Post by Robert Waller on May 31, 2022 20:17:50 GMT
‘Halton’ is an example of a concept that was once a new and forward-looking development but which now seems outdated and is coming to the very end of is shelf-life. The name comes from Halton Castle – not a prehistoric hill fort like Eddisbury in the south of Cheshire, but a post Norman Conquest motte and bailey, later stone, stronghold that formed the basis of the medieval barony of Halton in the north west of that historic county. But that tells us very little about this seat.
When Widnes was moved (by government decree) from Lancashire to Cheshire in the early 1970s, it became possible for it to be united in a single parliamentary seat with the town on the opposite bank of the Mersey, Runcorn. The creation of the Widnes/Runcorn borough (since 1998 unitary) council, known as Halton, in 1974, seemed to make that of the constituency of the same name (in 1983) even more logical. However after four decades this ‘Mersey Banks’ seat has been recommended for abolition, for Widnes once again to be the centre of its own constituency entirely north of the river and including terrain never ceded to Cheshire, while the name of Runcorn, which previously existed as a parliamentary division from 1950-83 will also return, with boundaries that were always entirely in Cheshire.
There was some logic in the original instance to this marriage. Both Widnes and Runcorn were historically dependent on the chemical industry. Linked by a major road bridge, there was no longer any need to take the ferry made famous by the music hall entertainer Stanley Holloway, which cost ‘per 2d per person per trip’. Since 2017 there has been a second river crossing by road in the shape of the Mersey Gateway bridge. Both halves of the seat have been strongly Labour over the last 40 years. Widnes is one of the starker creations of the nineteenth-century industrial revolution, a stronghold of rugby league and of the working class, with the exception of one small somewhat more favoured residential area at the north end of the town, Farnworth. Most of Runcorn is much newer (although it was originally developed as a port on the Manchester Ship Canal), for it was designated as a New Town in April 1964. Owing to overspill, largely from Liverpool, between 1971 and 1981 Runcorn overtook Widnes in population as it grew from 36,000 to 64,000.
However, despite the dramatic view of the Ineos (ex ICI) works from the Weston Point expressway in Runcorn, chemicals (and indeed manufacture in general) is no longer paramount in a diversified age. Halton rates in the nation’s top ten constituencies for employment in sales and customer service occupations (12.7%) which outpace 'process, plant, and machine operatives' (11.0%). This first-named sector includes call centres such as Your Office & PA and Capita O2 Partnership in Runcorn and Contact Centre in Widnes, as well as Runcorn’s Shopping City, which was once seen as an epitome of modern development but is 50 years old in May 2022: enjoy (?): www.shopping-city.co.uk/runcorn-city-50th-extravaganza/
There are a number of industrial estates, producing a wide range from pepper and spice to carpets and kidney machines, but the largest single building along Widnes’s commercial Mersey shore is a Tesco distribution depot - and the Jellybeans Play centre - jellybeansplaycentre.co.uk/. There are still many poor housing areas on both sides of the Mersey – and many of them were not planned and built in Victorian times, either. Runcorn’s ‘New Town’ wards are strongly working class and still substantially composed of social housing, which at the time of the last published census in 2011 reached 51% in Castlefields, for example. These housing units are mainly small and undistinguished, and more reminiscent of Skelmersdale, say, than a southern New Town such as Hemel Hempstead or Crawley.
The political preferences are more typical of Skelmersdale, too. In the most recent local elections in Halton (May 2022), the Conservatives won only one council seat, in Daresbury, Moore & Sandymoor – which is not actually in the Halton constituency, but rather in Weaver Vale. Some of Labour’s shares of the vote in those contests are indeed striking: 78% in Grange, 75% in Bridgewater, and on the Widnes side of the river, 80% in Halton View, 86% in Central & West Bank, 87% in Bankfield, 85% in Appleton. It is true that all of these were in straight fights with Conservative candidates alone, but that also says something: the other parties are very weak in Halton. In 2022 the Liberal Democrats only won one ward, Beechwood & Heath (southern Runcorn), and the Greens lost their only Halton councillor, in Daresbury, to the Conservatives – who beat Labour by just one vote! (And as stated above that ward is in Weaver Vale constituency, not Halton, in any case). That Daresbury ward also happens to be the furthest to the south east in the borough, which means the furthest from Liverpool; and that is a very relevant point.
