Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 12, 2023 6:17:40 GMT
This constituency first appeared in 1974 (though the area formed the greater part of the Herford division from 1955) and initially exhibited all the characteristics of a bellwether. The first contest in February resulted in a narrow Conservative victory and was followed by a narrow Labour victory in October. The Conservatives regained the seat in 1979 and enjoyed comfortable victories in the 1980s and in 1992 but it fell easily to Labour as part of the 1997 landslide.
In the 21st century though the constituency has diverged from this path. First in 2001 there was a significant swing back to the Conservatives which was highly atypical for seats in Hertfordshire which Labour had gained. Then in 2005 another large swing resulted in a very comfortable Tory gain even as Labour won another majority nationally. When the Conservatives won power in 2010, Hertfordshire as a whole saw some of the largest swings in their favour and Welwyn Hatfield was no exception as Grant Shapps, enjoying an incumbency boost, saw his share of the vote soar to 57% and his majority to over 17,000. This was not sustainable in a seat of this demographic type and in subsequent elections the vote share and majority have fallen to more modest, though still comfortable, levels.
The largest town here, comprising not far off half the electorate, is Welwyn Garden City – founded as a Garden City in 1920 and then additionally developed as a New Town after the Second World War. The original Garden City is mostly contained within the Handside and Peartree wards with Handside including the town centre and predominantly middle-class areas to the West of the town and Peartree containing the industrial areas and working-class housing. Peartree still had over 50% social housing in 2011 and is one of the more deprived wards in Hertfordshire, though the housing stock is relatively attractive and well-built.
Post-war New Town housing dominates the wards of Haldens, Hollybush and Howlands. Sherrards ward is a bit of a mixture – part Garden City, part post-war, part Middle class owner-occupied, part social housing. Panshangar is the newest ward, making an appearance in the 1990s and consisting largely of 1980s built private housing estates.
The political divisions here usually followed a predictable enough pattern. Handside was a safe Conservative ward, though the Lib Dems started to enjoy local election strength there from the 1980s onward – Peartree and the New Town wards were heavily Labour. Sherrards tended to be a Conservative leaning marginal and Panshangar started out that way as well.
From about 2004, Labour became severely weakened in Welwyn Garden city, dropping out of contention in Panshangar and Sherrards altogether while seeing their traditional strongholds become marginal – the Conservatives were able to win in all of Haldens, Hollybush and Howlands at various times in this period, while Peartree became a three-way marginal, with the Lib Dems getting in on the act. The Conservatives even won Peartree in 2010, on the same day as their local general election landslide (indeed they won every ward in the town then with the exception, ironically, of Handside). Labour have only made a partial recovery in these areas subsequently and can count on no wards as truly safe here anymore.
In the last few years, the Lib Dems have made quite phenomenal advances in local elections here, making Handside safe and coming from nowhere to win what had become the safely Tory wards of Panshangar and Sherrards. It remains to be seen if this starts to translate to general election support – the usual pattern would suggest not and there was little sign of it in 2019. But there is just a hint that a bit of a shift may be occurring, with a certain type of London commuter starting to move in in significant numbers – the type who might otherwise have settled in St Albans but can’t quite afford that.
The overall trend over the last couple of decades though is that Welwyn Garden City has trended quite strongly to the Conservatives relative to Labour.
The second town here, Hatfield, is also mostly a creation of the 20th Century. Originally a small town based around Hatfield House – childhood home of Elizabeth I and the family seat of the Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield started to develop in the 1930s with the arrival of the de Havilland Aircraft factory. The diffuse areas of inter-war residential development were brought together in 1946 when Hatfield was designated as yet another of Hertfordshire’s New Towns. The aerospace industry was the major employer in the town before it was closed in the 1990s – now the University of Hertfordshire is the largest employer and the expansion of that institution and its concentration within Hatfield has given rise to another growth spurt in the 21st Century. It has also contributed to some dramatic demographic changes which show some signs of reversing the long-term trend to the Conservatives that had also occurred here.
