South Cambridgeshire

[bsjmcr]

Coming soon - I expect much of the old SC part will be coming here but a lot of it will be going into St Neot’s so will need some work. 

[nyx]

The new constituency of South Cambridgeshire is formed out of the following 2010-24 constituencies: 61.9% of South Cambridgeshire, 17.5% of South East Cambridgeshire, and 7.6% of Cambrirdge.

[Deleted]

Yet another sign of this likely becoming an increasingly exurban and suburban constituency in the coming decades

[bsjmcr]

Jul 9, 2023 10:08:51 GMT @weld said:

Yet another sign of this likely becoming an increasingly exurban and suburban constituency in the coming decades

Absolutely, but as things stand given neither of the constituencies form a full ‘doughnut’ (unlike the district) around Cambridge, the new incoming vote (which will of course not be particularly Conservative-supporting) will be split between here and Mid Cambridgeshire, which would include Girton, the ever-expanding newfangled North West Cambridge/Eddington development, and the ‘new town’ of Camborne. And indeed East Cambridgeshire too will include Waterbeach which has expanded greatly, with massive plans underway to further expand with new villages being created. 

I will have a look in more detail when I get round to it (this Sunday has turned out to be sunnier than forecasts said) but at first glance it it is the splitting of the ‘intellectual’ vote (and split opposition in Mid Cambs) across several constituencies that will give the conservatives a head start. South Cambs may ironically end up being their best bet, while it will have two Cambridge wards, it also includes the more distant villages from Cambridge where they may remain strong. In East Cambs, there will be little sympathy for the Tories in Ely and Waterbeach but the rural areas are going to be very strong given their distance from Cambridge. And with the new St Neot’s and Mid Cambs being formed of one part where Labour are the challengers and the rest the Lib Dems, there will be confusion over tactical voting and/or a remaining ‘John Major effect’ in the Huntingdon part. 

[nyx]

Jul 9, 2023 10:08:51 GMT @weld said:

Yet another sign of this likely becoming an increasingly exurban and suburban constituency in the coming decades

If housebuilding were to occur on a level even close to this, the next review would certainly see the Cambridge constituency itself split into multiple urban Cambridge seats.

[bsjmcr]

Jul 11, 2023 18:28:48 GMT nyx said:

Jul 9, 2023 10:08:51 GMT @weld said:

Yet another sign of this likely becoming an increasingly exurban and suburban constituency in the coming decades

If housebuilding were to occur on a level even close to this, the next review would certainly see the Cambridge constituency itself split into multiple urban Cambridge seats.

But there’s not much room for more housebuilding in the city itself (perhaps only Trumpington, which arguably is a better fit than ‘Queen Edith’s for being the ward to not be in Cambridge constituency anyway, but that’s a different matter) so surely the city’s population growth will level off to a point that the current situation of sloughing off two wards is the maximum extent of Cambridge being split rather than a ‘big bang’ east-west split. A Cambridge doughnut a la York though could happen, to better unite the new suburbs. 

Unlike Oxford having Abingdon I’m not sure there is a moderately sized town to pair part of the city with, at a similar proximity away too, there is quite a bit of hinterland before you reach Cambourne or Waterbeach and neither of these are nearly as big as Abingdon or even Kidlington. 

[nyx]

Jul 11, 2023 21:27:58 GMT bsjmcr said:

Jul 11, 2023 18:28:48 GMT nyx said:

If housebuilding were to occur on a level even close to this, the next review would certainly see the Cambridge constituency itself split into multiple urban Cambridge seats.

But there’s not much room for more housebuilding in the city itself (perhaps only Trumpington, which arguably is a better fit than ‘Queen Edith’s for being the ward to not be in Cambridge constituency anyway, but that’s a different matter) so surely the city’s population growth will level off to a point that the current situation of sloughing off two wards is the maximum extent of Cambridge being split rather than a ‘big bang’ east-west split. A Cambridge doughnut a la York though could happen, to better unite the new suburbs. 

