and wanted the local party to stand for the council even then. At one AGM a particularly strong debate was won by an Alderman and although there were occasional Conservatives candidacies in subsequent decades it wasn't until the 21st century that this one was fully overturned.