Post by John Chanin on Nov 16, 2021 10:58:55 GMT
Charnwood Forest sticks up out of the flat Leicestershire countryside, heavily wooded as its name suggests, with its ancient precambrian rocks, which include fossils of some of the earliest complex life. It has given its name both to a parliamentary seat, and to the local district council. It is however wholly untypical of this seat, which consists almost entirely of suburbs, exurbs, and commuter villages looking to Leicester, as it curves round the west and north sides of the city. As the owner-occupation and renting figures show, this is a uniformly middle class seat, albeit like many midlands seats not with particularly high educational qualifications. Only in Syston and Mountsorrel does renting reach 20% of households, and there is one of the lowest figures of social housing outside south Essex.
One third of the seat consists of actual suburbs of Leicester, which fall outside the administrative area of the city. In the west is Glenfield, curiously the headquarters of Leicestershire County Council, a fairly nondescript middle-class suburb with a small asian population. To the north of the city separated from each other by the wide flood plain of the river Soar, are Birstall and Thurmaston. There is a substantial asian population here of around 20%. The former has leafy suburbs on the Leicester border, with a swathe of modern estates further out. Thurmaston has an old village centre, swallowed up by the city, with more modern estates east of the main road north, alongside a large mall. It is the most working class part of the seat with the lowest educational qualifications.
Another quarter is also decidedly urban. Leicester Forest East sits astride the M1 and is more or less continuous with the Leicester suburbs of Braunstone and Thorpe Astley. Mountsorrel, sitting alongside the river Soar by the eastern foothills of the Forest, and halfway to Loughborough, has a population of just under 10,000, and is an overgrown commuter village. Syston to the east of the Soar is more of a proper independent town, although ribbon development now connects it to Thurmaston, and accordingly is a little down market of the rest of the seat.
Just under a quarter consists of commuter villages to the west of the city and outside the ring road. Kirby Muxloe is a pleasant village with a ruined Tudor castle, and like Glenfield and Leicester Forest East is part of Blaby District. Groby on the southern edge of the Forest is more modern, and part of Bosworth District. Anstey and Rothley are conventional commuter villages, with modern development around an older core.
The remainder of the seat is largely rural. There are few voters in the pretty villages of the Forest. There is also a large sparsely populated area along the river Wreake to the north-east, which contains the curious small new town of East Goscote (there doesn’t seem to be a west Goscote) which is rather isolated and lacks facilities. Further south are the small commuter villages of Queniborough and Barkby amidst flat agricultural country.
The whole seat is fairly uniformly Conservative as well as middle-class. They hold all the county council seats in the constituency. At District level there is more variety. Liberal Democrats are competitive in Glenfield and hold Groby as part of their majority on Hinckley & Bosworth Council. There is a significant Labour minority, as might be expected, in Birstall and Thurmaston, and on the more working class east side of Syston. East Goscote having flirted with the BNP voted for a Green last time out. At parliamentary level it is a very safe seat ever since its creation in 1997 as an extra seat for Leicestershire, carving bits off all 4 of the surrounding seats, and containing wards from 3 District councils. MP here since 2015 is Edward Argar, a junior minister and former SPAD and management consultant, originally from Kent, and with no connection with the area prior to selection.
This seat, like most of the Leicestershire seats is oversized, and the Boundary Commission is effectively proposing to add half a seat to the county, by linking Rutland with Lincolnshire rather than Leicestershire. Considerable changes are therefore necessary, and this seat which takes part of three Districts, is one of the most affected. Charnwood will lose a third of its voters at the eastern end of the seat to a new Melton & Syston seat. The original proposals also saw it lose another 8000 in Glenfield which was to be added to a city seat, but this area has been returned following consultation. In exchange it gains the commuter villages of Ratby and Markfield with their surrounding countyside from Bosworth, and the Leicester suburb of Braunstone from South Leicestershire, but no longer the exurban sprawl of Enderby and Narborough as in the original proposals. With the Charnwood District component now reduced to less than a third, the Commission is proposing to rename it as the anodyne Mid Leicestershire, although the eponymous forest is still in the seat. Although the seat now has substantial components from all three District councils, it does make sense as a semi-urban sprawl - outside the boundaries of the city of Leicester, but definitely part of its hinterland. The area gained is definitely more Labour than the area lost, but not by enough to make the seat marginal, even in a good year for Labour.
Census data: owner-occupied 82% (8/573 in England & Wales), private rented 10% (541st), social rented 7% (564th).
