Cheadle

[Devil Wincarnate]

I've started writing it, but it is a little florid so might need another go... Anyone interested in chipping in, let me know. Particularly if anyone knows anything about William Shepherd MP, who doesn't seem to have done much despite a long career.

[greenhert]

Apr 14, 2020 20:55:08 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

I've started writing it, but it is a little florid so might need another go... Anyone interested in chipping in, let me know. Particularly if anyone knows anything about William Shepherd MP, who doesn't seem to have done much despite a long career.

Mr Shepherd joined the SDP nearly two decades after his defeat. Judging by the results in the old version of the Cheadle constituency (i.e. before Hazel Grove was split from it to become a constituency in its own right) right up to his defeat, said Mr Shepherd was probably inactive and lazy.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Apr 14, 2020 21:09:19 GMT greenhert said:

Apr 14, 2020 20:55:08 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

I've started writing it, but it is a little florid so might need another go... Anyone interested in chipping in, let me know. Particularly if anyone knows anything about William Shepherd MP, who doesn't seem to have done much despite a long career.

Mr Shepherd joined the SDP nearly two decades after his defeat. Judging by the results in the old version of the Cheadle constituency (i.e. before Hazel Grove was split from it to become a constituency in its own right) right up to his defeat, said Mr Shepherd was probably inactive and lazy.

Probably accurate. He did alright out of it though. Two constituencies, little challenge to his position.

Now, I wonder if john07 has anything interesting or colourful on this topic.

[Pete Whitehead]

Apr 14, 2020 21:19:59 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Apr 14, 2020 21:09:19 GMT greenhert said:

Mr Shepherd joined the SDP nearly two decades after his defeat. Judging by the results in the old version of the Cheadle constituency (i.e. before Hazel Grove was split from it to become a constituency in its own right) right up to his defeat, said Mr Shepherd was probably inactive and lazy.

Probably accurate. He did alright out of it though. Two constituencies, little challenge to his position.

Now, I wonder if john07 has anything interesting or colourful on this topic.

I'm not sure if David Schneider has ever tweeted anything about Cheadle

[Devil Wincarnate]

The story of Cheadle is that of the post-war suburbanisation of Britain. Formed on its original boundaries in 1950, it emerged from the short-lived Bucklow constituency that covered parts of the North Cheshire market towns. It did not suffer the fate of its predecessor as the area exploded in population, the Mancunian middle classes heading down the A34 and the A6 in search of their quarter-acre paradise. Although the seat represents the western reaches of Stockport, its history is as entwined with Cottonopolis as with the milliners up the Mersey.


The area was originally a string of Cheshire hamlets without many obvious links, although the modern seat sits mainly in the Ladybrook Valley. A large part of what is now Cheadle Hulme was a manor under the prominent Moseley family of many a political sage before and since; and Bramhall was the host of Bramall Hall, seat of the notable Davenport family for whom neighbouring Davenport is named. The Davenports died out and the hall was sold to John Henry Davies, the chairman of Manchester United Football Club- a harbinger of the area’s later reputation as a magnet for professional footballers. But it was the arrival of the railway that turned this patch into a coherent, sprawling whole. The line from Manchester to Crewe first reached the area in 1842, and a junction was formed when a line to Macclesfield and later Stoke-on-Trent arrived in 1849. This junction essentially created what is now Cheadle Hulme, and within a few decades a collection of minor hamlets had become a major commuter town, which remains the primary purpose of the area to this day. Eventually Cheadle, Bramhall, Gatley and Heald Green all found themselves on railway lines.


After Altrincham & Sale West, this is Greater Manchester’s wealthiest seat, and only a small amount of Green Belt divides it from the fabulously-affluent Tatton. Almost half the seat features in the least-deprived quintiles. The current seat is formed of the Stockport MBC wards of Bramhall North, Bramhall South, Cheadle & Gatley, Cheadle Hulme North, Cheadle Hulme South, Heald Green and Stepping Hill. There are few political personalities connected to the seat, although former Labour MP Richard Burden and political commentator Owen Jones both attended Bramhall High School. The constituency has the fourth-highest Jewish population in Greater Manchester, and hosts South Manchester’s only Jewish primary school.


