Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jul 5, 2023 5:19:09 GMT
The confirmed version of Preston, released this month, expands the constituency boundaries further north and west than they've been for decades. This is, almost, the entire city in one seat, Preston and Fulwood combined.
The current constituency of Preston has been broadly unchanged since the modern version was formed in 1983. Notwithstanding occasional trips by Boundary Commissioners to suburbia to the south of the River Ribble, Preston has been drawn as a wide, squat constituency, containing most of the urban and post-industrial sprawl which sits largely surrounded by Lancashire's rural heart. This is the territory of scores of traditional grid-pattern terraces, where numerous mills and factories once stood, and where conversion from cotton town to 21st century services hub has been slow and not always steady.
It was once said that Preston could produce the cotton to wrap around the world, and though those factories are looking closed - along the rayon production at Courtaulds and Goss printing press site - the city has retained a financial and economic safety net which isn't as secure amongst other Lancastrian towns on the "cotton thread" between the Irish Sea and the Pennines.
It is broadly younger, more middle class, and less ethnically diverse than Blackburn, Accrington, or Burnley, and received some stern criticism from its East Lancashire neighbours for daring to apply for city status. When it won that upgrade, the slow transformation from market borough to the (over) ambitious aim of "Third City of The North West" was not without internal strife. The Grade II Listed Brutalist masterpiece bus station stood in the way of a multi-million pound regeneration scheme, one since consigned to the history books. In the place of the abandoned project, Preston has turned to the University of Central Lancashire, the tentacles (and economy) of which has boosted the local area more than some would dare admit. The bus station remains.
The outer suburbs coming into the constituency include Lea, Cottam, and southern Fulwood. Fifty-odd years ago, Cottam barely had a population to bundle together. With vast green space between Preston and the flat lands of Outer Fylde/Wyre, it was prime house building territory. Thousands of houses have been built in recent years (with one school, one GP surgery, and..... that's it), turning Cottam into a distinct community and connecting Fulwood with Lea via Cadley and Ingol. A new railway station is promised (first in 1994), and a new school is being campaigned for.
Politics here has long since settled into predictable stability. Labour sweep up the local council seats, from the working class southern areas of Fishwick and Ribbleton, to the post-WWII council sprawl of Savick and Larches in the west. Ashton is much more tree-lined, gravel-drive and middle-class, and until the mid-2000s was the only ward within the constituency to return Conservative councillors. The newly expanded 3-member Ashton ward is safely Labour, even with the inclusion of archetypal 1990s new builds alongside the regenerated Preston Docks development. For any sign of growth, the blue team once looked outside the constituency, into their traditional hub of Fulwood. Liberal strength has traditionally focused on the Ingol area to the north-west of the city with occasional explorations of neighbouring wards. Labour's absolute strength in the central and eastern parts of Preston excludes all opposition from getting footholds, although notable exceptions to this rule include a one-off Conservative gain in Fishwick, and the husband and wife Independent socialist councillors shutting out official Labour candidates for decades in Deepdale.
Changing economies and demographics have recently altered even the usual certainty that Fulwood is "blue". Within the new constituency boundaries, suburban Cadley is LibDem, Garrison is Labour. The two "excluded" wards, to be incorporated into Ribble Valley, are solidly Conservative.....though Labour gained one of the three spots in Sharoe Green this year, so watch this space.
Despite being one of the longest held Labour seats in Lancashire, current MP Sir Mark Hendrick does not command a particularly high vote tally or winning percentage. This could be a mere consequence of the low electorate of Preston, currently amongst the smallest in England, and the UK. Taking into account the versions of Preston which have returned MPs over the years, Labour has held on for generations as the winning party. Only during the post-WWII period of "Preston South" was there much competitiveness, Labour by 348 in 1964; Conservative by 1,331 in 1970. There have been only three "Preston" MPs since the significant redrawing of1983, and while Sir Mark is the most moderate of all, he has easily won each of his seven general elections. No other party comes close, although minor left-wing candidates occasionally upset the apple cart by saving their deposits (something both the Socialist Alliance, and Respect have done in their time), suggesting that there is a core number of traditionally socialist voters who would rather vote left than Labour.
The Commissioners have recommended moving central Fulwood and the rural parishes back to Ribble Valley, where they were prior to the last completed boundary changes. Lytham Road/Watling Street Road is a natural division between Preston and Fulwood, though on a map it might look like a rectangle has been cut out of a card with scissors. Even with the more conservative (small c) injection of electors, this shouldn't shunt the seat closer to the Tories next time. Preston is a Labour stronghold, locally and nationally, and nothing suggests otherwise for now.