Halton is a predominantly w.w.c. seat (still 98% white in 2011), but it was not vulnerable to the Conservatives either because of a long term swing or in the special ‘Brexit/Boris’ circumstances of December 2019. The reason is clear. This constituency belongs firmly in the Merseyside sub-region, the most favourable to Labour in recent years, indeed decades. Just like the Wirral peninsula, or the City of Chester, like Sefton Central, or West Lancashire (which includes Skelmersdale) or even Southport, the Labour vote has more than held up, it has advanced overall through the 21st century so far. The reasons are manifold and neither the Tories in general nor the current Prime Minister definitely have not shown the appeal seen elsewhere. This is, of course, the seat which most truly unites the two banks or sides of the Mersey, and its massive Labour majority should be no surprise.
Halton is, however, unlikely to survive as a parliamentary seat. Halton always seemed an inappropriate name, as the eponymous castle is situated in the middle of the sprawl of the expanded Runcorn (there is now a pub next to the ruins), and the Halton barony never included any of the territory formerly in Lancashire on the north bank of the river. In the Boundary Commission’s provisional and revised recommendations, the two towns both regain their place in names of new seats. The Widnes division that existed between 1950 and 1983 is largely re-established, though it is proposed that it be called Widnes and Halewood. This seat would cross the boundary to the (ex-Merseyside metropolitan county) borough of Knowsley to include Halewood and most of Whiston. Meanwhile Runcorn would recover the eastern wards currently in Weaver Vale and also expand west into Cheshire West & Chester unitary through Frodsham and Helsby almost to reach Ellesmere Port, taking in Elton and the vast Stanlow oil refinery. For some reason this seat would be named Runcorn and Helsby, despite Frodsham being a larger community than the latter small town (9,000 compared with 5,000 … one suspects his nomenclature may not survive the inquiry process).
Almost exactly two thirds of the current Halton seat would find its way into the Widnes seat, one third into that based on Runcorn, however named. The former will certainly be overwhelmingly Labour. However any hopes among Conservatives that they may have a good chance in a Runcorn seat are likely to be disappointed. Yes, three of the four Cheshire West wards included were strongly Conservative in 2019 – Frodsham, Gowy Rural and Sandstone, the fourth, Helsby, being won easily by the Greens. But the eastern Runcorn wards taken from Weaver Vale are as massively Labour as the rest of the town, for example Halton Lea (76% share in a four way contest in May 2022) and Norton South / Preston Brook (71%, ditto). With this section, Runcorn town makes up close to 70% of the proposed ‘Runcorn and Helsby’. Yes, the old Runcorn was Conservative throughout the period 1950-83 (its MPs were two ministers: Dennis Vosper, then Mark Carlisle who rose to become Thatcher’s first Education Secretary, before she pruned the wet elements in the Cabinet). However, that seat included the Conservative Lymm, Grappenhall and Stockton Heath now in Warrington South, as well as Frodsham and Helsby; and Runcorn was neither as large nor as strongly Labour – and strongly ‘Merseyside’.- as it has become. Therefore the proposed Runcorn-based constituency is likely to have a 2019 ‘notional’ majority of at least 6,000.
These radical boundary changes should not actually be seen as the conversion of one Labour seat into two, as Weaver Vale is currently Labour too, and its voters form the largest single element of Runcorn & Helsby – most of the rest of Weaver Vale is scheduled to go into a Mid Cheshire division that would have been Conservative in 2019 (though possible vulnerable to a Labour swing). But they would re-establish the distinction between historic Lancashire and Cheshire, and they would remove one constituency name that could be argued to have been both obscure and inappropriate.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 15.7% 406/650
Owner-occupied 64.2% 405/650
Private rented 10.8% 539/650
Social rented 23.5% 137/650
White 98.0% 123/650
Black 0.2% 535/650
Asian 0.7% 579/650
Christian 76.4% 14/650
Managerial & professional 23.5%
Routine & Semi-routine 33.3%
Employed in water supply 1.8% 4/650
Sales and customer service occupations 12.7% 10/650
Degree level 17.4% 580/650
Level 2 qualifications 18.4% 5/650
No qualifications 27.2% 168/650
Students 6.7% 352/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 61.1% 380/573
Private rented 15.6% 402/573
Social rented 23.3% 89/573
White 96.6%
Black 0.4%
Asian 1.1%
Managerial & professional 26.3% 461/573
Routine & Semi-routine 30.6% 68/573
Degree level 23.7% 511/573
No qualifications 21.1% 154/573
General Election 2019: Halton
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Derek Twigg 29,333 63.5 -9.5
Conservative Charles Rowley 10,358 22.4 +0.6
Brexit Party Janet Balfe 3,730 8.1 New
Liberal Democrats Stephen Gribbon 1,800 3.1 +1.3
Green David O'Keefe 982 2.1 New
Lab Majority 18,975 41.1 -10.1
2019 electorate 71,930
Turnout 46,203 64.2 -3.2
Labour hold
Swing 5.05 Lab to C
When Widnes was moved (by government decree) from Lancashire to Cheshire in the early 1970s, it became possible for it to be united in a single parliamentary seat with the town on the opposite bank of the Mersey, Runcorn. The creation of the Widnes/Runcorn borough (since 1998 unitary) council, known as Halton, in 1974, seemed to make that of the constituency of the same name (in 1983) even more logical. However after four decades this ‘Mersey Banks’ seat has been recommended for abolition, for Widnes once again to be the centre of its own constituency entirely north of the river and including terrain never ceded to Cheshire, while the name of Runcorn, which previously existed as a parliamentary division from 1950-83 will also return, with boundaries that were always entirely in Cheshire.
