Post by greenhert on May 4, 2020 15:17:35 GMT
Central Suffolk & North Ipswich was formally created in 1997, when it gained Kesgrave from Suffolk Coastal but lost the area around Stowmarket to Bury St Edmunds. Its predecessor, Central Suffolk, was the largest part of the old Eye seat that was abolished in 1983.
The "Central Suffolk" part of the seat mainly contains villages in Mid Suffolk in picturesque East Anglian countryside, one of which, Eye, is the smallest town in Britain at just 1,500 people. The "North Ipswich" part of the constituency includes the Ipswich wards of Castle Hill, Whitehouse and Whitton north of the railway line and the town of Kesgrave, almost a de facto suburb of Ipswich which has expanded substantially in the last 3 decades and the largest settlement in the constituency. Although qualification levels are average like the rest of Suffolk, there is a high proportion of people with few or no qualifications in the three Ipswich wards in the constituency. It has a high proportion of owner occupiers even for Suffolk, 74.7%, but this is weighted significantly towards the Kesgrave area and the Mid Suffolk villages where owner occupation levels exceed 80%. The majority of the few social renters reside in the Whitehouse and Whitton wards of Ipswich.
Central Suffolk & North Ipswich has been Conservative-held since 1997 and generally very safely. The political history of the former Eye constituency, a large part of which is still in this seat, is much more interesting. Eye was one of the last Liberal seats in England outside the West of England; Edgar Granville held on in 1945 and 1950 despite significant Labour support in Stowmarket and Leiston cutting into his vote but he was narrowly unseated by the Conservatives' Harwood Harrison (later Sir Harwood Harrison, Bt.) in 1951; the Conservatives have represented the area ever since whichever constituencies it has been in. It was evident that his personal vote was the reason the Liberals still held the seat in 1950; in 1955 and 1959 he came pretty close to winning back his old seat as a Labour candidate whereas in both those years the Liberals lost their deposit in the Eye constituency. The Liberals recovered second place in February 1974, the only constituency in Suffolk where they also maintained second place in October 1974, but they slipped back to 3rd in 1979; in 1983 Central Suffolk absorbed the larger part of the Eye constituency along with the northern wards of Ipswich. The current Conservative MP is Daniel Poulter, a doctor who had never previously been involved in politics prior to his election in 2010. Locally the Mid Suffolk villages are generally safely Conservative except for Mendlesham which has the longest-serving Green Party councillor in Suffolk, Andrew Stringer, although within Mid Suffolk Green support is much stronger in and around Stowmarket which is not in this constituency but rather Bury St Edmunds. Kesgrave is safely Conservative as you would expect, as is Castle Hill ward in Ipswich, with Whitton being a Labour-Conservative marginal and Whitehouse being safely Labour with a brief interruption by the Liberal Democrats from 2004 to 2006.
The "Central Suffolk" part of the seat mainly contains villages in Mid Suffolk in picturesque East Anglian countryside, one of which, Eye, is the smallest town in Britain at just 1,500 people. The "North Ipswich" part of the constituency includes the Ipswich wards of Castle Hill, Whitehouse and Whitton north of the railway line and the town of Kesgrave, almost a de facto suburb of Ipswich which has expanded substantially in the last 3 decades and the largest settlement in the constituency. Although qualification levels are average like the rest of Suffolk, there is a high proportion of people with few or no qualifications in the three Ipswich wards in the constituency. It has a high proportion of owner occupiers even for Suffolk, 74.7%, but this is weighted significantly towards the Kesgrave area and the Mid Suffolk villages where owner occupation levels exceed 80%. The majority of the few social renters reside in the Whitehouse and Whitton wards of Ipswich.
Central Suffolk & North Ipswich has been Conservative-held since 1997 and generally very safely. The political history of the former Eye constituency, a large part of which is still in this seat, is much more interesting. Eye was one of the last Liberal seats in England outside the West of England; Edgar Granville held on in 1945 and 1950 despite significant Labour support in Stowmarket and Leiston cutting into his vote but he was narrowly unseated by the Conservatives' Harwood Harrison (later Sir Harwood Harrison, Bt.) in 1951; the Conservatives have represented the area ever since whichever constituencies it has been in. It was evident that his personal vote was the reason the Liberals still held the seat in 1950; in 1955 and 1959 he came pretty close to winning back his old seat as a Labour candidate whereas in both those years the Liberals lost their deposit in the Eye constituency. The Liberals recovered second place in February 1974, the only constituency in Suffolk where they also maintained second place in October 1974, but they slipped back to 3rd in 1979; in 1983 Central Suffolk absorbed the larger part of the Eye constituency along with the northern wards of Ipswich. The current Conservative MP is Daniel Poulter, a doctor who had never previously been involved in politics prior to his election in 2010. Locally the Mid Suffolk villages are generally safely Conservative except for Mendlesham which has the longest-serving Green Party councillor in Suffolk, Andrew Stringer, although within Mid Suffolk Green support is much stronger in and around Stowmarket which is not in this constituency but rather Bury St Edmunds. Kesgrave is safely Conservative as you would expect, as is Castle Hill ward in Ipswich, with Whitton being a Labour-Conservative marginal and Whitehouse being safely Labour with a brief interruption by the Liberal Democrats from 2004 to 2006.