:White 88%, Black 1%, South Asian 8%, Mixed 1%, Other 1%
: Managerial & professional 37% (222nd), Routine & Semi-routine 26% (377th)
: Degree level 26%(272nd), No qualifications 36%(299th)
: Students 3% (270th), Over 65- 19% (150th)
One third of the seat consists of actual suburbs of Leicester, which fall outside the administrative area of the city. In the west is Glenfield, curiously the headquarters of Leicestershire County Council, a fairly nondescript middle-class suburb with a small asian population. To the north of the city separated from each other by the wide flood plain of the river Soar, are Birstall and Thurmaston. There is a substantial asian population here of around 20%. The former has leafy suburbs on the Leicester border, with a swathe of modern estates further out. Thurmaston has an old village centre, swallowed up by the city, with more modern estates east of the main road north, alongside a large mall. It is the most working class part of the seat with the lowest educational qualifications.
Another quarter is also decidedly urban. Leicester Forest East sits astride the M1 and is more or less continuous with the Leicester suburbs of Braunstone and Thorpe Astley. Mountsorrel, sitting alongside the river Soar by the eastern foothills of the Forest, and halfway to Loughborough, has a population of just under 10,000, and is an overgrown commuter village. Syston to the east of the Soar is more of a proper independent town, although ribbon development now connects it to Thurmaston, and accordingly is a little down market of the rest of the seat.
Just under a quarter consists of commuter villages to the west of the city and outside the ring road. Kirby Muxloe is a pleasant village with a ruined Tudor castle, and like Glenfield and Leicester Forest East is part of Blaby District. Groby on the southern edge of the Forest is more modern, and part of Bosworth District. Anstey and Rothley are conventional commuter villages, with modern development around an older core.
The remainder of the seat is largely rural. There are few voters in the pretty villages of the Forest. There is also a large sparsely populated area along the river Wreake to the north-east, which contains the curious small new town of East Goscote (there doesn’t seem to be a west Goscote) which is rather isolated and lacks facilities. Further south are the small commuter villages of Queniborough and Barkby amidst flat agricultural country.
The whole seat is fairly uniformly Conservative as well as middle-class. They hold all the county council seats in the constituency. At District level there is more variety. Liberal Democrats are competitive in Glenfield and hold Groby as part of their majority on Hinckley & Bosworth Council. There is a significant Labour minority, as might be expected, in Birstall and Thurmaston, and on the more working class east side of Syston. East Goscote having flirted with the BNP voted for a Green last time out. At parliamentary level it is a very safe seat ever since its creation in 1997 as an extra seat for Leicestershire, carving bits off all 4 of the surrounding seats, and containing wards from 3 District councils. MP here since 2015 is Edward Argar, a junior minister and former SPAD and management consultant, originally from Kent, and with no connection with the area prior to selection.
This seat, like most of the Leicestershire seats is oversized, and the Boundary Commission is effectively proposing to add half a seat to the county, by linking Rutland with Lincolnshire rather than Leicestershire. Considerable changes are therefore necessary, and this seat which takes part of three Districts, is one of the most affected. Charnwood will lose a third of its voters at the eastern end of the seat to a new Melton & Syston seat. The original proposals also saw it lose another 8000 in Glenfield which was to be added to a city seat, but this area has been returned following consultation. In exchange it gains the commuter villages of Ratby and Markfield with their surrounding countyside from Bosworth, and the Leicester suburb of Braunstone from South Leicestershire, but no longer the exurban sprawl of Enderby and Narborough as in the original proposals. With the Charnwood District component now reduced to less than a third, the Commission is proposing to rename it as the anodyne Mid Leicestershire, although the eponymous forest is still in the seat. Although the seat now has substantial components from all three District councils, it does make sense as a semi-urban sprawl - outside the boundaries of the city of Leicester, but definitely part of its hinterland. The area gained is definitely more Labour than the area lost, but not by enough to make the seat marginal, even in a good year for Labour.
Census data: owner-occupied 82% (8/573 in England & Wales), private rented 10% (541st), social rented 7% (564th).
:White 88%, Black 1%, South Asian 8%, Mixed 1%, Other 1%
: Managerial & professional 37% (222nd), Routine & Semi-routine 26% (377th)
: Degree level 26%(272nd), No qualifications 36%(299th)
: Students 3% (270th), Over 65- 19% (150th)
2010 | % | 2015 | % | 2017 | % | 2019 | % | |
Conservative | 26,560 | 49.6% | 28,384 | 54.3% | 33,318 | 60.4% | 35,121 | 63.4% |
Labour | 10,536 | 19.7% | 11,453 | 21.9% | 16,977 | 30.8% | 12,724 | 23.0% |
Liberal Democrat | 11,531 | 21.5% | 3,605 | 6.9% | 2,052 | 3.7% | 4,856 | 8.8% |
UKIP | 1,799 | 3.4% | 8,330 | 15.9% | 1,471 | 2.7% | ||
Green | 1,036 | 1.9% | 2,664 | 4.8% | ||||
Others | 3,116 | 5.8% | 489 | 0.9% | 322 | 0.6% | ||
Majority | 15,029 | 28.1% | 16,931 | 32.4% | 16,341 | 29.6% | 22,397 | 40.5% |
