Richmond Park

[batman]

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Pete Whitehead for his excellent summaries of the boundary changes, in a format that we can all easily access. I find the Boundary Commission's document hard to access in the way needed for these profiles and Pete's easy-to-read summaries are a great boon. Thanks Pete.

[iain]

This seat did not make it into the final recommendations. Richmond Park simply loses Coombe Vale.

[batman]

Sorry, Iain, I knew that really. I'm ashamed of myself for forgetting that. I will rewrite it forthwith.

[batman]

edited to take into account the 2024 general election result.



RICHMOND PARK

This has been a distinctly awkwardly-drawn constituency since it was formed in 1997, out of the whole of the former Richmond & Barnes seat, minus East Twickenham ward (whose inclusion in the constituency had been extremely controversial), but plus a series of Kingston-upon-Thames borough wards, reaching the fringes of Kingston town centre as well as north Kingston (which is largely represented by Tudor ward), and also what became the two Coombe wards, which from 2002 to 2024 were Coombe Hill (much of which is particularly superwealthy) and Coombe Vale (still very prosperous but a little more heterogeneous, including as it does some territory close to the town centre of New Malden). The latter ward has now departed the constituency to help form a significantly revised seat based on Wimbledon. Since the geographical centrepiece of the constituency is the largest park in Greater London, Richmond Park, it was felt, and presumably still is, to be a good, concise name for the constituency, although since all of the park is now in Richmond-upon-Thames it does mean that there is no reference to Kingston in the constituency title - which causes some including the local Conservatives to refer to it sometimes as "Richmond Park and North Kingston". The constituency under its new boundaries will now essentially consist of the communities of Richmond, Kew, Ham, Petersham, East Sheen, Mortlake, Barnes (plus a tiny sliver of the Putney community which has for some historical reason found itself in Richmond-upon-Thames borough), the largely uninhabited Richmond Park itself, north & north central Kingston, and a large slice of Coombe including its very wealthiest roads.


Richmond Park is one of the most affluent seats even in this mostly affluent corner of London, which applies particularly strongly to Coombe, with its multi-fronted mansions some of which are occupied by captains of industry and commerce, and rock stars, to give two examples. Such areas of relative deprivation that exist - found perhaps most in Mortlake and Ham - are limited. The constituency continues to include significant Swedish and German populations as well as members of many other ethnic and national minorities, though it remains very much a majority-White seat. There are some major tourist sites in the constituency, particularly Kew Gardens with its small royal palace, but also the Richmond riverside and (less often visited) what's left of Richmond Palace, birthplace of Elizabeth I. Many people will also watch part of the constituency on the television when the annual University Boat Race takes place - partially indicative that super-affluent Barnes, which the race passes in its middle section, is pretty close to central London. For many years the constituency was noted for a particular preponderance of actors, broadcasters and other well-known figures in the arts, and since the early 1970s opposition to the Conservatives has come principally from the Liberals and now Liberal Democrats. The Liberals came very close to winning the old Richmond and Barnes seat in 1983, but despite the addition of overwhelmingly Conservative Coombe and Tory-leaning, suburban Tudor when the seat became Richmond Park (and the loss of Lib Dem-inclined East Twickenham which had controversially been part of Richmond and Barnes), the Lib Dems won in the calamitous Tory year of 1997. The constituency seems to have demographically changed in recent times, as those in the arts have to some extent been superceded by wealthy workers in the financial and legal sectors, and the Tories having retaken the seat in 2010 (despite Nick Clegg's popularity at that time) marched to a 24,000 majority in 2015 - only to see it collapse again as the issue of Europe destroyed it, as even some of these wealthy workers have at least temporarily deserted the Conservatives over Europe, a desertion which has yet to be reversed to date. For the telegenic, green-tinged Tory MP, Zac Goldsmith, made the cardinal political error of strongly supporting Leave in a constituency where over 70% opted for Remain. It was almost entirely on this issue that he lost to the Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney in the 2019 general election, and her majority was not a small one; what this educated and unusual electorate makes of party politics in the post-Brexit world will determine how this seat behaves in future. The Conservatives, having been fairly dominant at least in Barnes and East Sheen for many years (though Barnes did have a Liberal/Liberal Democrat interlude or two), though not generally in Richmond, Kew, Mortlake, Ham and Petersham, had a series of disastrous local election results in 2022, losing outright, indeed heavily so, in East Sheen ward for the very first time since the borough was formed in the mid-1960s, and in the Richmond-upon-Thames wards are now competitive only in Barnes, though even this was won handily by the Lib Dems in 2022. They are not doing a whole lot better in the Kingston-upon-Thames wards, the major exception to this, perhaps not surprisingly, being Coombe Hill ward although the Tories do still have a solitary councillor in Tudor ward too. The Tories may stage an electoral comeback in this territory one day, but with a much more anonymous candidate in 2024 than they were able to field in 2019 they suffered a calamitous further drop in their vote share, which was pretty much halved. Despite a noticeable increase in the Labour share of the vote - partially tactical unwind, as quite a few Labour sympathizers including this writer knew that Olney would win very easily and no longer felt any need to cast a purely tactical vote, and perhaps partially because Labour fielded an unusually impressive candidate for these parts compared with some recent counterparts - and a deposit-saving Green Party entry into the contest (they had stood down in favour of Olney both in 2017 and 2019, perhaps an extension of their local electoral pact), Olney's share actually rose a little, as she appears to have converted some more centrist 2019 Tory voters to her cause. This now looks like a mightily safe Lib Dem seat, just like its neighbours of Twickenham and Kingston & Surbiton, but the Tories will remember how their apparently impregnable edifice collapsed after their huge win in 2015, and so will the Liberal Democrats, who are unlikely to take their eye that much off the ball in such a prosperous area.

