Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2020 14:15:00 GMT
The present incarnation of Edinburgh North & Leith was created in 2005 following boundary changes that affected the whole of Scotland. As its name suggests, it covers a northern part of the city, stretching from the New Town to the Firth of Forth, including Leith. The southern boundary runs along Princes Street Gardens, which are in effect two adjacent public parks in the gorge that separates the New Town from the Old Town, created following the draining of the Nor Lorch in the early 19th century.
As Robert Louis Stevenson put it in 1878: It seems (I do not know how else to put my meaning) as if it were a trifle too good to be true. It is what Paris ought to be. It has the scenic quality that would best set off a life of unthinking, open-air diversion. It was meant by nature for the realisation of the society of comic operas. And you can imagine, if the climate were but towardly, how all the world and his wife would flock into these gardens in the cool of the evening, to hear cheerful music, to sip pleasant drinks, to see the moon rise from behind Arthur's Seat and shine upon the spires and monuments and the green tree-tops in the valley. Alas! and the next morning the rain is splashing on the window, and the passengers flee along Princes Street before the galloping squalls.
Some might argue that the ‘and Leith’ component of the name is superfluous; it is a nod to the fact that Leith was a separate municipal burgh from Edinburgh between 1833 and 1920, and retains something of a distinct identity.
As is typical of Edinburgh, this was a strongly Remain-voting area, with 78.2% in 2016, but the partisan split is far more chaotic; all five main parties have areas of strength here, with split-ticketing and large swings common in recent years. With 60% for No, the constituency was marginally more pro-independence than average for Edinburgh, but less so than Scotland as a whole.
The present boundaries are based on twelve of the pre-2007 FPTP wards, which remain convenient building blocks for dividing the constituency. Broadly, the constituency divides socially and politically into three key sections:
The first is what might be termed ‘Greater Leith’, and covers the former wards of Calton, Broughton, Lorne, Harbour, and Newhaven in the east of the constituency. This corresponds to roughly two thirds of the current Leith Walk and Leith wards.
Beginning at Calton Hill, it follows Leith Walk and Easter Road -- past the home ground of Hibernian FC -- down to the Port of Leith. It is a densely populated area dominated by rows of four-storey sandstone tenements, interspersed with newer social housing blocks, and with more recent private development, especially around the waterfront. The area has sizeable South Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Eastern European populations, with numerous mosques, a mandir, a gurdwara, and a Ukranian Orthodox church. Traditionally a working-class area, there has been considerable gentrification since the 1980s, with sandstone tenements and newbuild apartments increasingly popular with young professionals. Traditional workers’ pubs can be found next to so-called ‘Swedish hipster bars’, and are sometimes even owned by the same people. The Port of Leith now includes the large 1990s Scottish Government building at Victoria Quay, and the Ocean Terminal shopping centre, home of the Royal Yacht Britannia. Further west is the small port of Newhaven, with an atmosphere more akin to a fishing village than to an area of a major city.
Leith and Leith Walk have consistently been amongst the worst wards in Edinburgh for the Conservatives since their creation, with recent local elections dominated by Labour, the SNP and the Greens. Like much of urban Scotland, there has been a shift from Labour to the SNP in recent cycles. In 2017, Leith Walk elected two SNP councillors, one Labour and one Green, representing one SNP gain from Labour on 2012; Leith elected one of each in both elections. The LibDems used to have some strength here, which would have helped when they came close to winning the constituency in 2010, but not any more. The received wisdom amongst Yes campaigners is that Leith voted Yes; I cannot comment on the accuracy of this, and it may depend on the boundaries used, but it is fair to say that it had one of the highest concentrations of Yes posters of anywhere in Edinburgh in 2014, and would have been more Yes than the constituency as a whole.
The second major part of this constituency covers the former wards of New Town, Dean, Craigleith, Stockbridge, and Trinity. Mapping this onto the current wards, this covers roughly the northern third of City Centre, most of Inverleith, the eastern third of Forth, and a small part of Corstorphine & Murrayfield.