The seat started out as a relatively safe Conservative patch from 1950, inheriting William Shepherd from Bucklow as its MP. Shepherd appears to have had a fairly dull but dutiful career, barring an arrest by the Brussels police for jumping a red light. The original boundaries were much wider than today, and until 1974 included much of today’s Hazel Grove seat. During this time, Labour were the distant challengers, with a steadily increasing Liberal vote. But the eventual shock came in 1966, when Michael Winstanley narrowly turned the seat yellow. Winstanley was actually a GP across the conurbation in Urmston, and indeed would be ennobled as Baron Winstanley of Urmston in 1976. However, he had a high local profile, as he was the presenter of Granada Television’s consumer affairs programme This Is Your Right. He held it for just four years, being defeated by the Conservative Tom Normanton, who would hold the redrawn seat until 1987. Oddly, Normanton and Winstanley had been at school together.


By the early Seventies, Manchester suburbia had sprawled across the northern Cheshire plain. Cheadle was far too big to remain as it was, turnout reaching 85,764 in the 1970 poll. Hazel Grove was therefore created (and promptly returned, if briefly, Michael Winstanley), and Cheadle now contained its namesake urban district, as well as Wilmslow. Wilmslow would remain in the seat until 1983, when Cheadle started to take the shape most familiar now. Normanton stepped down in 1987, to be replaced by Stephen Day.

Day survived the great Tory cull of 1997, only to fall by a 33-vote margin to the Lib Dem Patsy Calton. Calton was a chemistry teacher in nearby Poynton, and a councillor for Bramhall West on Stockport council. She continued to serve as a councillor until being defeated amidst much acrimony in 2002. Calton defeated Day again in 2005, this time with a majority of over 4,000. However, Calton was suffering from breast cancer, and died weeks after her victory. The resulting by-election was the first time that the Lib Dems had defended a seat in a by-election (Winchester in 1997 was the consequence of the poll being annulled). In a campaign best described as tetchy, Mark Hunter (the council leader) held the seat and would remain MP for a decade. This was Stephen Day’s last outing, and also saw Labour lose their deposit in the second of five outings for Martin Miller.


In 2015, the Lib Dem vote sank and the Conservative vote stayed relatively stable. The new MP, still in place, is Mary Robinson, a former accountant and South Ribble councillor. Robinson held on in 2017 and 2019 with a slightly higher share of the vote. Both contests were rare three-party affairs. The local Green Party claimed to have stood down in favour of the Liberal Democrats, but in fact have never run a candidate here. In an unusual twist, the defeated Mark Hunter won a council seat in 2016 against Stephen Robinson, husband of the MP. Robinson’s victories have been somewhat against the run of play. This is a firmly Remain-voting seat, and at a local level is dominated by Lib Dem and Ratepayer councillors.


NB: thanks to spqr for sending me some information on William Shepherd.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Apr 23, 2020 11:19:08 GMT @barnabymarder said:

Hold on, you've got the dates wrong. According to that, Patsy Calton was still a councillor when she was dead, which clearly isn't the case.

Also, by the time Cheadle was separated into 2 seats, the urban districts had been abolished, and the Metropolitan Boroughs had come into being. This took place in 1973. I realise that the boundaries had been set before this occurrence.

Oops, don't know why I did that. I'll fix.

With regards to Moseley/Mosley, the spelling did tend to change. I've kept to Moseley here as it was Cheadle Moseley, and indeed their family seat still exists as Moseley Hall.

[Pete Whitehead]

Apr 23, 2020 11:19:08 GMT @barnabymarder said:

Hold on, you've got the dates wrong. According to that, Patsy Calton was still a councillor when she was dead, which clearly isn't the case.

Also, by the time Cheadle was separated into 2 seats, the urban districts had been abolished, and the Metropolitan Boroughs had come into being. This took place in 1973. I realise that the boundaries had been set before this occurrence.

But that means that this is how the constituencies were defined. It's why we even had seats like Warley East and Warley West - named for a short-lived County Borough which had ceased to exist by the time those constituencies came into use.

[where2travel]

Following the East/West name changes to the two Bramhall wards, Woodford (at the southern end of the constituency) did finally make it into the new ward name of "Bramhall South & Woodford". Woodford always seems a bit of a forgotten end of Stockport and the constituency, geographically it's the final part of Greater Manchester that sticks out on its own. Other than the Bramhall side, it's surrounded by Cheshire (proper) and the main road through Woodford quickly reaches the Wilmslow and Poynton borders. I don't know whether it will have a bit more prominence with all the new housing being built on the old Woodford Aerodrome site, but to date it's lacked any kind of centre (with the church and pub up at one end, the few shops (with the exception of one, largely useless from a community perspective) more in the centre, and having no state primary school since the early-mid 80s. It has essentially been a bit of an extension of Bramhall.