Unlike Oxford having Abingdon I’m not sure there is a moderately sized town to pair part of the city with, at a similar proximity away too, there is quite a bit of hinterland before you reach Cambourne or Waterbeach and neither of these are nearly as big as Abingdon or even Kidlington. 

Well, if this plan goes ahead then one would expect the boundaries of Cambridge itself to be adjusted/grown.

But a map of Cambridge divided between two constituencies would probably initially look something like this- Northstowe is closer than Cambourne after all and growing considerably.

[Deleted]

Jul 11, 2023 22:48:52 GMT nyx said:

Jul 11, 2023 21:27:58 GMT bsjmcr said:

But there’s not much room for more housebuilding in the city itself (perhaps only Trumpington, which arguably is a better fit than ‘Queen Edith’s for being the ward to not be in Cambridge constituency anyway, but that’s a different matter) so surely the city’s population growth will level off to a point that the current situation of sloughing off two wards is the maximum extent of Cambridge being split rather than a ‘big bang’ east-west split. A Cambridge doughnut a la York though could happen, to better unite the new suburbs. 

Unlike Oxford having Abingdon I’m not sure there is a moderately sized town to pair part of the city with, at a similar proximity away too, there is quite a bit of hinterland before you reach Cambourne or Waterbeach and neither of these are nearly as big as Abingdon or even Kidlington. 

Well, if this plan goes ahead then one would expect the boundaries of Cambridge itself to be adjusted/grown.

But a map of Cambridge divided between two constituencies would probably initially look something like this- Northstowe is closer than Cambourne after all and growing considerably.

I think the most logical way to 'crack' Cambridge is along the River Cam, which, I believe, is what you've done here. You could crack the city three ways to lump it in with Mid Cambridgeshire, South Cambridgeshire and a Cambs seat in the southeast.

It also depends on whether Cambridgeshire gets a new MP at the next BR. Either way, you could get two Labour seats in a north-south split in Cambridge plus a potentially three-way marginal if you link Cambridge and Cambourne on an OxWAb-style constituency. Still, I imagine it would include the remaining Lib Demmy areas in the southwest of Cambridge city so it could vote similarly to OxWAb without much of a Labour challenge.

Incidentally, is South Cambridgeshire still a county constituency? If so, I doubt it will be after a 2030s boundary review.

[batman]

it is.

[nyx]

Jul 12, 2023 7:08:33 GMT @weld said:

Incidentally, is South Cambridgeshire still a county constituency? If so, I doubt it will be after a 2030s boundary review.

Even seats with only a small amount of rural territory often remain county constituencies- see Bath, which has now become a county constituency after gaining one rural ward. And Peterborough is a CC thanks to having the one rural Thorney ward, etc. Only way Cambridgeshire gets a second borough constituency is if the Cambridge urban area expands enough that it's possible to have two compact constituencies which are almost entirely urban- which I do not imagine by the next boundary review. South Cambridgeshire will certainly remain a county constituency if it continues to exist, as it also has a lot of rural areas further away from Cambridge.

[The Bishop]

The town/county constituency distinction is arguably pretty archaic anyway.

[Pete Whitehead]

Jul 12, 2023 11:22:33 GMT nyx said:

Jul 12, 2023 7:08:33 GMT @weld said:

Incidentally, is South Cambridgeshire still a county constituency? If so, I doubt it will be after a 2030s boundary review.

Even seats with only a small amount of rural territory often remain county constituencies- see Bath, which has now become a county constituency after gaining one rural ward. And Peterborough is a CC thanks to having the one rural Thorney ward, etc. Only way Cambridgeshire gets a second borough constituency is if the Cambridge urban area expands enough that it's possible to have two compact constituencies which are almost entirely urban- which I do not imagine by the next boundary review. South Cambridgeshire will certainly remain a county constituency if it continues to exist, as it also has a lot of rural areas further away from Cambridge.

