Arundel & South Downs

[yellowperil]

I did indicate that I would try and complete the Arundel and South Downs constituency and so finish of that block of interlocking West Sussex  constituencies along with Bognor Regis  & Littlehampton and both the Worthing seats. Each time I get further out of my comfort zone and I will be quite conscious that this is a constituency where I know a few bits very well, especially Arundel itself and the other Arun bits like Angmering and Findon, but some other bits further north hardly at all  apart from a few brief visits. So expect progress to be slow on this one, and for me to have to check and double check to avoid the sort of careless falling in I got into in Shoreham which I thought I knew reasonably well. And I would then reckon I am done (for) and I will concentrate on trying to polish the seats I've already had a go at.

[Pete Whitehead]

Why not just write a profile (or not)? What's the point of starting a thread where you umm and ahh about whether you might or might not actually write anything meaningful about the alleged subject of the thread?

[yellowperil]

May 13, 2020 4:10:12 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Why not just write a profile (or not)? What's the point of starting a thread where you umm and ahh about whether you might or might not actually write anything meaningful about the alleged subject of the thread?

I was setting up a thread, and confirming what I had already indicated as an intention to produce a profile  for this one and then that would be it. But this one is the furthest yet from my comfort zone  , considerably further out than a few  I would have done had somebody else not got there first (Chichester, Lewes, Maidstone, maybe even Yeovil), so I was giving a last chance for somebody else to say they would like to do it, in which case I would stop doing lots of extra research and just add the particular thoughts I had, probably about Arundel itself. It may well take a week of research before I'm ready to go on this one, and I won't want to make the mistake I made in the Shoreham one, of putting down a few preliminary thoughts on here before I was really ready, only to have it pointed out that I was writing complete garbage. Nor do I want to spend a week researching it to find somebody else has preempted me at the last moment.  I know it has been said elsewhere that there is no reason why more than one person can write a profile, and I'm sure that's right when you know a constituency really well.  Then you can put down thoughts without really having to think very much, but this becomes less valid when as here one knows part of the constituency very well and the other half not very well at all.There is now an opportunity for anyone else to say that if it's like that they know all of A&SD better than me so they will take it off me, thank you very much... so in that case say it now!

[John Chanin]

It can be helpful to say when you are intending to do a profile. Not that anyone else will necessarily take any notice as I have found. What really isn’t helpful is the way you keep posting work in progress. Everyone else writes off line so research can be done, facts checked, grammar polished, amendments made to improve flow and clarity. Then a finished article can be posted, and others can add or criticise or give it a like to encourage and reward the author. I would recommend that you do the same.

[yellowperil]

May 13, 2020 7:06:16 GMT John Chanin said:

It can be helpful to say when you are intending to do a profile. Not that anyone else will necessarily take any notice as I have found. What really isn’t helpful is the way you keep posting work in progress. Everyone else writes off line so research can be done, facts checked, grammar polished, amendments made to improve flow and clarity. Then a finished article can be posted, and others can add or criticise or give it a like to encourage and reward the author. I would recommend that you do the same.

Okay, I personally disagree with that advice and like putting up work in progress  not least because in my situation it is difficult to do otherwise, but I bow to what seems a general feeling so I won't post here again until I am ready to do the whole thing in one go. Not that it matters that much, given that this will be my last profile. 

[Foggy]

May 13, 2020 7:14:40 GMT @barnabymarder said:

May 13, 2020 4:10:12 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Why not just write a profile (or not)? What's the point of starting a thread where you umm and ahh about whether you might or might not actually write anything meaningful about the alleged subject of the thread?

was about to say, Pete

I was also thinking along the same lines yesterday, though I like to think I'd have phrased that sentiment more diplomatically than Pete did. I wouldn't want to discourage yellowperil or imply that his efforts are not appreciated, but I do note that 'Australian Swing Voter' last logged in three months before he signed up here.

Not that I am claiming, of course, for a second that an upstart antipodean pipsqueak and our octogenarian Kentish friend are the same person, but the latter would do well to look back at the former's behaviour and avoid replicating that posting style, lest he end up suffering a similar fate. 

