Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 9, 2023 7:24:41 GMT
Hemel Hempstead first gave its name to a seat in 1918 when it was largely carved out of the former Watford division. It then covered the entirety of what is now Dacorum borough together with Abbots Langley and the area around Harpenden. This arrangement endured with little change until 1974 and it formed a safe Conservative seat for most of this period although Labour came close in 1966 and the Liberals won back in 1923, this being the only Liberal victory in Hertfordshire in the last hundred years until the Lib Dems gained St Albans in December.
As is clear from the fact it gave its name to a seat in 1918, Hemel Hempstead was already a sizeable and significant town before it was designated as a New Town in 1947 but the subsequent development transformed the character of the town, leading to a rapid increase in Labour voters and successive contractions of the constituency boundaries. These two factors combined (with Harpenden being removed that year) to enable Labour to gain the seat in October 1974. The Conservatives regained the seat in 1979 but the boundary changes ahead of the 1983 election were reckoned to put the seat (needlessly renamed ‘West Hertfordshire’) back in the Labour column.
These removed the towns of Berkhamsted and the villages of Kings Langley, Bovingdon and Chipperfield to SW Herts.
But in 1983 Labour suffered a disaster nationally and locally and with a controversial candidate in the form of Paul Boateng (then a prominent member of the GLC) dropped to a dismal third place behind the SDP (in fact the result was not much worse for them than in other Hertfordshire ‘New Town’ constituencies).
Labour achieved a modest recovery in 1992, regaining second place but still finished nearly 14,000 votes behind the Conservatives and it appeared that the area was lost to Labour forever. Then the boundary changes further reduced the non-Hemel area of the seat, with the area around Tring following Berkhamsted into SW Herts, though the large village of Kings Langley returned from that seat. There remained only two other rural wards to the North of Hemel and Hemel Hempstead itself now accounted for well over 80% of the seat which was again to bear its name.
As in 1974, a favourable boundary change combined with an auspicious national situation to enable Labour to gain the seat quite comfortably in 1997 and to hold with a slightly increased majority in 2001.
The Conservative Mike Penning gained the seat in 2005 with a slim majority of 499. There were only minor boundary changes ahead of the 2010 election, consequent upon ward boundary changes but as this involved the removal of the wealthiest area in Hemel itself (the suburb of Felden and the village of Bourne End, south of the old A41) this was not without electoral impact in a highly marginal seat. In the 2010 election though this description emphatically ceased to apply. Labour made a poor candidate choice and together with the large sub-regional swing to the Conservatives the majority shot up to over 13,000 and Labour fell to third place behind the Lib Dems with barely 20% of the vote (echoes of 1983 but actually a far worse result). The Conservatives have maintained that lead ever since with the exception of 2017 when Labour advanced quite strongly and cut the majority to below 10,000 before falling back badly again in 2019.
It seems like the road back for Labour here is a hard one but after the experience of the wild swings of the 1980s and 1990s one may not rule anything out here.
Hemel Hempstead remains a town of great social variety.
The core of the original town is contained within the Hemel Town, Boxmoor and Apsley & Corner Hall wards. Hemel Town includes both the picturesque old town centre and the rather less picturesque new town centre and a variety of housing types including some quite affluent areas, some old terraced streets and a fair bit of council housing. There is also a good deal of new development here in the form of town centre flats which tend to be private or shared ownership.
Boxmoor contains the classic middle-class residential areas to the West of the town centre, though there are pockets of council housing here too. This was always one of the safest Conservative wards in the town but was gained by the Lib Dems from nowhere in 2019 (they had finished behind Labour and UKIP four years earlier). With hindsight this is slightly predictable as this area is likely to have had an untypically high Remain vote.
South of the town centre, the ward of Apsley & Corner Hall also contains a mixture of housing. The Eastern (‘Corner Hall’) section is largely inter-war semis but includes some council housing of that vintage. Apsley was an old mill area which elected a Communist councillor in 1945 but had latterly become one of the better Conservative residential areas in the town and with the old industrial area converted to luxury flats around Apsley Marina. However, the Lib Dems gained this ward in May 2023 (along with Hemel Town) on their way to taking control of Dacorum council.
Other pre-New Town areas include Nash Mills (technically a separate parish but fully part of the town in reality) – another former mill area which has moved steadily to the Conservatives over recent decades, and the attractive village of Leverstock Green, though the ward of that name includes a fair amount of New Town development. Leverstock Green was yet another Lib Dem gain in 2023 – another gain from ‘nowhere’
The oldest of the New Town neighbourhoods lie directly East of the town centre, in Adeyfield and Highfield. The wards of Adeyfield West and Highfield still have approaching half their housing in council ownership and are amongst the most deprived areas in Hemel. They have also, strangely, become local strongholds for the Liberal Democrats, though this support must not carry over to general elections where they would still be amongst Labour’s better areas. In 2015 UKIP came quite close, in tight four-way contests, in both these wards. They were a little unlucky here that Dacorum council has all out elections every four years as they would most likely have won some seats in 2014.