The current constituency of Preston has been broadly unchanged since the modern version was formed in 1983. Notwithstanding occasional trips by Boundary Commissioners to suburbia to the south of the River Ribble, Preston has been drawn as a wide, squat constituency, containing most of the urban and post-industrial sprawl which sits largely surrounded by Lancashire's rural heart. This is the territory of scores of traditional grid-pattern terraces, where numerous mills and factories once stood, and where conversion from cotton town to 21st century services hub has been slow and not always steady.
It was once said that Preston could produce the cotton to wrap around the world, and though those factories are looking closed - along the rayon production at Courtaulds and Goss printing press site - the city has retained a financial and economic safety net which isn't as secure amongst other Lancastrian towns on the "cotton thread" between the Irish Sea and the Pennines.
It is broadly younger, more middle class, and less ethnically diverse than Blackburn, Accrington, or Burnley, and received some stern criticism from its East Lancashire neighbours for daring to apply for city status. When it won that upgrade, the slow transformation from market borough to the (over) ambitious aim of "Third City of The North West" was not without internal strife. The Grade II Listed Brutalist masterpiece bus station stood in the way of a multi-million pound regeneration scheme, one since consigned to the history books. In the place of the abandoned project, Preston has turned to the University of Central Lancashire, the tentacles (and economy) of which has boosted the local area more than some would dare admit. The bus station remains.
The outer suburbs coming into the constituency include Lea, Cottam, and southern Fulwood. Fifty-odd years ago, Cottam barely had a population to bundle together. With vast green space between Preston and the flat lands of Outer Fylde/Wyre, it was prime house building territory. Thousands of houses have been built in recent years (with one school, one GP surgery, and..... that's it), turning Cottam into a distinct community and connecting Fulwood with Lea via Cadley and Ingol. A new railway station is promised (first in 1994), and a new school is being campaigned for.
Politics here has long since settled into predictable stability. Labour sweep up the local council seats, from the working class southern areas of Fishwick and Ribbleton, to the post-WWII council sprawl of Savick and Larches in the west. Ashton is much more tree-lined, gravel-drive and middle-class, and until the mid-2000s was the only ward within the constituency to return Conservative councillors. The newly expanded 3-member Ashton ward is safely Labour, even with the inclusion of archetypal 1990s new builds alongside the regenerated Preston Docks development. For any sign of growth, the blue team once looked outside the constituency, into their traditional hub of Fulwood. Liberal strength has traditionally focused on the Ingol area to the north-west of the city with occasional explorations of neighbouring wards. Labour's absolute strength in the central and eastern parts of Preston excludes all opposition from getting footholds, although notable exceptions to this rule include a one-off Conservative gain in Fishwick, and the husband and wife Independent socialist councillors shutting out official Labour candidates for decades in Deepdale.
Changing economies and demographics have recently altered even the usual certainty that Fulwood is "blue". Within the new constituency boundaries, suburban Cadley is LibDem, Garrison is Labour. The two "excluded" wards, to be incorporated into Ribble Valley, are solidly Conservative.....though Labour gained one of the three spots in Sharoe Green this year, so watch this space.
Despite being one of the longest held Labour seats in Lancashire, current MP Sir Mark Hendrick does not command a particularly high vote tally or winning percentage. This could be a mere consequence of the low electorate of Preston, currently amongst the smallest in England, and the UK. Taking into account the versions of Preston which have returned MPs over the years, Labour has held on for generations as the winning party. Only during the post-WWII period of "Preston South" was there much competitiveness, Labour by 348 in 1964; Conservative by 1,331 in 1970. There have been only three "Preston" MPs since the significant redrawing of1983, and while Sir Mark is the most moderate of all, he has easily won each of his seven general elections. No other party comes close, although minor left-wing candidates occasionally upset the apple cart by saving their deposits (something both the Socialist Alliance, and Respect have done in their time), suggesting that there is a core number of traditionally socialist voters who would rather vote left than Labour.
The Commissioners have recommended moving central Fulwood and the rural parishes back to Ribble Valley, where they were prior to the last completed boundary changes. Lytham Road/Watling Street Road is a natural division between Preston and Fulwood, though on a map it might look like a rectangle has been cut out of a card with scissors. Even with the more conservative (small c) injection of electors, this shouldn't shunt the seat closer to the Tories next time. Preston is a Labour stronghold, locally and nationally, and nothing suggests otherwise for now.