[yellowperil]

May 14, 2020 5:28:55 GMT Foggy said:

May 13, 2020 7:14:40 GMT @barnabymarder said:

was about to say, Pete

I was also thinking along the same lines yesterday, though I like to think I'd have phrased that sentiment more diplomatically than Pete did. I wouldn't want to discourage yellowperil or imply that his efforts are not appreciated, but I do note that 'Australian Swing Voter' last logged in three months before he signed up here.

Not that I am claiming, of course, for a second that an upstart antipodean pipsqueak and our octogenarian Kentish friend are the same person, but the latter would do well to look back at the former's behaviour and avoid replicating that posting style, lest he end up suffering a similar fate. 

Ah, spotted at last.

[yellowperil]

This is a very extensive constituency by South-East England standards and is almost entirely rural, with nearly half its area in the National Park. Before 1974 much of this was in the old constituency of Arundel  & Shoreham, so then containing an urban area of sorts, but since then, although there have been a number of changes since, notably in 1997 and most recently in 2010, the constituency based on Arundel has remained deeply rural. When the constituency was named in 1997, it was seriously suggested naming it  as Chanctonbury after the downland  hillfort which had once probably been one of the centres of population in the area- back in the Iron Age! Shades of Old Sarum, perhaps. So, deeply rural, but maybe equally deeply Conservative, although it sometimes displays as a rather Liberal brand of Conservatism. It was, for instance, a constituency that voted Remain in 2016 though by the finest of margins-an estimated 50.3% Remain! It does contain  two of the great ducal family seats in Arundel Castle and Petworth House and so maybe the Conservative tradition here  in some respects is  more Whiggish than Tory. 

Arundel might be regarded as the principal centre, as the named town in the constituency title, but has well under 4000 people, and Petworth, the only other place that could be called a town, barely 3000.  On the other hand  a number of villages on the edges of the Downs have been popular residential and retirement locations and have been allowed to sprawl. Hassocks, a village which only came into being on the coming of the railways , is actually the largest settlement and together with the contiguous village of Hurstpierpoint adds up to a population of 15,000.There are a number of other rather oversized villages: Angmering, Pullborough and Steyning are all examples.There are however many tiny villages and hamlets high up on the Downs and deep into the Weald, and linked by a maze of tiny lanes where it is very easy to get lost. 

Arundel though small is a major tourist centre, dominated by its grand medieval (if extensively modernised) castle, which remains the seat of the Duke of Norfolk, the hereditary Earl Marshal of England. It also boasts a fine(Roman Catholic) cathedral and a cricket ground hosting matches up to first class standard. These 3C's- Castle, Cathedral,Cricket, say much about the sort of place Arundel is, and maybe also indicates the dominance of the Howard family and their interests and persuasions. There is more than a touch of the feudal about the place, and the Duke still lives in his castle. Tourists are of course drawn to all that , but also to the wonderful Wildfowl and Wetlands centre beneath the castle walls. 

Petworth is if anything even more dominated by its own  massive mansion, associated with two more of the most significant families of the English aristocracy, the Percys and the Seymours, but now in the hands of the National Trust.

It  comes as no surprise that this is a Conservative fiefdom, and in most elections this is a constituency ranked in the top 10 or so of safe Tory seats. Locally it is split between 4 different district councils, in each case one might feel the most rural and most Tory bits of those four districts  all lumped in together! It includes 3 wards from Arun, 2 wards from Mid Sussex, 3 from Chichester, and 6 from Horsham. The latter was somewhat refigured in 2017. In 2015, the last year there were local elections across all the constituency, there were 35 councillors returned- 34 Conservatives...and one Independent!The Horsham wards were fought for the first time in their new format in 2019 , which means there are now 36 councillors in total. 33 Conservatives, 1 Independent...and 2 Greens! Revolution has come to Arundel and South Downs!

Given the scale of this local dominance, the Conservative performance in some recent general elections might be seen as almost modest by comparison. After all,  in 2005 the Tory majority had shrunk to a paltry 11,309. By 2015 it was back up at 26,177, and that over UKIP. Nevertheless in 2019 when the Conservatives were making big inroads into Labour territory elsewhere, in this quintessential Tory territory the majority  fell back a bit to 22,521 over the Lib Dems who had managed a reasonably respectable 13,045 , or 21.2%- maybe a reflection of that marginal Remain tendency. 