There was some logic in the original instance to this marriage. Both Widnes and Runcorn were historically dependent on the chemical industry. Linked by a major road bridge, there was no longer any need to take the ferry made famous by the music hall entertainer Stanley Holloway, which cost ‘per 2d per person per trip’. Since 2017 there has been a second river crossing by road in the shape of the Mersey Gateway bridge. Both halves of the seat have been strongly Labour over the last 40 years. Widnes is one of the starker creations of the nineteenth-century industrial revolution, a stronghold of rugby league and of the working class, with the exception of one small somewhat more favoured residential area at the north end of the town, Farnworth. Most of Runcorn is much newer (although it was originally developed as a port on the Manchester Ship Canal), for it was designated as a New Town in April 1964. Owing to overspill, largely from Liverpool, between 1971 and 1981 Runcorn overtook Widnes in population as it grew from 36,000 to 64,000.
However, despite the dramatic view of the Ineos (ex ICI) works from the Weston Point expressway in Runcorn, chemicals (and indeed manufacture in general) is no longer paramount in a diversified age. Halton rates in the nation’s top ten constituencies for employment in sales and customer service occupations (12.7%) which outpace 'process, plant, and machine operatives' (11.0%). This first-named sector includes call centres such as Your Office & PA and Capita O2 Partnership in Runcorn and Contact Centre in Widnes, as well as Runcorn’s Shopping City, which was once seen as an epitome of modern development but is 50 years old in May 2022: enjoy (?): www.shopping-city.co.uk/runcorn-city-50th-extravaganza/
There are a number of industrial estates, producing a wide range from pepper and spice to carpets and kidney machines, but the largest single building along Widnes’s commercial Mersey shore is a Tesco distribution depot - and the Jellybeans Play centre - jellybeansplaycentre.co.uk/. There are still many poor housing areas on both sides of the Mersey – and many of them were not planned and built in Victorian times, either. Runcorn’s ‘New Town’ wards are strongly working class and still substantially composed of social housing, which at the time of the last published census in 2011 reached 51% in Castlefields, for example. These housing units are mainly small and undistinguished, and more reminiscent of Skelmersdale, say, than a southern New Town such as Hemel Hempstead or Crawley.
The political preferences are more typical of Skelmersdale, too. In the most recent local elections in Halton (May 2022), the Conservatives won only one council seat, in Daresbury, Moore & Sandymoor – which is not actually in the Halton constituency, but rather in Weaver Vale. Some of Labour’s shares of the vote in those contests are indeed striking: 78% in Grange, 75% in Bridgewater, and on the Widnes side of the river, 80% in Halton View, 86% in Central & West Bank, 87% in Bankfield, 85% in Appleton. It is true that all of these were in straight fights with Conservative candidates alone, but that also says something: the other parties are very weak in Halton. In 2022 the Liberal Democrats only won one ward, Beechwood & Heath (southern Runcorn), and the Greens lost their only Halton councillor, in Daresbury, to the Conservatives – who beat Labour by just one vote! (And as stated above that ward is in Weaver Vale constituency, not Halton, in any case). That Daresbury ward also happens to be the furthest to the south east in the borough, which means the furthest from Liverpool; and that is a very relevant point.
Halton is a predominantly w.w.c. seat (still 98% white in 2011), but it was not vulnerable to the Conservatives either because of a long term swing or in the special ‘Brexit/Boris’ circumstances of December 2019. The reason is clear. This constituency belongs firmly in the Merseyside sub-region, the most favourable to Labour in recent years, indeed decades. Just like the Wirral peninsula, or the City of Chester, like Sefton Central, or West Lancashire (which includes Skelmersdale) or even Southport, the Labour vote has more than held up, it has advanced overall through the 21st century so far. The reasons are manifold and neither the Tories in general nor the current Prime Minister definitely have not shown the appeal seen elsewhere. This is, of course, the seat which most truly unites the two banks or sides of the Mersey, and its massive Labour majority should be no surprise.