Even then, York Outer is a county constituency

[nyx]

Jul 12, 2023 12:05:19 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Jul 12, 2023 11:22:33 GMT nyx said:

Even seats with only a small amount of rural territory often remain county constituencies- see Bath, which has now become a county constituency after gaining one rural ward. And Peterborough is a CC thanks to having the one rural Thorney ward, etc. Only way Cambridgeshire gets a second borough constituency is if the Cambridge urban area expands enough that it's possible to have two compact constituencies which are almost entirely urban- which I do not imagine by the next boundary review. South Cambridgeshire will certainly remain a county constituency if it continues to exist, as it also has a lot of rural areas further away from Cambridge.

Even then, York Outer is a county constituency

Because the actual urban area of York is only about enough for 1.5 constituencies, leaving the rest of York Outer covering areas which are administered as part of York but which are quite rural in places.

[bsjmcr]

Better late than never!

Cambridgeshire is one of the UK's fastest growing counties, due in no part to the expanding science, technology and research base of the university there. It is therefore unsurprising that significant boundary changes in this part of the world result in a new seat, St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, being created of much of the existing South Cambridgeshire, which is oversized and growing.

At first glance it would seem like this is another flat fertile fenland, an impregnable Tory stronghold made of leave-leaning farmers, as with the other Cambridgeshire seats, but this is quite an exceptional area, and it can no longer be considered a Tory stronghold despite its rural nature.

As rural as it is, this is very much ‘Greater Cambridge’ and home to many of the university’s staff and a handful of students (by virtue of inclusion of two Cambridge city wards) this may reflect the more recent voting patterns. This area would have voted by a clear majority to Remain, if not far off the 75% of the city, and a world away from the comfortable Leave leads in nearby Huntingdon, Fenland and Peterborough, while next-door East Cambs leaned leave too. As such, the Tory majority for South Cambs was trimmed from 16,000 right down to less than 3,000 votes, unprecedented for this constituency, equally so was the remarkable Lib Dem surge Jo Swinson could only dream of, jumping from 3rd place to pile up over 28,000 votes. To be fair the Lib Dems had always been runners-up since the seat’s 1997 creation, except in 2017, but their second place vote has never been consolidated to this level, and a split opposition has always given the illusion of it being an super-safe Tory stronghold, indeed, it was 2010, not 1997, which previously delivered this seat’s smallest majority, at less than 8,000. ’97 saw an incredibly equal split between Lib Dems and Labour. As for next time, 8,000 Labour votes still remain up for grabs by the Lib Dems and this will be one to watch to see if it will deliver a gold patch in a sea of blue, next to a bright red dot in Cambridge where the Lib Dems have run out of steam.

This is an area of high turnouts and high education. It is probably one of a minority of seats where the majority of residents are degree-educated, equally, the proportion of professionals and managers is also well above average. There is little deprivation in this area, and jobseekers are as hard to find as needles in any of the haystacks that can be found on the farms here. Indeed, the district has had lowest proportion of unemployment benefit claimants nationally at less than 1%. The Council also regularly ranks in the top 10 places to live in the country. Fervently a middle class area, as well as University staff and a few farmers, its 'dormitory villages' will host many of the new staff and researchers required at the booming research institutes of West Cambridge (which is no longer in this seat), as well as the important Addenbrooke’s hospital which is in this seat. There is also potential for a London commuting element, Cambridge being an hour’s train away and some of the villages even have their own train stations.

Other than the two Cambridge wards (more on them later), this area is made of picturesque villages dotted about the fens. There is attractive countryside here, such as at Wandlebury Country Park, which has one of the area's very few hills (the quaintly named Gog Magog Hills). You will also find the odd windmill, golden fields of oilseed rape in spring and nature reserves throughout. Grantchester is one such village, just south-west of Cambridge, the boundary with the City being the River Cam. Like most of the villages here, thatched roof cottages, quaint pubs, ancient chuches and village halls are the order of the day. A notable former resident of Grantchester is the war poet Rupert Brooke, whose former house, the old vicarage, is now home to a certain Lord and Lady Archer. Songs have been sung about the village and its idyllic meadows (by Pink Floyd), and it claims to have the highest per capita proportion of Nobel Prize winners in the world, being such a desirable settlement just a stone’s throw away from that citadel of learning. Nearby is Byron’s Pool, where the poet Lord Byron used to take a swim while he was a student.