Adeyfield East is not much more upmarket than Adeyfield West though it has a lower proportion of council housing. It is a far from salubrious area and includes a vast area of industrial estates, including the now (in)famous Buncefield site, but it has been usually Conservative for a number of years now although Labour gained one of the seats here in May 2023.
Other traditional Labour strongholds include Bennetts End in the South (a quite grim estate and still one of Labour’s more competitive wards, possibly owing to a larger than usual non-white population, mostly Pakistani), Chaulden and Gadebridge to the West and Grovehill (the newest of the New Town neighbourhoods) to the North. Labour has lately collapsed in these last-named wards however which is particularly striking in Grovehill which is very far from an attractive residential area
Woodhall Farm in the far North East, miles from the town centre, is a newer estate of mostly private housing, not especially upmarket but consistently safe for the Conservatives.
It is an extraordinary commentary on Labour’s parlous state in Hemel that after several years of clinging on in only a couple of seats, they were wiped off Dacorum council entirely in May 2019. They returned to the council in 2023 but still won only three seats (in Bennetts End, Adeyfield East and Gadebridge) and failed to win outright in any ward.
Of course, the areas of this constituency outside of Hemel have boosted the Conservatives even further. Kings Langley has been marginal in the past, voting Labour in 1995, but is reliably Conservative now while the two rural wards to the North of Hemel include some very attractive and wealthy villages such as Great and Little Gaddesden and Potten End and the commuterised villages of Flamstead and Markyate on the A5. This territory has always been monolithically Conservative and was unaffected by the Lib Dem surge which occurred elsewhere.
Now all these areas are removed, with Ashridge and Watling to the North of Hemel going to the new Harpenden & Berkhamsted seat (providing a rather weak bridge between the two halves) and Kings Langley going into South West Herts. To bring Hemel Hempstead back into quota, Bovingdon, Flaunden & Chippefield moves the other way from SW Herts. Besides the named communities in that ward a significant chunk includes part of Hemel proper in the form of the extremely affluent Felden and Box Lane areas and the village of Bourne End.
Bovingdon, Flaunden & Chippefield is every bit as strongly Conservative as the departing wards but it contains around 4,000 fewer voters in total and Hemel Hempstead itself will now provide over 90% of the voters in the seat bearing its name.
To the extent that Hemel Hempstead might become a marginal seat again this clearly is to Labour's benefit and might make all the difference in a close result. It seems likely for example that Labour would have held Hemel Hempstead on these boundaries in 2005.
As I say, a volatile electorate that has swung violently in either direction before now, it would be foolish to rule anything in or out in the long-term.
As is clear from the fact it gave its name to a seat in 1918, Hemel Hempstead was already a sizeable and significant town before it was designated as a New Town in 1947 but the subsequent development transformed the character of the town, leading to a rapid increase in Labour voters and successive contractions of the constituency boundaries. These two factors combined (with Harpenden being removed that year) to enable Labour to gain the seat in October 1974. The Conservatives regained the seat in 1979 but the boundary changes ahead of the 1983 election were reckoned to put the seat (needlessly renamed ‘West Hertfordshire’) back in the Labour column.
These removed the towns of Berkhamsted and the villages of Kings Langley, Bovingdon and Chipperfield to SW Herts.
But in 1983 Labour suffered a disaster nationally and locally and with a controversial candidate in the form of Paul Boateng (then a prominent member of the GLC) dropped to a dismal third place behind the SDP (in fact the result was not much worse for them than in other Hertfordshire ‘New Town’ constituencies).
Labour achieved a modest recovery in 1992, regaining second place but still finished nearly 14,000 votes behind the Conservatives and it appeared that the area was lost to Labour forever. Then the boundary changes further reduced the non-Hemel area of the seat, with the area around Tring following Berkhamsted into SW Herts, though the large village of Kings Langley returned from that seat. There remained only two other rural wards to the North of Hemel and Hemel Hempstead itself now accounted for well over 80% of the seat which was again to bear its name.
As in 1974, a favourable boundary change combined with an auspicious national situation to enable Labour to gain the seat quite comfortably in 1997 and to hold with a slightly increased majority in 2001.
The Conservative Mike Penning gained the seat in 2005 with a slim majority of 499. There were only minor boundary changes ahead of the 2010 election, consequent upon ward boundary changes but as this involved the removal of the wealthiest area in Hemel itself (the suburb of Felden and the village of Bourne End, south of the old A41) this was not without electoral impact in a highly marginal seat. In the 2010 election though this description emphatically ceased to apply. Labour made a poor candidate choice and together with the large sub-regional swing to the Conservatives the majority shot up to over 13,000 and Labour fell to third place behind the Lib Dems with barely 20% of the vote (echoes of 1983 but actually a far worse result). The Conservatives have maintained that lead ever since with the exception of 2017 when Labour advanced quite strongly and cut the majority to below 10,000 before falling back badly again in 2019.
