Post by loderingo on Apr 28, 2020 22:16:52 GMT
As the name suggests the Forest of Kingswood was originally a royal hunting ground dating back to the Saxon Kings who had a hunting lodge at Pucklechurch (just outside the constituency),where King Edmund I was assassinated. The original royal forest covered a vast area stretching over this seat and into the Bristol East constituency. In 1228, Henry III started selling off parts of the forest to raise money and from that point onwards the forest got smaller and smaller over the years until it completely disappeared.
Like other ancient forests such as Sherwood and the Forest of Dean, it is not surprising that where there were trees there was coal and the area of the forest lines up well with what became the Bristol coalfield. There are very few signs of this coalfield today. It first started to be developed as early as the 1300s but was quite often of a small scale compared to other areas. As the seams became worked out the mines mainly closed in the 1920s. Being so close to Bristol, the area then moved into being more suburban development as it is today.
The constituency is neatly bisected by the Bristol ring road. Again many of the areas inside the ring road blend seamlessly into Bristol, particularly in the Kingswood area and this is where Labour have their strength in the constituency. In fact in the 2019 local elections, Labour won more councillors here than in the Filton seat.
Starting in the south, Hanham has a history of coal mining but has become very solidly Tory. Kingswood, Woodstock and New Cheltenham all elected Labour councillors narrowly in May 2019 but would likely have gone Tory at the general election (I expect this area would also have been heavily for Brexit). Staple Hill and Mangotsfield was very strongly Labour in the local elections but the Labour vote would have been heaviest in Staple Hill, which is in FABS, rather than Mangotsfield which was in this constituency. Emersons Green is a new suburb, which was built around the Millennium and leans Tory.
Outside the ring road, Longwell Green is heavily Tory, while Parkwall and Warmley is more marginal. Bitton and Oldland Common is a bit of a cobbled together ward, part suburban in Oldland Common, part rural around Bitton and is fairly comfortably Conservative. Finally, the seats includes a bit of the split Boyd Valley constituency around Siston.
Siston was the scene of a well-known legal battle in the late 1990s as a group of protesters went to court to stop the ring road from being built over Siston Common. While the ring road was built eventually they were able to hold it up for a number of years. It is less well known that Bristol also used to have an inner ring road that included a dual carriageway running diagonally through the middle of historic Queen square. The council decided this part should be removed so for a while Bristol had 2 ring roads both with holes! For anyone knows what Bristol traffic is like this is very apt!
This seat was also the birthplace of the national cycle network. The Midland railway built their own connections to Bristol and Bath via a line that branched at Mangotsfield. This line became surplus to requirements in the Beeching Axe. In the early 1980s a group of cycle enthusiasts called Cyclebag (now Sustrans) saw their opportunity to convert the old railway line to a cycle path and the route from the River Avon to Oldland Common became the very first section.
Kingswood is perhaps the odd one out of the South Gloucestershire constituencies being taken by Labour in 1992 but then sharply moving to the Conservatives in the 2010s. However, this overlooks the role of two very significant sets of boundary changes. From 1983 to 1997, this seat included 4 wards from the City of Bristol, which are now in Bristol East, while the parts of the seat east of the ring road were in the former Wansdyke constituency. In 1997, two of the Bristol wards were returned to Bristol East and in 2010 the remaining wards, with this seat now consisting entirely of South Gloucestershire wards. Robert (now Lord) Hayward was the Conservative MP from 1983-1992. Roger Berry, his Labour successor, was by all accounts very popular and was sitting on an 8,000 majority in 2005 but went down by 2,500 votes to a unexpected defeat in 2010 with Labour figures blaming the boundary changes. Chris Skidmore, the universities minister has increased his majority to 11,000 in 2019 and it is now 136th on Labour's target list. Unlike the other two South Gloucs seats, which were 50/50 in the referendum, this seat was estimated to be 58% leave, which has undoubtedly helped Skidmore increase his majority.
Like other ancient forests such as Sherwood and the Forest of Dean, it is not surprising that where there were trees there was coal and the area of the forest lines up well with what became the Bristol coalfield. There are very few signs of this coalfield today. It first started to be developed as early as the 1300s but was quite often of a small scale compared to other areas. As the seams became worked out the mines mainly closed in the 1920s. Being so close to Bristol, the area then moved into being more suburban development as it is today.
The constituency is neatly bisected by the Bristol ring road. Again many of the areas inside the ring road blend seamlessly into Bristol, particularly in the Kingswood area and this is where Labour have their strength in the constituency. In fact in the 2019 local elections, Labour won more councillors here than in the Filton seat.
Starting in the south, Hanham has a history of coal mining but has become very solidly Tory. Kingswood, Woodstock and New Cheltenham all elected Labour councillors narrowly in May 2019 but would likely have gone Tory at the general election (I expect this area would also have been heavily for Brexit). Staple Hill and Mangotsfield was very strongly Labour in the local elections but the Labour vote would have been heaviest in Staple Hill, which is in FABS, rather than Mangotsfield which was in this constituency. Emersons Green is a new suburb, which was built around the Millennium and leans Tory.
Outside the ring road, Longwell Green is heavily Tory, while Parkwall and Warmley is more marginal. Bitton and Oldland Common is a bit of a cobbled together ward, part suburban in Oldland Common, part rural around Bitton and is fairly comfortably Conservative. Finally, the seats includes a bit of the split Boyd Valley constituency around Siston.
Siston was the scene of a well-known legal battle in the late 1990s as a group of protesters went to court to stop the ring road from being built over Siston Common. While the ring road was built eventually they were able to hold it up for a number of years. It is less well known that Bristol also used to have an inner ring road that included a dual carriageway running diagonally through the middle of historic Queen square. The council decided this part should be removed so for a while Bristol had 2 ring roads both with holes! For anyone knows what Bristol traffic is like this is very apt!
This seat was also the birthplace of the national cycle network. The Midland railway built their own connections to Bristol and Bath via a line that branched at Mangotsfield. This line became surplus to requirements in the Beeching Axe. In the early 1980s a group of cycle enthusiasts called Cyclebag (now Sustrans) saw their opportunity to convert the old railway line to a cycle path and the route from the River Avon to Oldland Common became the very first section.
Kingswood is perhaps the odd one out of the South Gloucestershire constituencies being taken by Labour in 1992 but then sharply moving to the Conservatives in the 2010s. However, this overlooks the role of two very significant sets of boundary changes. From 1983 to 1997, this seat included 4 wards from the City of Bristol, which are now in Bristol East, while the parts of the seat east of the ring road were in the former Wansdyke constituency. In 1997, two of the Bristol wards were returned to Bristol East and in 2010 the remaining wards, with this seat now consisting entirely of South Gloucestershire wards. Robert (now Lord) Hayward was the Conservative MP from 1983-1992. Roger Berry, his Labour successor, was by all accounts very popular and was sitting on an 8,000 majority in 2005 but went down by 2,500 votes to a unexpected defeat in 2010 with Labour figures blaming the boundary changes. Chris Skidmore, the universities minister has increased his majority to 11,000 in 2019 and it is now 136th on Labour's target list. Unlike the other two South Gloucs seats, which were 50/50 in the referendum, this seat was estimated to be 58% leave, which has undoubtedly helped Skidmore increase his majority.
