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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jul 8, 2023 9:50:59 GMT
Created in 1983 as the successor to Clitheroe, the seat of Ribble Valley cuts a great swathe through the vast and beautiful countryside at the heart of Lancashire…and, yes, the edges of traditional Yorkshire too. Here is a borough which at nearly 600km2 is comparatively large, albeit sparsely populated, with few significant population centres. The town after which the borough, and constituency, was once named, has a total population of 15,000, bolstered throughout the year by tourists who usually aim for either the High Street or the moors; rarely both on the same day, I’d imagine. Other population centres include Longridge, which looks towards Preston, and Whalley on the way to Blackburn.
Ribble Valley has never been a constituency formed without including neighbouring communities and wards; it has always been under whichever quotas or calculations used by Boundary Commissions when they’ve broken out their sharpened pencils. Prior to 1997 this meant the suburban and rural parishes of Preston; from 1997 this has always included the equivalent communities from South Ribble, including Bamber Bridge, Samlesbury, and Walton-le-Dale. Many of the incorporated areas are just points on a map, though there is industry in Bamber Bridge, and BAe at Samlesbury.
The current constituency is certainly unlike its ethnically mixed neighbours in eastern Lancashire: it is 96% White British, and 95% “Born in UK”; it has few public transport options, criss-crossed by narrow and winding country roads. Some village – Chipping springs to mind – resemble untouched country pads frozen in time, a rare minibus service bouncing around its stone-built houses on weekday daytime hours only. The Forest of Bowland is stark, remote, beautiful moorland, and reportedly contains the geographical centre of England (or Great Britain, or the British Isles, or the United Kingdom, or it doesn’t do any such thing, depending on what you ask, and who you ask.)
The abolition of Wyre and Preston North has meant significant changes to constituencies in central Lancashire, not least Ribble Valley. Its administrative centre of Clitheroe is removed, detaching the seat from its formation after 40-odd years into a new “Pendle and Clitheroe”. To make up the numbers, Ribble Valley curls its tentacles both to the north and south of Preston: into the built-up suburbia of Fulwood at the north, into the traditional terraced streets and industrial heft of Bamber Bridge. At a rough guess, it looks as though half of the territory is traditional Yorkshire, in the north-east in the "Craven" area.
This seat is rock solid Conservative territory. Only once, in the infamous by-election of 1991, did the Liberal Democrats break the run of blue-team victories. Its current MP, Nigel Evans, can now count eight consecutive election victories here, and while the Speakership may be out of reach, he’s held the post of Deputy Speaker since 2020.
Fulwood and Preston’s rural parishes are true-blue, the last holdouts for the Conservatives in the city. Both Greyfriars and Sharoe Green wards border wards where either Labour or Liberal Democrat perseverance has paid off, and even Sharoe Green now has 1 Labour councillor amongst its allocated three. As demographics shift and change, Fulwood has stopped being the rigidly Tory bastion it once was.
Bamber Bridge itself is a town in the Preston ‘sphere of influence’, straddling the mammoth M6/M65 interchange and ideally situated for business to call it home. It too is almost monolithically white British – 95% amongst its population of 40,000. The electoral wards covering Bamber Bridge – “Brig” in local dialect – have been highly competitive, switching from Labour and Conservative quite regularly. Sadly “The Idle Toad”, who used to have a County Councillor in these parts, has long since been wound up.
What prospects are in store for Ribble Valley at the next election? Ben Wallace, current Defence Secretary, may need a new seat if he doesn’t fancy his own’s natural successor of Lancaster & Wyre, so what price “Lord Evans of Bowland” to get him here? Speculation, of course. It’s certain that whoever wears the blue rosette will win here, though the green shoots of Labour electoral success in the outcrops might be worth monitoring, as the peace and quiet of rural Lancashire prepares itself for the noise of electoral battle.
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Post by Robert Waller on Jul 31, 2023 21:49:25 GMT
2021 Census New Boundaries (ranks England and Wales) Age 65+ 22.2% 157/575 Owner occupied 80.6% 5/575Private rented 13.5% 505/575 Social rented 5.8% 574/575White 91.0% 279/575 Black 0.6% 406/575 Asian 6.1% 239/575 Managerial & professional 39.3% 125/575 Routine & Semi-routine 18.6% 441/575 Degree level 37.4% 153 /575 No qualifications 14.3% 454/575 Students 5.4% 311/575 General Election 2019: Ribble ValleyParty Candidate Votes % ±% Conservative Nigel Evans 33,346 60.3 +2.5Labour Giles Bridge 14,907 27.0 –6.9 Liberal Democrats Chantelle Seddon 4,776 8.6 +2.7 Green Paul Yates 1,704 3.1 +0.7 Independent Tony Johnson 551 1.0 New C Majority 18,439 33.3 +9.4Turnout 55,284 69.8 –1.0 Conservative hold Swing +4.7 Lab to C Boundary changesThis seat is composed of 65.5% of the present Ribble Valley 30.9% of Wyre & Preston North 0.4% of Preston Mapboundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/north-west/North%20West_259_Ribble%20Valley_Landscape.pdf2019 Notional result on new boundaries (Rallings/Thrasher) | Con | 31261 | 59.8% | | Lab | 14442 | 27.6% | | LD | 4179 | 8.0% | | Grn | 1486 | 2.8% | | Oths | 886 | 1.7% | Brexit
| 6 | 0.0% | | Majority | 16839 | 32.2% |
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nyx
Non-Aligned
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Post by nyx on Aug 1, 2023 21:39:23 GMT
Created in 1983 as the successor to Clitheroe, the seat of Ribble Valley cuts a great swathe through the vast and beautiful countryside at the heart of Lancashire…and, yes, parts of Yorkshire too. Hard to tell from eyeballing it, but by area it might just about be the case that the majority of the constituency by area is in historic Yorkshire. Very close to 50%, certainly.  |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Aug 1, 2023 21:43:56 GMT