It seems like the road back for Labour here is a hard one but after the experience of the wild swings of the 1980s and 1990s one may not rule anything out here.
Hemel Hempstead remains a town of great social variety.
The core of the original town is contained within the Hemel Town, Boxmoor and Apsley & Corner Hall wards. Hemel Town includes both the picturesque old town centre and the rather less picturesque new town centre and a variety of housing types including some quite affluent areas, some old terraced streets and a fair bit of council housing. There is also a good deal of new development here in the form of town centre flats which tend to be private or shared ownership.
Boxmoor contains the classic middle-class residential areas to the West of the town centre, though there are pockets of council housing here too. This was always one of the safest Conservative wards in the town but was gained by the Lib Dems from nowhere in 2019 (they had finished behind Labour and UKIP four years earlier). With hindsight this is slightly predictable as this area is likely to have had an untypically high Remain vote.
South of the town centre, the ward of Apsley & Corner Hall also contains a mixture of housing. The Eastern (‘Corner Hall’) section is largely inter-war semis but includes some council housing of that vintage. Apsley was an old mill area which elected a Communist councillor in 1945 but had latterly become one of the better Conservative residential areas in the town and with the old industrial area converted to luxury flats around Apsley Marina. However, the Lib Dems gained this ward in May 2023 (along with Hemel Town) on their way to taking control of Dacorum council.
Other pre-New Town areas include Nash Mills (technically a separate parish but fully part of the town in reality) – another former mill area which has moved steadily to the Conservatives over recent decades, and the attractive village of Leverstock Green, though the ward of that name includes a fair amount of New Town development. Leverstock Green was yet another Lib Dem gain in 2023 – another gain from ‘nowhere’
The oldest of the New Town neighbourhoods lie directly East of the town centre, in Adeyfield and Highfield. The wards of Adeyfield West and Highfield still have approaching half their housing in council ownership and are amongst the most deprived areas in Hemel. They have also, strangely, become local strongholds for the Liberal Democrats, though this support must not carry over to general elections where they would still be amongst Labour’s better areas. In 2015 UKIP came quite close, in tight four-way contests, in both these wards. They were a little unlucky here that Dacorum council has all out elections every four years as they would most likely have won some seats in 2014.
Adeyfield East is not much more upmarket than Adeyfield West though it has a lower proportion of council housing. It is a far from salubrious area and includes a vast area of industrial estates, including the now (in)famous Buncefield site, but it has been usually Conservative for a number of years now although Labour gained one of the seats here in May 2023.
Other traditional Labour strongholds include Bennetts End in the South (a quite grim estate and still one of Labour’s more competitive wards, possibly owing to a larger than usual non-white population, mostly Pakistani), Chaulden and Gadebridge to the West and Grovehill (the newest of the New Town neighbourhoods) to the North. Labour has lately collapsed in these last-named wards however which is particularly striking in Grovehill which is very far from an attractive residential area
Woodhall Farm in the far North East, miles from the town centre, is a newer estate of mostly private housing, not especially upmarket but consistently safe for the Conservatives.
It is an extraordinary commentary on Labour’s parlous state in Hemel that after several years of clinging on in only a couple of seats, they were wiped off Dacorum council entirely in May 2019. They returned to the council in 2023 but still won only three seats (in Bennetts End, Adeyfield East and Gadebridge) and failed to win outright in any ward.
Of course, the areas of this constituency outside of Hemel have boosted the Conservatives even further. Kings Langley has been marginal in the past, voting Labour in 1995, but is reliably Conservative now while the two rural wards to the North of Hemel include some very attractive and wealthy villages such as Great and Little Gaddesden and Potten End and the commuterised villages of Flamstead and Markyate on the A5. This territory has always been monolithically Conservative and was unaffected by the Lib Dem surge which occurred elsewhere.
Now all these areas are removed, with Ashridge and Watling to the North of Hemel going to the new Harpenden & Berkhamsted seat (providing a rather weak bridge between the two halves) and Kings Langley going into South West Herts. To bring Hemel Hempstead back into quota, Bovingdon, Flaunden & Chippefield moves the other way from SW Herts. Besides the named communities in that ward a significant chunk includes part of Hemel proper in the form of the extremely affluent Felden and Box Lane areas and the village of Bourne End.
Bovingdon, Flaunden & Chippefield is every bit as strongly Conservative as the departing wards but it contains around 4,000 fewer voters in total and Hemel Hempstead itself will now provide over 90% of the voters in the seat bearing its name.
To the extent that Hemel Hempstead might become a marginal seat again this clearly is to Labour's benefit and might make all the difference in a close result. It seems likely for example that Labour would have held Hemel Hempstead on these boundaries in 2005.
As I say, a volatile electorate that has swung violently in either direction before now, it would be foolish to rule anything in or out in the long-term.
