Post by Robert Waller on Jun 15, 2022 13:23:22 GMT
Cambridgeshire has been one of the fastest growing English counties for several decades now, and this has had a concomitant effect on its parliamentary representation: it has been awarded an extra seat twice in the last 30 years. In the round of boundary changes currently in progress, it has been suggested that a St Neots & Mid Cambridgeshire seat be created as an eighth for the county. Back in the boundary review that came into effect in 1997, the extra and additional constituency, the seventh, was clearly North West Cambridgeshire.
Most of its electorate came from John Major’s formerly swollen Huntingdon constituency, which boasted 93,000 electors in 1992. In addition to the 40,000 voters from the former Huntingdon, NW Cambridgeshire was given the four wards of the Peterborough seat south of the River Nene. It is indeed strongly influenced by that large town, for the old Huntingdon stretched to curl round Peterborough taking in some of its suburbs to the south, west and even north, around Glinton. The intervening boundary review, which came into force in 2010, had only minor impact here.
The next changes will again be substantial, but for the time being NW Cambridgeshire returns one of the largest Conservative majorities, reaching seventeen votes short of 26,000 in December 2019, though its massive electorate (94,909 at that election) means that it only reached 80th in their list of safe seats by percentage majority; that would still mean a swing of over 20.1% would be required for Labour to take it, which does not happen outside byelection circumstances.
This is not to say that this constituency reaches extremes in its social, economic and demographic variables. It is close to average in its proportion of owner occupied housing, white residents, those educated to at least degree level, and not far above average for the percentage of professional and managerial workers. There are some ‘ordinary’ neighbourhoods here. Within Peterborough (south of the Nene) lie the rather working class Stanground, and Fletton (Old and New) with its terraced housing and the London Road stadium of Peterborough FC, set in distinctly unglamorous environs. Nor are the more modern post New Town designation (1964) neighbourhoods west of the Nene Parkway consistently up-market. These include the Ortons – Waterville, Longueville, Brimbles, Malborne, Goldhay, Southgate – mixed class and mixed housing tenure, with Orton Longueville for example still having only 54% owner occupied and 27% social rented in the 2011 census. The Ortons are not safe for the Conservative party. In 2019, 2021 and May 2022 for example, the Greens were successful in Waterville; meanwhile UKIP held a seat in Longueville in 2016. The new development south and south west of Peterborough is continuing, and generating new wards beyond Fletton Parkway such as Hargate & Hempstead and Hampton Vale, which is not fully built and generated only a little over 1,000 votes in 2022.
Although the (mainly newish) suburbs of Peterborough comprise about half of the electorate of NW Cambridgeshire, and growing, they are only a small part of its geographical area – which is what justifies the name of the seat. Its western half runs along both sides of the A1 (in the southern half here A1M) for over 20 miles. At the northern end this reaches as far as the Burghley Park historic base of the Cecil family, originally ministers of Elizabeth I, just outside Stamford in Lincolnshire; then moving southwards, Wittering with its operative RAF station, and Wansford, an old coaching stop with its Haycock Inn hotel. South of the latitude of Peterborough is Stilton village, which gave its name to the cheese but oddly is not now licensed to make it, as from 1996 three counties received Protected Geographic Status (Derby, Leicester, Nottingham) – but not Cambridgeshire. Then finally the A1 bypasses Sawtry on its way into Huntingdon constituency.
Meanwhile, in the eastern half of the constituency we find the expanded village of Yaxley, a fair chunk of Fen country around small town of Ramsey, originally a Benedictine monastic foundation in the 10th century and dominated by its abbey until the Dissolution, and the large village of Warboys. All these communities lie in the local authority district of Huntingdonshire – and all were easily won by the Conservatives in May 2022 (Sawtry even being uncontested) with the solitary exception that one Independent defeated the third Tory in Yaxley ward. In the city of Peterborough council elections of 2022 it was certainly not a clean sweep. In addition to the aforementioned Green win in Orton Longueville, the Liberal Democrats held (Old) Fletton & Stanground, and Labour narrowly retained (New) Fletton & Woodston. However up in the rural north west of the Peterborough council area, so thinly populated that there aren’t elections every May, last time they were contested in 2021 the Tories held Wittering and Glinton, the latter very comfortably indeed.
Overall, then, the recent and present electoral pattern of NW Cambridgeshire is that the Conservatives build up massive majorities in the countryside wards, while the ‘urban Peterborough’ half is much more mixed. In its first two contests in 1997 and 2001 Labour achieved a share of over 30% and kept the majority of Sir Brian Mawhinney down to around 8,000. However since then the Tory lead has essentially been rising inexorably, with only a slight blip in 2017. What is more, their proportion of the votes cast has also risen for four elections in a row (including in 2017) to reach 62.8% in 2019. In the last two elections other parties have performed poorly, though the Liberal Democrats finished second in 2010 and UKIP did in 2015 – the seat is estimated to have voted 57% to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, not as emphatic a verdict as many in the Eastern region but more clear than the national average. The ‘European factor’ will have played a significant part in the swing from Labour to Conservative of over 6% in the most recent general election in December 2019.