There have been several ward boundary changes over the years and the current wards are of fairly recent provenance, but they clearly illustrate the fairly longstanding patterns of party support within the town.
Hatfield East is a socially divided ward. East of the railway it includes the attractive old town around Hatfield House and some relatively upmarket residential areas. West of the railway line consists of predominantly post-war council estates. The Eastern section almost always wins out and this is a usually but far from overwhelmingly Conservative ward and Labour have won it at the last two sets of local elections, which have been a disaster for the Conservatives locally and nationally.
Hatfield Central includes the rather uninspiring town centre and residential areas that consist almost entirely of 1950s and 1960s council estates, including a number of tower blocks. This is a safe Labour ward, though by no means monolithically so and the Conservatives won here in 2021 when they elected councillors in every ward in the borough except for Peartree.
Hatfield South West also comprises mostly council built housing but also includes the main campus of the University of Hertfordshire. There is a large student population both on and off-campus and this has become very ethnically diverse, mainly though not entirely due to the University influence – Hatfield is an area that has been used to rehouse families by London councils more cheaply than they are able to locally.
This had been a safe Labour ward since its creation and the predecessor Hatfield South ward was usually reliable also but the Lib Dems have made gains here in the last couple of years.
Finally, Hatfield Villages includes a strange mixture of genuine villages such as Lemsford, some inter-war owner-occupied housing such as at Ellenbrook and the bulk of the 21st Century development which has occurred to the West of the A1. This includes a second University campus and as in South West there is a large number of students living both on and off campus. This ward now has one of the highest Black population of any ward in Hertfordshire and there is one of the largest Chinese populations in the country. Many of these, being international students, will not vote but the change in character to the town is significant – Hatfield was overwhelmingly a white town 20 years ago and is now the most ethnically diverse in the county after Watford.
Labour did achieve a fluke win in Hatfield Villages in a by-election on general election day in 2017, no doubt thanks to untypically high student turnout. Usually it, like East, produces a clear but not large Conservative lead but also like East Labour have won it at the last two local elections.
Overall Hatfield is very close politically and may well have delivered a Labour plurality in 2017, where Welwyn Garden City did not. This represents a change compared with 20 years ago or so when Welwyn Garden City was slightly the more Labour inclined town.
The Conservatives really pile up their lead in the smaller communities here which cast between a fifth and a quarter of the votes. The Welwyn wards, north of Welwyn Garden City are utterly solid for the Conservatives. The West ward is dominated by the small town of (old) Welwyn itself while East consists of commuterised villages like Digswell and Woolmer Green. This is all very affluent and attractive. Even more overwhelmingly Conservative is the very wealthy Brookmans Park in the far South – like the neighbouring Northaw ward a genuinely wealthy area and one of the consistently safest Conservative wards in the country, regularly delivering a Conservative vote share in excess of 70%.
Welham Green is now linked with part of South Hatfield in a Welham Green & Hatfield South ward that has been dominated by the Lib Dems in recent local elections. In general elections the more familiar pattern would assert itself. Welham Green is no Brookmans Park, but it will be fairly reliably Conservative while the section of South Hatfield included would vote along similar lines to Hatfield SW.
Though in a minority, these smaller areas play a major part in determining the fate of this constituency, because the Conservatives have the advantage of enjoying areas of overwhelming strength while having no areas of overwhelming weakness. Labour on the other hand have no areas of overwhelming support and do have areas of massive weakness. This means that Labour need to be polling well ahead in the main urban centres to compete here and they do not seem capable of doing that now despite some signs of a demographic shift in their favour. It would probably take another landslide of 1997 proportions for this seat to come into serious play again soon. As the polls currently stand this seems quite likely.