Other political personalities educated in the constituency are Alf Dubs and Nick Robinson (who got a mention on the Macclesfield thread yesterday). Both went to Cheadle Hulme School, as did Katie Derham (although I don't think she's ever had any political link beyond reading the news).

The Tory vote here seems to have been very stable lately, since falling significantly in 1997, win or lose it stayed in the 40%-45% range in every election to 2019 (and only in that election did it increase to 46.0%). The elections in that period (including the one by-election), puts it at 4-all for the Tories and Lib Dems.

[Devil Wincarnate]

I'd forgotten about Dubs and Robinson, despite having them in my notes! Cheadle Hulme School actually featured the name "Cheadle Hulme" before the settlement as a whole did in its entirety. And like Michael Winstanley (and indeed me), CHS started out in Urmston!

[Pete Whitehead]

Also you forgot to say that Adswood used to be a Labour ward on the old Cheadle Urban District council. I don't think anyone has ever mentioned that on this forum before..

[Robert Waller]

2011 Census

Age 65+ 20.5% 115/650
Owner-occupied 83.7% 4/650
Private rented 8.6% 623/650
Social rented 6.2% 646/650
White 88.9% 456/650
Black 0.6% 336/650
Asian 7.7% 158/650
Passport held United Kingdom 87.3% 1/650
Managerial & professional 42.4%
Routine & Semi-routine 16.4%
Degree level 36.7% 79/650
No qualifications 15.9% 589/650
Students 7.8% 241/650


2021 Census

Owner occupied 82.5% 2/573
Private rented 11.0% 566/573
Social rented 6.5% 570/573
White 82.6%
Black 0.8%
Asian 11.6%
Managerial & professional 45.8% 29/573
Routine & Semi-routine 14.8% 530/573
Degree level 44.1% 66/573
No qualifications 12.6% 526/573




General Election 2019: Cheadle

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Conservative Mary Robinson 25,694 46.0 +1.4
Liberal Democrats Tom Morrison 23,358 41.8 +5.5
Labour Zahid Chauhan 6,851 12.3 -6.8

C Majority 2,336 4.2 -4.1

Turnout 55,903 74.9 +0.6

Conservative hold

Swing 2.0 C to LD

[john07]

Apr 23, 2020 14:32:37 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Also you forgot to say that Adswood used to be a Labour ward on the old Cheadle Urban District council. I don't think anyone has ever mentioned that on this forum before..

You missed out Cheadle East!

[greenhert]

Mar 29, 2021 21:25:33 GMT Robert Waller said:

2011 Census

Owner-occupied 83.7% 4/650
Private rented 8.6% 623/650
Social rented 6.2% 646/650
White 88.9% 456/650
Black 0.6% 336/650
Asian 7.7% 158/650
Passport held United Kingdom 87.3% 1/650
Managerial & professional 42.4%
Routine & Semi-routine 16.4%
Degree level 36.7% 79/650
No qualifications 15.9% 589/650
Students 7.8% 241/650
Age 65+ 20.5% 115/650



General Election 2019: Cheadle

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Conservative Mary Robinson 25,694 46.0 +1.4
Liberal Democrats Tom Morrison 23,358 41.8 +5.5
Labour Zahid Chauhan 6,851 12.3 -6.8

C Majority 2,336 4.2 -4.1

Turnout 55,903 74.9 +0.6

Conservative hold

Swing 2.0 C to LD

It is this factor above all else which stops Cheadle, given its extremely high rate of owner-occupation, from being a safe Conservative seat instead of a marginal one.

[john07]

Apr 23, 2020 14:32:37 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Also you forgot to say that Adswood used to be a Labour ward on the old Cheadle Urban District council. I don't think anyone has ever mentioned that on this forum before..

Of course, the core of the former Adswood Ward is not in Cheadle Constituency but in Davenport and Cale Green in Stockport Constituency. I would have thought that as the fount of all knowledge you would be aware of this.

If you want to troll, piss off to another thread.