Halton is, however, unlikely to survive as a parliamentary seat. Halton always seemed an inappropriate name, as the eponymous castle is situated in the middle of the sprawl of the expanded Runcorn (there is now a pub next to the ruins), and the Halton barony never included any of the territory formerly in Lancashire on the north bank of the river. In the Boundary Commission’s provisional and revised recommendations, the two towns both regain their place in names of new seats. The Widnes division that existed between 1950 and 1983 is largely re-established, though it is proposed that it be called Widnes and Halewood. This seat would cross the boundary to the (ex-Merseyside metropolitan county) borough of Knowsley to include Halewood and most of Whiston. Meanwhile Runcorn would recover the eastern wards currently in Weaver Vale and also expand west into Cheshire West & Chester unitary through Frodsham and Helsby almost to reach Ellesmere Port, taking in Elton and the vast Stanlow oil refinery. For some reason this seat would be named Runcorn and Helsby, despite Frodsham being a larger community than the latter small town (9,000 compared with 5,000 … one suspects his nomenclature may not survive the inquiry process).
Almost exactly two thirds of the current Halton seat would find its way into the Widnes seat, one third into that based on Runcorn, however named. The former will certainly be overwhelmingly Labour. However any hopes among Conservatives that they may have a good chance in a Runcorn seat are likely to be disappointed. Yes, three of the four Cheshire West wards included were strongly Conservative in 2019 – Frodsham, Gowy Rural and Sandstone, the fourth, Helsby, being won easily by the Greens. But the eastern Runcorn wards taken from Weaver Vale are as massively Labour as the rest of the town, for example Halton Lea (76% share in a four way contest in May 2022) and Norton South / Preston Brook (71%, ditto). With this section, Runcorn town makes up close to 70% of the proposed ‘Runcorn and Helsby’. Yes, the old Runcorn was Conservative throughout the period 1950-83 (its MPs were two ministers: Dennis Vosper, then Mark Carlisle who rose to become Thatcher’s first Education Secretary, before she pruned the wet elements in the Cabinet). However, that seat included the Conservative Lymm, Grappenhall and Stockton Heath now in Warrington South, as well as Frodsham and Helsby; and Runcorn was neither as large nor as strongly Labour – and strongly ‘Merseyside’.- as it has become. Therefore the proposed Runcorn-based constituency is likely to have a 2019 ‘notional’ majority of at least 6,000.
These radical boundary changes should not actually be seen as the conversion of one Labour seat into two, as Weaver Vale is currently Labour too, and its voters form the largest single element of Runcorn & Helsby – most of the rest of Weaver Vale is scheduled to go into a Mid Cheshire division that would have been Conservative in 2019 (though possible vulnerable to a Labour swing). But they would re-establish the distinction between historic Lancashire and Cheshire, and they would remove one constituency name that could be argued to have been both obscure and inappropriate.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 15.7% 406/650
Owner-occupied 64.2% 405/650
Private rented 10.8% 539/650
Social rented 23.5% 137/650
White 98.0% 123/650
Black 0.2% 535/650
Asian 0.7% 579/650
Christian 76.4% 14/650
Managerial & professional 23.5%
Routine & Semi-routine 33.3%
Employed in water supply 1.8% 4/650
Sales and customer service occupations 12.7% 10/650
Degree level 17.4% 580/650
Level 2 qualifications 18.4% 5/650
No qualifications 27.2% 168/650
Students 6.7% 352/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 61.1% 380/573
Private rented 15.6% 402/573
Social rented 23.3% 89/573
White 96.6%
Black 0.4%
Asian 1.1%
Managerial & professional 26.3% 461/573
Routine & Semi-routine 30.6% 68/573
Degree level 23.7% 511/573
No qualifications 21.1% 154/573
General Election 2019: Halton
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Derek Twigg 29,333 63.5 -9.5
Conservative Charles Rowley 10,358 22.4 +0.6
Brexit Party Janet Balfe 3,730 8.1 New
Liberal Democrats Stephen Gribbon 1,800 3.1 +1.3
Green David O'Keefe 982 2.1 New
Lab Majority 18,975 41.1 -10.1
2019 electorate 71,930
Turnout 46,203 64.2 -3.2
Labour hold
Swing 5.05 Lab to C