Other villages include the Shelfords, there being a Little and a Great Shelford. The latter became famous for having links to the ancestors of former US President Obama. The Shelfords are also one of the most desirable commuter suburbs in the area, being well-connected by rail to both Cambridge and London. One of the larger villages is Sawston, population 7,000, it has its own stately home, and here the demographics are ever so slightly more mixed, having a touch lower proportion of graduates (though they still outweigh those without qualifications) and professionals. Gamlingay and Bassingbourn towards the south-western Hertfordshire border with Royston are also similar, though are smaller, with 3,000 people each. Bassingbourn is home to a MoD barracks, formerly an RAF airfield, which became controversial in 2014 due to incidents involving Libyan cadets. The barracks closed and reopened in 2018. 

Boundary changes have seen areas in the north-west of the old South Cambridgeshire constituency, where most of the recent new house-building activity has been concentrated, sliced off to form the basis of St Neot's and Mid Cambridgeshire. In their place, three wards from the to-be-abolished South East Cambridgeshire (though part of South Cambridgeshire district council already) join this one, keeping the name of this constituency geographically accurate to cover a sprawling, wide, but less tall, area of the southern half of the South Cambs district. The new wards joining include relatively large villages such as Fulbourn, Balsham and Linton, around 3-4,000 each, and the pretty little riverside village of Fen Ditton on the Cambridge border, on the opposite side of the Cam. Being larger villages, there are pockets of less fervently middle-class areas compared to, say, the Shelfords, two-thirds of whose population are graduates, whereas in these wards it is more around 40-50%, though this is still well above the national average of a third. Constituency boundaries are mostly artificial constructs, but these wards do reflect the character of the old SE Cambridgeshire which was always slightly less Cambridge-facing geographically, electorally (tactical voting was weaker, allowing the conservative to hold by over 10,000 last time), and intellectually so to speak. Some of these areas are equidistant to if not closer to Newmarket than Cambridge, and transport connections are relatively poor. It's just that little bit 'sleepier' than the areas immediately to the south and west of Cambridge, but that's how the locals would like it.

The other new ward joining South Cambs, and to be sloughed off Cambridge city constituency for the first time ever, is Cherry Hinton. It is perhaps surprising it hadn't been detached from the city previously, as it is separated from the urban Cambridge by a sliver of green space in Cherry Hinton Hall and Park. Some of its suburban sprawl eastwards has already crossed the city boundary too. Cherry Hinton Hall is a former stately home, hosting the annual Cambridge Folk Festival and in other times is a popular attractive green space and family friendly attraction. It very much has its own 'village' feel, given its location to the east of the city and relative distance from the university, and is more of a worthy Cambridge suburb, somewhat less influenced by students than other City wards. Graduate levels are around half here, and deprivation levels mixed in some parts, compared to Queen Edith’s, which is the other Cambridge ward that continues its exclusion from the city consistency. It has not been part of the Cambridge consistency since 1983. Queen Edith's includes Addenbrooke’s hospital and Homerton College. One of the lesser-known colleges, it sits next to the Education Department and as such was a teacher training college for most of its history, only relatively recently taking on all students, becoming the largest college by total number (that’s right, it isn’t Trinity, which only has the most undergrads). The ward is one of the if not the most affluent and middle-class ones in the city, and on the ground it is odd that it has always been sloughed off the city’s seat, for there is little buffer between it and the city, it always seemed a matter of making up numbers. Across the constituency as a whole, the student vote here (the old seat also included Girton, home to another university College) historically has been vastly outweighed by the affluent village Tory vote. Now that much of the latter are moving away from the Tories over Brexit, student registration here could make all the difference for the first time ever, truly a sign of the times.