The famous planned New Town, bordered by Princes Street Gardens to the south and the Water of Leith to the north, is dominated by Georgian architecture. The southern part of it, around Princes Street and George Street, is given over to retail, and is Edinburgh’s central business district. The northern part consists largely of exclusive townhouses and apartments, and, at least in the popular imagination, is home to the old-money rich. To the west of the New Town, nestled beneath the Dean Bridge over the Water of Leith, in a setting strikingly reminiscent of Luxembourg, is the Dean Village. Crossing over the Dean Bridge along Queensferry Road to the northwest, we approach Craigleith and Blackhall -- suburban areas dominated by detached and semi-detached bungalows. Following the Water of Leith downstream to the northeast takes us past Comely Bank, with its upmarket sandstone tenements, to Stockbridge, home to a Sunday market that is notoriously bourgeois even by Edinburgh standards. Further down the Water, we pass the Stockbridge Colonies, the Grange Cricket Ground, Inverleith Park, and the Royal Botanic Garden, before coming out at Canonmills, with its array of cafés and art shops. Further north, this eventually merges into Trinity, historically the affluent appendage of Leith, with some quite impressive sandstone villas.
It should come as no surprise that this section of the constituency is very fertile for the Conservatives, and they would have been comfortably ahead in 2017. Indeed, the Conservatives had no difficulty winning two council seats in Inverleith in 2017, with the other four main parties fighting it out for the other two; in the end, these went to the SNP and the LibDems, with Labour and the Greens losing seats previously held. The Conservative councillors in City Centre and in Forth are also elected largely on the backs of very strong votes in the New Town and in Trinity. That this was a very strong area for No in 2014 is so obvious that it almost doesn’t need stated. It is, however, an area where the Conservatives fell back in 2019, and other parties have had pockets of strength; I recall that the Greens were some way ahead in a small polling district around Canonmills in the 2012 locals, for instance.
The third, much smaller part of the constituency covers the former Granton and Pilton wards, or the western two thirds of the current Forth ward. This consists largely of council housing schemes, including some of the most deprived in Edinburgh, though parts have been redeveloped since the 1990s. The area also includes Granton Harbour, which dates from the 1830s, and now forms part of the Edinburgh Waterfront redevelopment plan with newbuild apartments. Overall, there is little interest in parties other than Labour and the SNP in this part of the constituency, and the trend has unsurprisingly been from the former to the latter in recent years.
It should be noted that the Holyrood constituency, Edinburgh Northern & Leith, is not as similar to this constituency as it might appear at first glance. Apart from Trinity, it includes little of the affluent Conservative-leaning part of the constituency, but does incorporate the whole of the Leith and Leith Walk wards in the east, further boosting support for parties other than the Conservatives.
As Robert Louis Stevenson put it in 1878: It seems (I do not know how else to put my meaning) as if it were a trifle too good to be true. It is what Paris ought to be. It has the scenic quality that would best set off a life of unthinking, open-air diversion. It was meant by nature for the realisation of the society of comic operas. And you can imagine, if the climate were but towardly, how all the world and his wife would flock into these gardens in the cool of the evening, to hear cheerful music, to sip pleasant drinks, to see the moon rise from behind Arthur's Seat and shine upon the spires and monuments and the green tree-tops in the valley. Alas! and the next morning the rain is splashing on the window, and the passengers flee along Princes Street before the galloping squalls.
Some might argue that the ‘and Leith’ component of the name is superfluous; it is a nod to the fact that Leith was a separate municipal burgh from Edinburgh between 1833 and 1920, and retains something of a distinct identity.
As is typical of Edinburgh, this was a strongly Remain-voting area, with 78.2% in 2016, but the partisan split is far more chaotic; all five main parties have areas of strength here, with split-ticketing and large swings common in recent years. With 60% for No, the constituency was marginally more pro-independence than average for Edinburgh, but less so than Scotland as a whole.
The present boundaries are based on twelve of the pre-2007 FPTP wards, which remain convenient building blocks for dividing the constituency. Broadly, the constituency divides socially and politically into three key sections:
The first is what might be termed ‘Greater Leith’, and covers the former wards of Calton, Broughton, Lorne, Harbour, and Newhaven in the east of the constituency. This corresponds to roughly two thirds of the current Leith Walk and Leith wards.
