Penistone and Stocksbridge
Jul 6, 2023 19:52:50 GMT
Robert Waller, J.G.Harston, and 4 more like this
Post by YL on Jul 6, 2023 19:52:50 GMT
This constituency covers the north-western part of the county of South Yorkshire, and was created in this form in 2010, with (for all practical purposes) no changes in this review. For local government purposes the areas in it are part of Sheffield or Barnsley, but many people in much of it will regard their communities as separate. It voted Conservative in 2019, but swung sharply back to Labour in 2024.
It isn't mentioned in the constituency name, but the largest parish in the constituency in terms of population is Ecclesfield, a suburban area on the northern edge of Sheffield which includes a number of communities with their own identity, such as Chapeltown, Ecclesfield village itself, the old village of Grenoside which is proud of its sword dancing tradition, and the more modern area of High Green which combines some modern commuter style detached housing with some deprived council estates. The ward of East Ecclesfield also includes a small part of the north Sheffield cottage estate belt.
To the west of Ecclesfield is the rather isolated feeling steel town of Stocksbridge, in a valley on the edge of the Pennines. Stocksbridge shares its ward with the smaller Don valley communities of Oughtibridge, one of those places you probably won't pronounce correctly unless you already know how [1], and Wharncliffe Side, and a large rural area which is mostly uninhabited moorland but includes small Pennine villages such as Midhopestones and Bolsterstone.
The Barnsley part of the constituency is based around the town of Penistone, which is surrounded by more attractive countryside in the Pennines and their eastern foothills including some fairly prosperous villages. The actual Penistone built up area is entirely within Penistone West ward, with Penistone East containing smaller communities, including Hoylandswaine, Thurgoland and Wortley, as well as the Wentworth Castle stately home, the result of an entertaining aristocratic feud with the owners of Wentworth Woodhouse. To the east, on the edge of the Barnsley urban area and near an M1 junction, is Dodworth (the W is silent), which is historically a mining area, but better off than many coalfield communities in South Yorkshire.
The constituency covers a similar area to the old Penistone constituency, abolished in 1983, which was usually a safe Labour seat. Between 1983 and 2010 the Sheffield part was almost all in Sheffield Hillsborough and the Barnsley part was in Barnsley West & Penistone, both of which were always won by Labour, although the Alliance came close in Hillsborough in 1983. However, it contains relatively little in the way of natural Labour strongholds, and so has always been seen as a likely marginal. There are pockets of deprivation, especially in Stocksbridge, parts of High Green, the southern edge of Dodworth, and around Ecclesfield village, but overall the constituency is less deprived than the English median. The constituency's population is older than average and not very ethnically diverse, and levels of higher education are slightly below average for the UK; many other demographic indicators are close to the average for England and Wales.
The last MP for Sheffield Hillsborough, Angela Smith, won the seat fairly narrowly for Labour in 2010, and increased her majority in 2015, before seeing it cut substantially to only 1,322 by the Tories in 2017. Smith left Labour in February 2019 to join Change UK-The Independent Group, before later joining the Lib Dems; however the Lib Dems had already selected a candidate, Penistone West councillor Hannah Kitching, and Smith ended up fighting Altrincham & Sale West in the 2019 election. At that election Miriam Cates, who had represented Oughtibridge on Bradfield Parish Council, won the seat for the Tories with a fairly comfortable majority. However in 2024 her vote fell sharply, almost falling behind Reform UK, and Labour's new candidate Marie Tidball obtained a comfortable majority of her own.
Local elections in the constituency can be unpredictable. The Sheffield wards were historically strong for the Liberal Democrats, but then went through a phase from 2014 of splitting their representation between Labour and UKIP; more recently West Ecclesfield has returned to its former Lib Dem allegiance, East Ecclesfield has become a Labour/Lib Dem marginal, and Stocksbridge & Upper Don elected Sheffield's only Conservative councillor in 2021 but has otherwise voted Labour. On the Barnsley side, in recent years an effective campaigning machine led by Hannah Kitching has seen Penistone West, formerly a Lab/Con marginal, and Dodworth, formerly often the domain of the Barnsley Independent Group, have turned into strongholds for the Lib Dems. Penistone East has usually voted Conservative, but Labour won it in 2023, meaning that the Conservatives won no wards in the constituency that year.
[1] It's /ˈuːtɪbrɪd͡ʒ/, or "Ootybridge".