Since 1997 when the present constituency title was adopted, there have now been 3 MPs, all of them Conservative of course. Howard Flight (1997-2005) had been a Tory deputy chairman (who hasn't?), and Shadow Chief Secretary (2002-4, sandwiched between Bercow and Osborne in that office- what a sequence!)but who then fell out in a big way with the party leadership, and particularly Michael Howard, over comments he made that an incoming Conservative government would make much bigger cuts than had been stated in the manifesto. This ended with Flight's deselection and replacement by Nick Herbert(2005-19). This may explain the "poor" Conservative performance in 2005 referred to above. Herbert was a gay activist, a countryside activist and a noted Europhile. He held office under Cameron as Police and Criminal Justice minister(2010-12). He played a significant role in the Equal Marriage campaign, he was a leading founder of the Countryside Alliance and of the Committee for Reform in Europe. One might have thought as a moderate Europhile,  a social liberal and a countryside man, he was a goodish fit for this particular constituency,  but not altogether surprisingly he stood down in 2019. He was replaced by Andrew Griffith who was a key figure in Boris Johnson's inner circle, as his business advisor. It was Griffith's house that was used as campaign headquarters for the Johnson leadership campaign. After which he was well placed to fall into this very safe Westminster seat.

[yellowperil]

You will note I have deposited the text for the first draft of the profile here in one go, as requested! I will however continue to add a statistical addendum in seperate posts as is my wont, over the next few days I expect, and some of that stuff may make its way into any final draft of the profile, whoever does that.

[John Chanin]

I thought Storrington and Steyning were bigger than Arundel and Petworth

[yellowperil]

May 15, 2020 21:14:17 GMT John Chanin said:

I thought Storrington and Steyning were bigger than Arundel and Petworth

I had given Steyning as one of my list of oversized villages bigger than the two towns. Storrington would be another one, but hey I'd already given 3 examples. 

[Robert Waller]

2011 Census

Age 65+ 23.9% 23/650
Owner-occupied 76.0% 51/650
Private rented 11.3% 505/650
Social rented 10.3% 573/650
White 97.7% 155/650
Black 0.2% 523/650
Asian 0.9% 532/650
Managerial & professional 41.0%
Routine & Semi-routine 17.8%
Self employed 16.0% 12/650
Degree level 33.0% 119/650
No qualifications 17.9% 538/650
Students 5.5% 577/650

2021 Census
Owner occupied 76.5% 38/573
Private rented 13.4% 510/573
Social rented 10.2% 510/573
White 96.5%
Black 0.3%
Asian 1.1%
Managerial & professional 41.9% 76/573
Routine & Semi-routine 16.2% 505/573
Degree level 36.6% 158/573
No qualifications 13.8% 480/573



General Election 2019: Arundel and South Downs

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Conservative Andrew Griffith 35,566 57.9 -4.5
Liberal Democrats Alison Bennett 13,045 21.2 +13.3
Labour Bella Sankey 9,722 15.8 -6.9
Green Isabel Thurston 2,519 4.1 -0.1
Independent Robert Wheal 556 0.9

C Majority 22,521 36.7 −3.0

Turnout 61,408 75.1 -0.7

Conservative hold

Swing 8.9 C to LD

[Pete Whitehead]

The initial proposals for this area were radical and effectively tore up the current seat, linking Arundel with Littlehampton (and parts of Worthing) with much of the rural hinterland going to Shoreham and other seats.
The revised proposals do maintain this constituency in something approximating to its current form. The boundary changes are still quite significant though without having any partisan impact. Over 25,000 voters are removed in all, in the South and East of the seat - Angmering & Findon to Worthing West, Cowfold etc to Horsham, Hassocks and Hurstpierpoint to Mid Sussex. In their place over 20,000 voters are added from a large swathe of the rural North of Chichester district and constituency, centred on Midhurst. This now brings the boundary of this constituency up to the border with both Surrey and Hampshire.

2019 Notional Result

Con	34213	60.1%
LD	11701	20.6%
Lab	8319	14.6%
Grn	2213	3.9%
Oth	459	0.8%
Majority	22512	39.6%