There is one very small boundary change here occasioned by ward boundary changes as Newgate Street (c, 400 voters) now forms part of the Northaw & Cuffley ward and is therefore moved to Hertsmere. This was subject to a slightly eccentric objection by Grant Shapps but given the numbers involved is unlikely to affect the result, except in a scenario whereby Labour gains the seat with a very small majority. Perhaps though this isn’t an entirely implausible outcome given the history of the seat. Indeed, in the local elections of 2023 Labour held a lead of 62 votes over the Conservatives in the wards making up this seat. In the Newgate Street parish ward of Hatfield town council, the Conservatives won 94 votes against 8 for Labour and 15 Lib Dems
In the 21st century though the constituency has diverged from this path. First in 2001 there was a significant swing back to the Conservatives which was highly atypical for seats in Hertfordshire which Labour had gained. Then in 2005 another large swing resulted in a very comfortable Tory gain even as Labour won another majority nationally. When the Conservatives won power in 2010, Hertfordshire as a whole saw some of the largest swings in their favour and Welwyn Hatfield was no exception as Grant Shapps, enjoying an incumbency boost, saw his share of the vote soar to 57% and his majority to over 17,000. This was not sustainable in a seat of this demographic type and in subsequent elections the vote share and majority have fallen to more modest, though still comfortable, levels.
The largest town here, comprising not far off half the electorate, is Welwyn Garden City – founded as a Garden City in 1920 and then additionally developed as a New Town after the Second World War. The original Garden City is mostly contained within the Handside and Peartree wards with Handside including the town centre and predominantly middle-class areas to the West of the town and Peartree containing the industrial areas and working-class housing. Peartree still had over 50% social housing in 2011 and is one of the more deprived wards in Hertfordshire, though the housing stock is relatively attractive and well-built.
Post-war New Town housing dominates the wards of Haldens, Hollybush and Howlands. Sherrards ward is a bit of a mixture – part Garden City, part post-war, part Middle class owner-occupied, part social housing. Panshangar is the newest ward, making an appearance in the 1990s and consisting largely of 1980s built private housing estates.
The political divisions here usually followed a predictable enough pattern. Handside was a safe Conservative ward, though the Lib Dems started to enjoy local election strength there from the 1980s onward – Peartree and the New Town wards were heavily Labour. Sherrards tended to be a Conservative leaning marginal and Panshangar started out that way as well.
From about 2004, Labour became severely weakened in Welwyn Garden city, dropping out of contention in Panshangar and Sherrards altogether while seeing their traditional strongholds become marginal – the Conservatives were able to win in all of Haldens, Hollybush and Howlands at various times in this period, while Peartree became a three-way marginal, with the Lib Dems getting in on the act. The Conservatives even won Peartree in 2010, on the same day as their local general election landslide (indeed they won every ward in the town then with the exception, ironically, of Handside). Labour have only made a partial recovery in these areas subsequently and can count on no wards as truly safe here anymore.
In the last few years, the Lib Dems have made quite phenomenal advances in local elections here, making Handside safe and coming from nowhere to win what had become the safely Tory wards of Panshangar and Sherrards. It remains to be seen if this starts to translate to general election support – the usual pattern would suggest not and there was little sign of it in 2019. But there is just a hint that a bit of a shift may be occurring, with a certain type of London commuter starting to move in in significant numbers – the type who might otherwise have settled in St Albans but can’t quite afford that.
The overall trend over the last couple of decades though is that Welwyn Garden City has trended quite strongly to the Conservatives relative to Labour.
The second town here, Hatfield, is also mostly a creation of the 20th Century. Originally a small town based around Hatfield House – childhood home of Elizabeth I and the family seat of the Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield started to develop in the 1930s with the arrival of the de Havilland Aircraft factory. The diffuse areas of inter-war residential development were brought together in 1946 when Hatfield was designated as yet another of Hertfordshire’s New Towns. The aerospace industry was the major employer in the town before it was closed in the 1990s – now the University of Hertfordshire is the largest employer and the expansion of that institution and its concentration within Hatfield has given rise to another growth spurt in the 21st Century. It has also contributed to some dramatic demographic changes which show some signs of reversing the long-term trend to the Conservatives that had also occurred here.
There have been several ward boundary changes over the years and the current wards are of fairly recent provenance, but they clearly illustrate the fairly longstanding patterns of party support within the town.