[Wisconsin]

Can the thread be renamed?

[batman]

I tried to but couldn't. I will be writing plenty of profiles in the next few days & will endeavour to be a good deal more careful.

[Robert Waller]

Jul 5, 2023 21:21:13 GMT Wisconsin said:

Can the thread be renamed?

I shall ask AdminSTB if he can rename the thread as Richmond Park.

[AdminSTB]

Done

[nyx]

The new constituency of Richmond Park is formed out of the following 2010-24 constituency: 91.8% of Richmond Park.

[Robert Waller]

2021 Census New Boundaries (ranks England and Wales)

Age 65+ 15.6% 430/575
Owner occupied 59.7% 405/575
Private rented 27.7% 83/575
Social rented 12.6% 405/575
White 76.5 % 436/575
Black 2.0% 232/575
Asian 10.9% 144/575
Managerial & professional 55.7% 1/575
Routine & Semi-routine 9.0% 575/575
Degree level 64.1% 3/575
No qualifications 8.2% 574/575
Students 7.2% 180 /575


General Election 2024: Richmond Park

Party Candidate Votes %

Liberal Democrats Sarah Olney 28,528 55.4 +1.7
Conservative Sara Gezdari 11,373 22.1 -18.5
Labour Laura Coryton 5,048 9.8 + 4.5
Green Chas Warlow 3,416 6.5
Reform UK Michael Hearn 3,258 6.2
The Mitre TW9 Chris French 349 0.7
SDP Richard Harrison 233 0.5

LD Majority 17,155 32.8

Electorate 74,988
Turnout 52,205 76.7

LD hold
Swing 10.1 C to LD






General Election 2019: Richmond Park

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Liberal Democrats Sarah Olney 34,559 53.1 +8.0
Conservative Zac Goldsmith 26,793 41.2 -4.1
Labour Sandra Keen 3,407 5.2 -3.9
Independent Caroline Shah 247 0.4 N/A
Independent John Usher 61 0.1 N/A

LD Majority 7,766 11.9

Turnout 65,067 79.0 -0.1

Registered electors 82,699

Liberal Democrats gain from Conservative

Swing +6.0



Boundary Changes
Richmond Park consists of
91.8% of Richmond Park

Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/london/London_169_Richmond%20Park_Portrait.pdf


2019 Notional result - Rallings & Thrasher

LD	31695	53.7%
Con	23970	40.6%
Lab	3109	5.3%
Oths	308	0.5%
Majority	7725	13.1%