In the forthcoming boundary changes, the more rural section is set to be reduced and the influence of the still-growing Peterborough portion increased. By the time the Commission started its work, the electorate of this constituency had ballooned further to 95,684, one of the five highest in the United Kingdom (only Isle of Wight, Bristol West, West Ham and Milton Keynes SW were larger in 2019). Their initial proposals recommended that the Huntingdonshire district wards of Holywell-cum-Needingworth, Somersham, Warboys, and Sawtry be transferred to the proposed Huntingdon division.
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-08-Eastern-Initial-Proposals-39.-North-West-Cambridgeshire-CC.pdf
The political effect will be to reduce the huge majority Shailesh Vara had in December 2019, and also make the seat vulnerable to a somewhat smaller swing - though vulnerability is a relative term. The notional Conservative majority will still be over 15,000. No changes to the initial proposals were recommended in the Boundary Commission.s revised report (November 2022)
Although over 70% of the revised North West Cambridgeshire would be included in Peterborough council area, the nomenclature is retained. Although the seat has been established for a quarter of a century now, it still feels (both on current and the suggested future boundaries) like a ‘bits and pieces’ constituency. Bits of true-blue countryside, pieces of Peterborough. Speaking of blue, suggestions that the seat might be renamed Stilton and Peterborough South are unlikely to mature and be consumed by the Boundary Commission with relish.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 14.4% 496/650
Owner-occupied 67.5% 307/650
Private rented 16.5% 211/650
Social rented 14.0% 401/650
White 93.7% 354/650
Black 1.4% 215/650
Asian 2.6% 321/650
Managerial & professional 34.5%
Routine & Semi-routine 24.5%
Degree level 25.5% 326/650
No qualifications 20.0% 459/650
Students 5.6% 568/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 66.9% 262/573
Private rented 19.4% 224/573
Social rented 13.7% 349/573
White 88.9%
Black 3.1%
Asian 4.1%
Managerial & professional 35.7% 201/573
Routine & Semi-routine 24.0% 283/573
Degree level 30.7% 314/573
No qualifications 16.7% 347/573
General Election 2019: North West Cambridgeshire
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Shailesh Vara 40,307 62.5 +3.9
Labour Cathy Cordiner-Achenbach 14,324 22.2 -8.3
Liberal Democrats Bridget Smith 6,881 10.7 +5.7
Green Nicola Day 3,021 4.7 +2.7
C Majority 25,983 40.3 +12.2
2019 electorate 94,909
Turnout 64,533 68.0 -0.8
Conservative hold Swing
6.1 Lab to C
Most of its electorate came from John Major’s formerly swollen Huntingdon constituency, which boasted 93,000 electors in 1992. In addition to the 40,000 voters from the former Huntingdon, NW Cambridgeshire was given the four wards of the Peterborough seat south of the River Nene. It is indeed strongly influenced by that large town, for the old Huntingdon stretched to curl round Peterborough taking in some of its suburbs to the south, west and even north, around Glinton. The intervening boundary review, which came into force in 2010, had only minor impact here.
The next changes will again be substantial, but for the time being NW Cambridgeshire returns one of the largest Conservative majorities, reaching seventeen votes short of 26,000 in December 2019, though its massive electorate (94,909 at that election) means that it only reached 80th in their list of safe seats by percentage majority; that would still mean a swing of over 20.1% would be required for Labour to take it, which does not happen outside byelection circumstances.
This is not to say that this constituency reaches extremes in its social, economic and demographic variables. It is close to average in its proportion of owner occupied housing, white residents, those educated to at least degree level, and not far above average for the percentage of professional and managerial workers. There are some ‘ordinary’ neighbourhoods here. Within Peterborough (south of the Nene) lie the rather working class Stanground, and Fletton (Old and New) with its terraced housing and the London Road stadium of Peterborough FC, set in distinctly unglamorous environs. Nor are the more modern post New Town designation (1964) neighbourhoods west of the Nene Parkway consistently up-market. These include the Ortons – Waterville, Longueville, Brimbles, Malborne, Goldhay, Southgate – mixed class and mixed housing tenure, with Orton Longueville for example still having only 54% owner occupied and 27% social rented in the 2011 census. The Ortons are not safe for the Conservative party. In 2019, 2021 and May 2022 for example, the Greens were successful in Waterville; meanwhile UKIP held a seat in Longueville in 2016. The new development south and south west of Peterborough is continuing, and generating new wards beyond Fletton Parkway such as Hargate & Hempstead and Hampton Vale, which is not fully built and generated only a little over 1,000 votes in 2022.