Beginning at Calton Hill, it follows Leith Walk and Easter Road -- past the home ground of Hibernian FC -- down to the Port of Leith. It is a densely populated area dominated by rows of four-storey sandstone tenements, interspersed with newer social housing blocks, and with more recent private development, especially around the waterfront. The area has sizeable South Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Eastern European populations, with numerous mosques, a mandir, a gurdwara, and a Ukranian Orthodox church. Traditionally a working-class area, there has been considerable gentrification since the 1980s, with sandstone tenements and newbuild apartments increasingly popular with young professionals. Traditional workers’ pubs can be found next to so-called ‘Swedish hipster bars’, and are sometimes even owned by the same people. The Port of Leith now includes the large 1990s Scottish Government building at Victoria Quay, and the Ocean Terminal shopping centre, home of the Royal Yacht Britannia. Further west is the small port of Newhaven, with an atmosphere more akin to a fishing village than to an area of a major city.
Leith and Leith Walk have consistently been amongst the worst wards in Edinburgh for the Conservatives since their creation, with recent local elections dominated by Labour, the SNP and the Greens. Like much of urban Scotland, there has been a shift from Labour to the SNP in recent cycles. In 2017, Leith Walk elected two SNP councillors, one Labour and one Green, representing one SNP gain from Labour on 2012; Leith elected one of each in both elections. The LibDems used to have some strength here, which would have helped when they came close to winning the constituency in 2010, but not any more. The received wisdom amongst Yes campaigners is that Leith voted Yes; I cannot comment on the accuracy of this, and it may depend on the boundaries used, but it is fair to say that it had one of the highest concentrations of Yes posters of anywhere in Edinburgh in 2014, and would have been more Yes than the constituency as a whole.
The second major part of this constituency covers the former wards of New Town, Dean, Craigleith, Stockbridge, and Trinity. Mapping this onto the current wards, this covers roughly the northern third of City Centre, most of Inverleith, the eastern third of Forth, and a small part of Corstorphine & Murrayfield.
The famous planned New Town, bordered by Princes Street Gardens to the south and the Water of Leith to the north, is dominated by Georgian architecture. The southern part of it, around Princes Street and George Street, is given over to retail, and is Edinburgh’s central business district. The northern part consists largely of exclusive townhouses and apartments, and, at least in the popular imagination, is home to the old-money rich. To the west of the New Town, nestled beneath the Dean Bridge over the Water of Leith, in a setting strikingly reminiscent of Luxembourg, is the Dean Village. Crossing over the Dean Bridge along Queensferry Road to the northwest, we approach Craigleith and Blackhall -- suburban areas dominated by detached and semi-detached bungalows. Following the Water of Leith downstream to the northeast takes us past Comely Bank, with its upmarket sandstone tenements, to Stockbridge, home to a Sunday market that is notoriously bourgeois even by Edinburgh standards. Further down the Water, we pass the Stockbridge Colonies, the Grange Cricket Ground, Inverleith Park, and the Royal Botanic Garden, before coming out at Canonmills, with its array of cafés and art shops. Further north, this eventually merges into Trinity, historically the affluent appendage of Leith, with some quite impressive sandstone villas.
It should come as no surprise that this section of the constituency is very fertile for the Conservatives, and they would have been comfortably ahead in 2017. Indeed, the Conservatives had no difficulty winning two council seats in Inverleith in 2017, with the other four main parties fighting it out for the other two; in the end, these went to the SNP and the LibDems, with Labour and the Greens losing seats previously held. The Conservative councillors in City Centre and in Forth are also elected largely on the backs of very strong votes in the New Town and in Trinity. That this was a very strong area for No in 2014 is so obvious that it almost doesn’t need stated. It is, however, an area where the Conservatives fell back in 2019, and other parties have had pockets of strength; I recall that the Greens were some way ahead in a small polling district around Canonmills in the 2012 locals, for instance.
The third, much smaller part of the constituency covers the former Granton and Pilton wards, or the western two thirds of the current Forth ward. This consists largely of council housing schemes, including some of the most deprived in Edinburgh, though parts have been redeveloped since the 1990s. The area also includes Granton Harbour, which dates from the 1830s, and now forms part of the Edinburgh Waterfront redevelopment plan with newbuild apartments. Overall, there is little interest in parties other than Labour and the SNP in this part of the constituency, and the trend has unsurprisingly been from the former to the latter in recent years.
It should be noted that the Holyrood constituency, Edinburgh Northern & Leith, is not as similar to this constituency as it might appear at first glance. Apart from Trinity, it includes little of the affluent Conservative-leaning part of the constituency, but does incorporate the whole of the Leith and Leith Walk wards in the east, further boosting support for parties other than the Conservatives.