On the City Council, Queen Edith's is safely Lib Dem (other than shock Labour victories in 2012 and 14 during the LD's nadir). On the other hand, Cherry Hinton has been held by Labour for some time, making it rather electorally incongruous to the rest of the South Cambs constituency as a whole. The last Conservative councillor lost Cherry Hinton in 2006 and Labour have since amassed huge majorities, remarkably resisting the LD surge that took over the rest of the city in the late 2000s, with the exception of the last election where the Conservative slashed Labour's majority to less than 100 votes, mostly attributed to opposition to a proposed congestion charge. The proposals have since been scrapped. Regardless, there will be little appetite for the Conservatives on a national level in Cambridge itself.

Meanwhile, in the surrounding South Cambs District, the past few elections have also seen the Tories decidedly rejected in most of the villages, even the incoming SE Cambs ones, with the Lib Dems being the beneficiary. Labour are simply nowhere to be seen in South Cambridgeshire district.

Andrew Lansley held the old South Cambridgeshire seat for the Tories in 1997 right up to 2015, during which he was Health Secretary. He didn’t appear to be local at first, didn't go to Cambridge, but seemed to do well here and is now Lord Lansley of Orwell - named after yet another one of the villages, not the author! Heidi Allen took over in 2015 with a vast majority due to the Lib Dem evaporation and over 50% of the vote, something Lansley did not manage during his time. She too was not local or educated locally, but was a Councillor in nearby (?) St Albans. Perhaps her tenure was the most colourful in this seat’s history. One of the founders of and leader of Change UK, after their disappointment at the EU elections she sat as an independent, then as ‘The Independents’, and finally as a Lib Dem, before standing down. Who knows if she stood again as a Lib Dem she could have carried a personal vote and held on. She is now a by-fellow at Hughes Hall College.

Former journalist, later Johnson advisor (when he was Mayor) and banker’s association head, Anthony Browne clung on for the Conservatives at the last election. He was born, raised and educated locally, an alumnus of Trinity Hall college. Some of the more right-wing articles he wrote in his journalist days were unearthed and criticised during the election, for which he has apologised, but he would not have endeared Europhile constituents for his fervent backing of Cummings after that trip to Durham. He has decided to contest the new St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency, perhaps taking advantage of the potential for a split opposition and possible confusion that may result in the brand new constituency. That will also be a rematch between him and the narrowly-defeated Lib Dem, Ian Sollom who has decided to follow suit.

The Conservatives and Lib Dems have already chosen new candidates for this constituency. In any case, it is clear in all areas except Cherry Hinton, that the Lib Dems are in prime position to take the seat for the first time ever. Time will tell if these highly educated constituents will remember this at the ballot box next time around.

In 2024, as was widely expected, the LDs very easily picked this up, with a majority of over 10,000, while Labour went further backwards. Pippa Heylings was a councillor for Histon and Impington from 2018-September 2024, stepping down after her election to Westminster, causing a council by-election which they easily held. Remarkably, this can now be considered a ‘safe LD seat’. Ed Davey would have to make a Clegg-level mistake in order to lose this seat next time, you’d think. 

[Robert Waller]

Hooray!
Well done.

[batman]

Mostly good & detailed. Just two small quibbles. a ) I don't think class can be fervent - it just IS! b ) the recent by-election in Queen Edith's, following the scrapping of the traffic proposals you mentioned, was actually quite close between the Lib Dems & Labour, although the former did hold on

[matureleft]

Dec 24, 2023 1:13:39 GMT bsjmcr said:

Better late than never!

Cambridgeshire is one of the UK's fastest growing counties, due in no part to the expanding science, technology and research base of the university there. It is therefore unsurprising that significant boundary changes in this part of the world result in a new seat, St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, being created of much of the existing South Cambridgeshire, which is oversized and growing.