2019 result:
Con 23688 (47.8%)
Lab 16478 (33.3%)
Lib Dem 5054 (10.2%)
Brexit Party 4300 (8.7%)
Con majority 7210 (14.6%)
2024 result:
Marie Tidball (Lab) 19169 (43.6%)
Miriam Cates (Con) 10430 (23.7%)
Edward Dillingham (Reform UK) 9456 (21.5%)
Rob Reiss (Lib Dem) 2866 (6.5%)
Andy Davies (Green) 2044 (4.6%)
It isn't mentioned in the constituency name, but the largest parish in the constituency in terms of population is Ecclesfield, a suburban area on the northern edge of Sheffield which includes a number of communities with their own identity, such as Chapeltown, Ecclesfield village itself, the old village of Grenoside which is proud of its sword dancing tradition, and the more modern area of High Green which combines some modern commuter style detached housing with some deprived council estates. The ward of East Ecclesfield also includes a small part of the north Sheffield cottage estate belt.
To the west of Ecclesfield is the rather isolated feeling steel town of Stocksbridge, in a valley on the edge of the Pennines. Stocksbridge shares its ward with the smaller Don valley communities of Oughtibridge, one of those places you probably won't pronounce correctly unless you already know how [1], and Wharncliffe Side, and a large rural area which is mostly uninhabited moorland but includes small Pennine villages such as Midhopestones and Bolsterstone.
The Barnsley part of the constituency is based around the town of Penistone, which is surrounded by more attractive countryside in the Pennines and their eastern foothills including some fairly prosperous villages. The actual Penistone built up area is entirely within Penistone West ward, with Penistone East containing smaller communities, including Hoylandswaine, Thurgoland and Wortley, as well as the Wentworth Castle stately home, the result of an entertaining aristocratic feud with the owners of Wentworth Woodhouse. To the east, on the edge of the Barnsley urban area and near an M1 junction, is Dodworth (the W is silent), which is historically a mining area, but better off than many coalfield communities in South Yorkshire.
The constituency covers a similar area to the old Penistone constituency, abolished in 1983, which was usually a safe Labour seat. Between 1983 and 2010 the Sheffield part was almost all in Sheffield Hillsborough and the Barnsley part was in Barnsley West & Penistone, both of which were always won by Labour, although the Alliance came close in Hillsborough in 1983. However, it contains relatively little in the way of natural Labour strongholds, and so has always been seen as a likely marginal. There are pockets of deprivation, especially in Stocksbridge, parts of High Green, the southern edge of Dodworth, and around Ecclesfield village, but overall the constituency is less deprived than the English median. The constituency's population is older than average and not very ethnically diverse, and levels of higher education are slightly below average for the UK; many other demographic indicators are close to the average for England and Wales.
The last MP for Sheffield Hillsborough, Angela Smith, won the seat fairly narrowly for Labour in 2010, and increased her majority in 2015, before seeing it cut substantially to only 1,322 by the Tories in 2017. Smith left Labour in February 2019 to join Change UK-The Independent Group, before later joining the Lib Dems; however the Lib Dems had already selected a candidate, Penistone West councillor Hannah Kitching, and Smith ended up fighting Altrincham & Sale West in the 2019 election. At that election Miriam Cates, who had represented Oughtibridge on Bradfield Parish Council, won the seat for the Tories with a fairly comfortable majority. However in 2024 her vote fell sharply, almost falling behind Reform UK, and Labour's new candidate Marie Tidball obtained a comfortable majority of her own.
Local elections in the constituency can be unpredictable. The Sheffield wards were historically strong for the Liberal Democrats, but then went through a phase from 2014 of splitting their representation between Labour and UKIP; more recently West Ecclesfield has returned to its former Lib Dem allegiance, East Ecclesfield has become a Labour/Lib Dem marginal, and Stocksbridge & Upper Don elected Sheffield's only Conservative councillor in 2021 but has otherwise voted Labour. On the Barnsley side, in recent years an effective campaigning machine led by Hannah Kitching has seen Penistone West, formerly a Lab/Con marginal, and Dodworth, formerly often the domain of the Barnsley Independent Group, have turned into strongholds for the Lib Dems. Penistone East has usually voted Conservative, but Labour won it in 2023, meaning that the Conservatives won no wards in the constituency that year.
[1] It's /ˈuːtɪbrɪd͡ʒ/, or "Ootybridge".
2019 result:
Con 23688 (47.8%)
Lab 16478 (33.3%)
Lib Dem 5054 (10.2%)
Brexit Party 4300 (8.7%)
Con majority 7210 (14.6%)
2024 result:
Marie Tidball (Lab) 19169 (43.6%)
Miriam Cates (Con) 10430 (23.7%)
Edward Dillingham (Reform UK) 9456 (21.5%)
Rob Reiss (Lib Dem) 2866 (6.5%)
Andy Davies (Green) 2044 (4.6%)