Although the (mainly newish) suburbs of Peterborough comprise about half of the electorate of NW Cambridgeshire, and growing, they are only a small part of its geographical area – which is what justifies the name of the seat. Its western half runs along both sides of the A1 (in the southern half here A1M) for over 20 miles. At the northern end this reaches as far as the Burghley Park historic base of the Cecil family, originally ministers of Elizabeth I, just outside Stamford in Lincolnshire; then moving southwards, Wittering with its operative RAF station, and Wansford, an old coaching stop with its Haycock Inn hotel. South of the latitude of Peterborough is Stilton village, which gave its name to the cheese but oddly is not now licensed to make it, as from 1996 three counties received Protected Geographic Status (Derby, Leicester, Nottingham) – but not Cambridgeshire. Then finally the A1 bypasses Sawtry on its way into Huntingdon constituency.
Meanwhile, in the eastern half of the constituency we find the expanded village of Yaxley, a fair chunk of Fen country around small town of Ramsey, originally a Benedictine monastic foundation in the 10th century and dominated by its abbey until the Dissolution, and the large village of Warboys. All these communities lie in the local authority district of Huntingdonshire – and all were easily won by the Conservatives in May 2022 (Sawtry even being uncontested) with the solitary exception that one Independent defeated the third Tory in Yaxley ward. In the city of Peterborough council elections of 2022 it was certainly not a clean sweep. In addition to the aforementioned Green win in Orton Longueville, the Liberal Democrats held (Old) Fletton & Stanground, and Labour narrowly retained (New) Fletton & Woodston. However up in the rural north west of the Peterborough council area, so thinly populated that there aren’t elections every May, last time they were contested in 2021 the Tories held Wittering and Glinton, the latter very comfortably indeed.
Overall, then, the recent and present electoral pattern of NW Cambridgeshire is that the Conservatives build up massive majorities in the countryside wards, while the ‘urban Peterborough’ half is much more mixed. In its first two contests in 1997 and 2001 Labour achieved a share of over 30% and kept the majority of Sir Brian Mawhinney down to around 8,000. However since then the Tory lead has essentially been rising inexorably, with only a slight blip in 2017. What is more, their proportion of the votes cast has also risen for four elections in a row (including in 2017) to reach 62.8% in 2019. In the last two elections other parties have performed poorly, though the Liberal Democrats finished second in 2010 and UKIP did in 2015 – the seat is estimated to have voted 57% to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, not as emphatic a verdict as many in the Eastern region but more clear than the national average. The ‘European factor’ will have played a significant part in the swing from Labour to Conservative of over 6% in the most recent general election in December 2019.
In the forthcoming boundary changes, the more rural section is set to be reduced and the influence of the still-growing Peterborough portion increased. By the time the Commission started its work, the electorate of this constituency had ballooned further to 95,684, one of the five highest in the United Kingdom (only Isle of Wight, Bristol West, West Ham and Milton Keynes SW were larger in 2019). Their initial proposals recommended that the Huntingdonshire district wards of Holywell-cum-Needingworth, Somersham, Warboys, and Sawtry be transferred to the proposed Huntingdon division.
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-08-Eastern-Initial-Proposals-39.-North-West-Cambridgeshire-CC.pdf
The political effect will be to reduce the huge majority Shailesh Vara had in December 2019, and also make the seat vulnerable to a somewhat smaller swing - though vulnerability is a relative term. The notional Conservative majority will still be over 15,000. No changes to the initial proposals were recommended in the Boundary Commission.s revised report (November 2022)
Although over 70% of the revised North West Cambridgeshire would be included in Peterborough council area, the nomenclature is retained. Although the seat has been established for a quarter of a century now, it still feels (both on current and the suggested future boundaries) like a ‘bits and pieces’ constituency. Bits of true-blue countryside, pieces of Peterborough. Speaking of blue, suggestions that the seat might be renamed Stilton and Peterborough South are unlikely to mature and be consumed by the Boundary Commission with relish.
2011 Census
Age 65+ 14.4% 496/650
Owner-occupied 67.5% 307/650
Private rented 16.5% 211/650
Social rented 14.0% 401/650
White 93.7% 354/650
Black 1.4% 215/650
Asian 2.6% 321/650
Managerial & professional 34.5%
Routine & Semi-routine 24.5%
Degree level 25.5% 326/650
No qualifications 20.0% 459/650
Students 5.6% 568/650
2021 Census
Owner occupied 66.9% 262/573
Private rented 19.4% 224/573
Social rented 13.7% 349/573
White 88.9%
Black 3.1%
Asian 4.1%
Managerial & professional 35.7% 201/573
Routine & Semi-routine 24.0% 283/573
Degree level 30.7% 314/573
No qualifications 16.7% 347/573
General Election 2019: North West Cambridgeshire
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Shailesh Vara 40,307 62.5 +3.9
Labour Cathy Cordiner-Achenbach 14,324 22.2 -8.3
Liberal Democrats Bridget Smith 6,881 10.7 +5.7
Green Nicola Day 3,021 4.7 +2.7
C Majority 25,983 40.3 +12.2
2019 electorate 94,909
Turnout 64,533 68.0 -0.8
Conservative hold Swing
6.1 Lab to C