At first glance it would seem like this is another flat fertile fenland, an impregnable Tory stronghold made of leave-leaning farmers, as with the other Cambridgeshire seats, but this is quite an exceptional area, and it can no longer be considered a Tory stronghold despite its rural nature.

As rural as it is, this is very much ‘Greater Cambridge’ and home to many of the university’s staff and a handful of students (by virtue of inclusion of two Cambridge city wards) this may reflect the more recent voting patterns. This area would have voted by a clear majority to Remain, if not far off the 75% of the city, and a world away from the comfortable Leave leads in nearby Huntingdon, Fenland and Peterborough, while next-door East Cambs leaned leave too. As such, the Tory majority for South Cambs was trimmed from 16,000 right down to less than 3,000 votes, unprecedented for this constituency, equally so was the remarkable Lib Dem surge Jo Swinson could only dream of, jumping from 3rd place to pile up over 28,000 votes. To be fair the Lib Dems had always been runners-up since the seat’s 1997 creation, except in 2017, but their second place vote has never been consolidated to this level, and a split opposition has always given the illusion of it being an super-safe Tory stronghold, indeed, it was 2010, not 1997, which previously delivered this seat’s smallest majority, at less than 8,000. ’97 saw an incredibly equal split between Lib Dems and Labour. As for next time, 8,000 Labour votes still remain up for grabs by the Lib Dems and this will be one to watch to see if it will deliver a gold patch in a sea of blue, next to a bright red dot in Cambridge where the Lib Dems have run out of steam.

This is an area of high turnouts and high education. It is probably one of a minority of seats where the majority of residents are degree-educated, equally, the proportion of professionals and managers is also well above average. There is little deprivation in this area, and jobseekers are as hard to find as needles in any of the haystacks that can be found on the farms here. Indeed, the district has had lowest proportion of unemployment benefit claimants nationally at less than 1%. The Council also regularly ranks in the top 10 places to live in the country. Fervently a middle class area, as well as University staff and a few farmers, its 'dormitory villages' will host many of the new staff and researchers required at the booming research institutes of West Cambridge (which is no longer in this seat), as well as the important Addenbrooke’s hospital which is in this seat. There is also potential for a London commuting element, Cambridge being an hour’s train away and some of the villages even have their own train stations.

Other than the two Cambridge wards (more on them later), this area is made of picturesque villages dotted about the fens. There is attractive countryside here, such as at Wandlebury Country Park, which has one of the area's very few hills (the quaintly named Gog Magog Hills). You will also find the odd windmill, golden fields of oilseed rape in spring and nature reserves throughout. Grantchester is one such village, just south-west of Cambridge, the boundary with the City being the River Cam. Like most of the villages here, thatched roof cottages, quaint pubs, ancient chuches and village halls are the order of the day. A notable former resident of Grantchester is the war poet Rupert Brooke, whose former house, the old vicarage, is now home to a certain Lord and Lady Archer. Songs have been sung about the village and its idyllic meadows (by Pink Floyd), and it claims to have the highest per capita proportion of Nobel Prize winners in the world, being such a desirable settlement just a stone’s throw away from that citadel of learning. Nearby is Byron’s Pool, where the poet Lord Byron used to take a swim while he was a student.

Other villages include the Shelfords, there being a Little and a Great Shelford. The latter became famous for having links to the ancestors of former US President Obama. The Shelfords are also one of the most desirable commuter suburbs in the area, being well-connected by rail to both Cambridge and London. One of the larger villages is Sawston, population 7,000, it has its own stately home, and here the demographics are ever so slightly more mixed, having a touch lower proportion of graduates (though they still outweigh those without qualifications) and professionals. Gamlingay and Bassingbourn towards the south-western Hertfordshire border with Royston are also similar, though are smaller, with 3,000 people each. Bassingbourn is home to a MoD barracks, formerly an RAF airfield, which became controversial in 2014 due to incidents involving Libyan cadets. The barracks closed and reopened in 2018. 