Created in 1983 as the successor to Clitheroe, the seat of Ribble Valley cuts a great swathe through the vast and beautiful countryside at the heart of Lancashire…and, yes, parts of Yorkshire too. Hard to tell from eyeballing it, but by area it might just about be the case that the majority of the constituency by area is in historic Yorkshire. Very close to 50%, certainly. Useful! I'll amend my text now  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2023 16:07:34 GMT
Hard to tell from eyeballing it, but by area it might just about be the case that the majority of the constituency by area is in historic Yorkshire. Very close to 50%, certainly. Useful! I'll amend my text now Maybe also to note that Wallace has since stated his intention to step down, rather than look for a new seat. It currently appears that Nigel Evans is staying on. |
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Foggy
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Yn Ennill Yma
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Post by Foggy on Jun 5, 2024 1:47:23 GMT
I can see this seat of Ribble Valley causing some confusion ... Clitheroe is the administrative centre of Ribble Valley Borough Council, but the town of Clitheroe is not in this Constituency, It consists of 4 Wards from the City of Preston, 7 Wards from South Ribble Borough Council and 17 Wards from Ribble Valley Borough Council. The Clitheroe Residents will join with most of the old Pendle Constituency, including Nelson, Colne, Barrowford and Earby to form " Pendle and Clitheroe ". The two Pendle Council Wards based in Reedley ( between Burnley and Nelson ) which were part of the old Pendle Constituency, will now be in the " Burnley " Constituency ... Confused ? So am I, and I live in the area .. Cross-posted from the GE thread because I felt it more appropriate here. I tried to make sure all seats were all located either to the north or the south of the River Ribble in my submissions to the BCE, but I get the sense that they'd only accept that as a dividing line if the remit had been to draw an electoral map for Lancashire from scratch. Since the previous arrangement already crossed the river, they see no further need to justify a continuation of that approach. |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jun 5, 2024 4:25:50 GMT
I can see this seat of Ribble Valley causing some confusion ... Clitheroe is the administrative centre of Ribble Valley Borough Council, but the town of Clitheroe is not in this Constituency, It consists of 4 Wards from the City of Preston, 7 Wards from South Ribble Borough Council and 17 Wards from Ribble Valley Borough Council. The Clitheroe Residents will join with most of the old Pendle Constituency, including Nelson, Colne, Barrowford and Earby to form " Pendle and Clitheroe ". The two Pendle Council Wards based in Reedley ( between Burnley and Nelson ) which were part of the old Pendle Constituency, will now be in the " Burnley " Constituency ... Confused ? So am I, and I live in the area .. Cross-posted from the GE thread because I felt it more appropriate here. I tried to make sure all seats were all located either to the north or the south of the River Ribble in my submissions to the BCE, but I get the sense that they'd only accept that as a dividing line if the remit had been to draw an electoral map for Lancashire from scratch. Since the previous arrangement already crossed the river, they see no further need to justify a continuation of that approach. A friend lives in Longridge and he's posted on Facebook recently that the talk of the town is the boundary changes (usual accusations of gerrymandering etc) The issue here, and South Ribble, is the lack of any real alternative option. Under the current rules, too many knock on consequences really boxed in the Commission. If another review is quick to follow the election (with votes at 16 it might do) Lancashire could benefit from a more generous quota. |
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
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Post by john07 on Jun 5, 2024 15:44:08 GMT
The constituency does look a bit of a mess. The former Ribble Valley seat with Clitheroe ripped out and replaced by bits to the north and south of Preston. I suppose this may be inevitable given the need to balance numbers but it doesn't make a coherent constituency.
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Post by Dave Morgan on Jun 21, 2024 14:15:44 GMT
The constituency does look a bit of a mess. The former Ribble Valley seat with Clitheroe ripped out and replaced by bits to the north and south of Preston. I suppose this may be inevitable given the need to balance numbers but it doesn't make a coherent constituency. It’s also a daft name now for the seat. Barely a third of it is “Ribble Valley” now, and it’s more Outer Preston (though I can imagine the residents of some of the villages in the Ribble Valley bits if you did!) |
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Post by andrewp on Jun 21, 2024 17:52:51 GMT
The constituency does look a bit of a mess. The former Ribble Valley seat with Clitheroe ripped out and replaced by bits to the north and south of Preston. I suppose this may be inevitable given the need to balance numbers but it doesn't make a coherent constituency. It’s also a daft name now for the seat. Barely a third of it is “Ribble Valley” now, and it’s more Outer Preston (though I can imagine the residents of some of the villages in the Ribble Valley bits if you did!) In the possible event of Ribble Valley being a Lab gain, I can just imagine a journalist- Emily Maitlis or Lewis Goodall spring to mind - shrieking about Labour gaining somewhere like Ribble Valley-if Lab do gain it, it’s quite likely that they do so with the Tories still being ahead in the ‘ Ribble Valley bit. It would be more accurate now if it was called Mid Lancashire or something |
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Post by batman on Jun 21, 2024 21:31:09 GMT
Well it would still be something, maybe not to shriek about, but to find fairly remarkable. The seat is far from being natural Labour territory.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 22, 2024 1:35:41 GMT
Is it not the case that all of this seat - certainly the parts of South Ribble borough, if arguably not the parts of Preston borough, are in the valley of the river Ribble, even if not part of Ribble Valley district (and the constituency so named has always contained a substantial element from one or other of those boroughs)
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Post by batman on Sept 23, 2024 17:10:19 GMT
Not many saw this coming. I think it was the only seat I predicted incorrectly in Lancashire other than Blackburn.
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