Hatfield East is a socially divided ward. East of the railway it includes the attractive old town around Hatfield House and some relatively upmarket residential areas. West of the railway line consists of predominantly post-war council estates. The Eastern section almost always wins out and this is a usually but far from overwhelmingly Conservative ward and Labour have won it at the last two sets of local elections, which have been a disaster for the Conservatives locally and nationally.
Hatfield Central includes the rather uninspiring town centre and residential areas that consist almost entirely of 1950s and 1960s council estates, including a number of tower blocks. This is a safe Labour ward, though by no means monolithically so and the Conservatives won here in 2021 when they elected councillors in every ward in the borough except for Peartree.
Hatfield South West also comprises mostly council built housing but also includes the main campus of the University of Hertfordshire. There is a large student population both on and off-campus and this has become very ethnically diverse, mainly though not entirely due to the University influence – Hatfield is an area that has been used to rehouse families by London councils more cheaply than they are able to locally.
This had been a safe Labour ward since its creation and the predecessor Hatfield South ward was usually reliable also but the Lib Dems have made gains here in the last couple of years.
Finally, Hatfield Villages includes a strange mixture of genuine villages such as Lemsford, some inter-war owner-occupied housing such as at Ellenbrook and the bulk of the 21st Century development which has occurred to the West of the A1. This includes a second University campus and as in South West there is a large number of students living both on and off campus. This ward now has one of the highest Black population of any ward in Hertfordshire and there is one of the largest Chinese populations in the country. Many of these, being international students, will not vote but the change in character to the town is significant – Hatfield was overwhelmingly a white town 20 years ago and is now the most ethnically diverse in the county after Watford.
Labour did achieve a fluke win in Hatfield Villages in a by-election on general election day in 2017, no doubt thanks to untypically high student turnout. Usually it, like East, produces a clear but not large Conservative lead but also like East Labour have won it at the last two local elections.
Overall Hatfield is very close politically and may well have delivered a Labour plurality in 2017, where Welwyn Garden City did not. This represents a change compared with 20 years ago or so when Welwyn Garden City was slightly the more Labour inclined town.
The Conservatives really pile up their lead in the smaller communities here which cast between a fifth and a quarter of the votes. The Welwyn wards, north of Welwyn Garden City are utterly solid for the Conservatives. The West ward is dominated by the small town of (old) Welwyn itself while East consists of commuterised villages like Digswell and Woolmer Green. This is all very affluent and attractive. Even more overwhelmingly Conservative is the very wealthy Brookmans Park in the far South – like the neighbouring Northaw ward a genuinely wealthy area and one of the consistently safest Conservative wards in the country, regularly delivering a Conservative vote share in excess of 70%.
Welham Green is now linked with part of South Hatfield in a Welham Green & Hatfield South ward that has been dominated by the Lib Dems in recent local elections. In general elections the more familiar pattern would assert itself. Welham Green is no Brookmans Park, but it will be fairly reliably Conservative while the section of South Hatfield included would vote along similar lines to Hatfield SW.
Though in a minority, these smaller areas play a major part in determining the fate of this constituency, because the Conservatives have the advantage of enjoying areas of overwhelming strength while having no areas of overwhelming weakness. Labour on the other hand have no areas of overwhelming support and do have areas of massive weakness. This means that Labour need to be polling well ahead in the main urban centres to compete here and they do not seem capable of doing that now despite some signs of a demographic shift in their favour. It would probably take another landslide of 1997 proportions for this seat to come into serious play again soon. As the polls currently stand this seems quite likely.
There is one very small boundary change here occasioned by ward boundary changes as Newgate Street (c, 400 voters) now forms part of the Northaw & Cuffley ward and is therefore moved to Hertsmere. This was subject to a slightly eccentric objection by Grant Shapps but given the numbers involved is unlikely to affect the result, except in a scenario whereby Labour gains the seat with a very small majority. Perhaps though this isn’t an entirely implausible outcome given the history of the seat. Indeed, in the local elections of 2023 Labour held a lead of 62 votes over the Conservatives in the wards making up this seat. In the Newgate Street parish ward of Hatfield town council, the Conservatives won 94 votes against 8 for Labour and 15 Lib Dems
