Plymouth Sutton and Devenport
Jul 24, 2020 15:06:41 GMT
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Post by andrewp on Jul 24, 2020 15:06:41 GMT
Plymouth Sutton and Devenport is the southern of the 2 parliamentary constituencies formed wholly of wards from within the Plymouth City Council area. It covers the City Centre and most of the famous landmarks in the city, the Hoe, the Citadel and the Dockyards. This seat could be called Plymouth Central or Plymouth South, but the boundary Commission decided to keep 2 historic names in the Constituency title.
This seat was created in 2010, and rather than being the merger of 2 constituencies was actually the 1997-2010 version of Plymouth Sutton with the Devenport area itself added from the previous seat of that name. Although curiously, compared to the 1974-97 constituency boundaries in Plymouth, when the name Plymouth appeared in 3 constituency titles, this seat is the successor to Plymouth Drake rather than Sutton OR Devenport.
The city sits between the mouths of the River Tamar and the Devon Cornwall county boundary to the West and the River Plym to the East. The natural harbour meant that it was a good site for Dockyards to be developed in the 18th Century for the import of grain, timber and coal. Plymouth became a naval city- During the first world war the dockyards at Devenport were developed and then during the second world war Devenport was the headquarters of Western Approaches command, and it was that that made the city a target for the Luffwaffe. In a series of 59 raids, most of the city centre, and 4000 houses, were destroyed in the Plymouth Blitz.
The city centre was rebuilt in an unsympathetic 1960’s architecture, although in recent years parts of the centre have been improved and updated.
Plymouth polytechnic in the constituency gained University status in 1992, and has grown since then. It now has 20,000 students, most of whom live in this constituency. In 2018 its estimated that 45% of people here were under 30, and only 10% over 70.
This seat contains the best residential area in the city in Compton ward situated on a hill North of the City Centre. This has, until recently, been the Conservatives best ward in Plymouth City itself. Peverell ward is also quite leafy by Plymouth standards. However, there are not a lot of leafy suburbs in Plymouth- its quite a bleak hilly city. Both of these wards are near the City Centre and are now popular with the City’s large public sector workforce. In the 2019 local elections, Labour won 7 of the 8 wards within the constituency, and came within 150 votes of the Conservatives in Compton ward. This is the sort of area that has shifted towards Labour in the last decade. There are now much better Conservative wards in the less middle class areas of the City’s northern Moor View constituency. The seat is however estimated to have voted 55% leave.
When this seat was created in 2010, it had a notional Labour majority of 4,400. Conservative Oliver Colville defeated Sutton incumbent Linda Gilroy by 1100 votes, in what was quite a tight 3 way battle with the Liberal Democrats only 3000 behind Labour. This is the sort of seat where the Liberal Democrats would have attracted the votes of a lot of students, whose votes then would have transferred to Labour. Colville then held on by 523 in 2015, but was swept away in 2017, by Labour’s Luke Pollard by nearly 7000 votes. There was a small 2.3% swing to the Conservatives in 2019, so Pollard held on by 4757. Ann Widdecombe, who lives in retirement in Devon was the Brexit Party candidate but could only attract 5.5% of the vote. This now looks like a seat Labour will normally win.
This seat was created in 2010, and rather than being the merger of 2 constituencies was actually the 1997-2010 version of Plymouth Sutton with the Devenport area itself added from the previous seat of that name. Although curiously, compared to the 1974-97 constituency boundaries in Plymouth, when the name Plymouth appeared in 3 constituency titles, this seat is the successor to Plymouth Drake rather than Sutton OR Devenport.
The city sits between the mouths of the River Tamar and the Devon Cornwall county boundary to the West and the River Plym to the East. The natural harbour meant that it was a good site for Dockyards to be developed in the 18th Century for the import of grain, timber and coal. Plymouth became a naval city- During the first world war the dockyards at Devenport were developed and then during the second world war Devenport was the headquarters of Western Approaches command, and it was that that made the city a target for the Luffwaffe. In a series of 59 raids, most of the city centre, and 4000 houses, were destroyed in the Plymouth Blitz.
The city centre was rebuilt in an unsympathetic 1960’s architecture, although in recent years parts of the centre have been improved and updated.
Plymouth polytechnic in the constituency gained University status in 1992, and has grown since then. It now has 20,000 students, most of whom live in this constituency. In 2018 its estimated that 45% of people here were under 30, and only 10% over 70.
This seat contains the best residential area in the city in Compton ward situated on a hill North of the City Centre. This has, until recently, been the Conservatives best ward in Plymouth City itself. Peverell ward is also quite leafy by Plymouth standards. However, there are not a lot of leafy suburbs in Plymouth- its quite a bleak hilly city. Both of these wards are near the City Centre and are now popular with the City’s large public sector workforce. In the 2019 local elections, Labour won 7 of the 8 wards within the constituency, and came within 150 votes of the Conservatives in Compton ward. This is the sort of area that has shifted towards Labour in the last decade. There are now much better Conservative wards in the less middle class areas of the City’s northern Moor View constituency. The seat is however estimated to have voted 55% leave.
When this seat was created in 2010, it had a notional Labour majority of 4,400. Conservative Oliver Colville defeated Sutton incumbent Linda Gilroy by 1100 votes, in what was quite a tight 3 way battle with the Liberal Democrats only 3000 behind Labour. This is the sort of seat where the Liberal Democrats would have attracted the votes of a lot of students, whose votes then would have transferred to Labour. Colville then held on by 523 in 2015, but was swept away in 2017, by Labour’s Luke Pollard by nearly 7000 votes. There was a small 2.3% swing to the Conservatives in 2019, so Pollard held on by 4757. Ann Widdecombe, who lives in retirement in Devon was the Brexit Party candidate but could only attract 5.5% of the vote. This now looks like a seat Labour will normally win.