Boundary changes have seen areas in the north-west of the old South Cambridgeshire constituency, where most of the recent new house-building activity has been concentrated, sliced off to form the basis of St Neot's and Mid Cambridgeshire. In their place, three wards from the to-be-abolished South East Cambridgeshire (though part of South Cambridgeshire district council already) join this one, keeping the name of this constituency geographically accurate to cover a sprawling, wide, but less tall, area of the southern half of the South Cambs district. The new wards joining include relatively large villages such as Fulbourn, Balsham and Linton, around 3-4,000 each, and the pretty little riverside village of Fen Ditton on the Cambridge border, on the opposite side of the Cam. Being larger villages, there are pockets of less fervently middle-class areas compared to, say, the Shelfords, two-thirds of whose population are graduates, whereas in these wards it is more around 40-50%, though this is still well above the national average of a third. Constituency boundaries are mostly artificial constructs, but these wards do reflect the character of the old SE Cambridgeshire which was always slightly less Cambridge-facing geographically, electorally (tactical voting was weaker, allowing the conservative to hold by over 10,000 last time), and intellectually so to speak. Some of these areas are equidistant to if not closer to Newmarket than Cambridge, and transport connections are relatively poor. It's just that little bit 'sleepier' than the areas immediately to the south and west of Cambridge, but that's how the locals would like it.

The other new ward joining South Cambs, and to be sloughed off Cambridge city constituency for the first time ever, is Cherry Hinton. It is perhaps surprising it hadn't been detached from the city previously, as it is separated from the urban Cambridge by a sliver of green space in Cherry Hinton Hall and Park. Some of its suburban sprawl eastwards has already crossed the city boundary too. Cherry Hinton Hall is a former stately home, hosting the annual Cambridge Folk Festival and in other times is a popular attractive green space and family friendly attraction. It very much has its own 'village' feel, given its location to the east of the city and relative distance from the university, and is more of a worthy Cambridge suburb, somewhat less influenced by students than other City wards. Graduate levels are around half here, and deprivation levels mixed in some parts, compared to Queen Edith’s, which is the other Cambridge ward that continues its exclusion from the city consistency. It has not been part of the Cambridge consistency since 1983. Queen Edith's includes Addenbrooke’s hospital and Homerton College. One of the lesser-known colleges, it sits next to the Education Department and as such was a teacher training college for most of its history, only relatively recently taking on all students, becoming the largest college by total number (that’s right, it isn’t Trinity, which only has the most undergrads). The ward is one of the if not the most affluent and middle-class ones in the city, and on the ground it is odd that it has always been sloughed off the city’s seat, for there is little buffer between it and the city, it always seemed a matter of making up numbers. Across the constituency as a whole, the student vote here (the old seat also included Girton, home to another university College) historically has been vastly outweighed by the affluent village Tory vote. Now that much of the latter are moving away from the Tories over Brexit, student registration here could make all the difference for the first time ever, truly a sign of the times.

On the City Council, Queen Edith's is safely Lib Dem (other than shock Labour victories in 2012 and 14 during the LD's nadir). On the other hand, Cherry Hinton has been held by Labour for some time, making it rather electorally incongruous to the rest of the South Cambs constituency as a whole. The last Conservative councillor lost Cherry Hinton in 2006 and Labour have since amassed huge majorities, remarkably resisting the LD surge that took over the rest of the city in the late 2000s, with the exception of the last election where the Conservative slashed Labour's majority to less than 100 votes, mostly attributed to opposition to a proposed congestion charge. The proposals have since been scrapped. Regardless, there will be little appetite for the Conservatives on a national level in Cambridge itself.

Meanwhile, in the surrounding South Cambs District, the past few elections have also seen the Tories decidedly rejected in most of the villages, even the incoming SE Cambs ones, with the Lib Dems being the beneficiary. Labour are simply nowhere to be seen in South Cambridgeshire district.

Andrew Lansley held the old South Cambridgeshire seat for the Tories in 1997 right up to 2015, during which he was Health Secretary. He didn’t appear to be local at first, didn't go to Cambridge, but seemed to do well here and is now Lord Lansley of Orwell - named after yet another one of the villages, not the author! Heidi Allen took over in 2015 with a vast majority due to the Lib Dem evaporation and over 50% of the vote, something Lansley did not manage during his time. She too was not local or educated locally, but was a Councillor in nearby (?) St Albans. Perhaps her tenure was the most colourful in this seat’s history. One of the founders of and leader of Change UK, after their disappointment at the EU elections she sat as an independent, then as ‘The Independents’, and finally as a Lib Dem, before standing down. Who knows if she stood again as a Lib Dem she could have carried a personal vote and held on. She is now a by-fellow at Hughes Hall College.

Former journalist, later Johnson advisor (when he was Mayor) and banker’s association head, Anthony Browne clung on for the Conservatives at the last election. He was born, raised and educated locally, an alumnus of Trinity Hall college. Some of the more right-wing articles he wrote in his journalist days were unearthed and criticised during the election, for which he has apologised, but he would not have endeared Europhile constituents for his fervent backing of Cummings after that trip to Durham. He has decided to contest the new St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency, perhaps taking advantage of the potential for a split opposition and possible confusion that may result in the brand new constituency. That will also be a rematch between him and the narrowly-defeated Lib Dem, Ian Sollom who has decided to follow suit.

The Conservatives and Lib Dems have already chosen new candidates for this constituency. In any case, it is clear in all areas except Cherry Hinton, that the Lib Dems are in prime position to take the seat for the first time ever. Time will tell if these highly educated constituents will remember this at the ballot box next time around.

I think Labour was second in 2015 as well as 2017. 

The most recent Cherry Hinton ward boundaries straddle Cherry Hinton Hall rather uncomfortably, taking in parts of the clearly urban area of the city - there used to be a much clearer boundary there akin to the one you describe. 

There’s always been an organisational chasm for Labour between the City and South Cambridgeshire even though there have been plenty of Labour voters beyond the city boundaries particularly in the villages closer to the city - Fulbourn and Teversham readily come to mind. Until fairly recently that vote remained significant at General Elections with Labour second or a very close third. 

Understandably the seat hasn’t been prioritised by Labour and, in the absence of an established local candidate and with poor organisational resilience one might expect some further squeeze (although the two-party emphasis of a General Election has to be countered). 

[Robert Waller]

2021 Census, new boundaries

Age 65+ 20.8% 216/575
Owner occupied 68.7% 214/575
Private rented 14.7% 449/575
Social rented 16.6% 225/575
White 86.4% 340/575
Black 1.2% 301/575
Asian 8.1% 197/575
Managerial & professional 46.7% 24/575
Routine & Semi-routine 15.6% 515/575
Degree level 49.1% 37/575
No qualifications 12.2% 532/575
Students 7.6% 163/575


General Election 2019: South Cambridgeshire

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Conservative Anthony Browne 31,015 46.3 −5.5
Liberal Democrats Ian Sollom 28,111 42.0 +23.4
Labour Dan Greef 7,803 11.7 −15.5
C Majority 2,904 4.3 −20.3

2019 electorate 87,288

Turnout 66,929 76.7 +0.5

Conservative hold

Swing 14.4 C to LD


Boundary Changes
South Cambridgeshire consists of
61.9% of South Cambridgeshire
17.5% of SE Cambridgeshire
7.6% of Cambridge


Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/eastern/Eastern_092_South%20Cambridgeshire_Landscape.pdf

Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)

Con	26153	43.5%
LD	24655	41.0%
Lab	9091	15.1%
Grn	96	0.2%
Brexit	83	0.1%
Majority	1498	2.5%

[bsjmcr]

Updated for 2024 - no surprises here!