Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jul 21, 2023 13:21:07 GMT
Each and every UK constituency is represented by a single Member of Parliament, as we all know. Once every few years, however, one lucky seat is turned into a constitutional oddity, a seat both within and outside Westminster's normal way of doing things. This peculiarity, almost but not quite unique to British politics, has touched Cardiff, the Wirral, West Bromwich, and Buckingham in its time, and now the Lancashire market town of Chorley holds the dubious distinction: it is, of course, the seat represented by the Speaker of the House of Commons. All normal psephological life stops here.
Chorley is the name of both the town and borough, and the overall area covered by the name is much larger than some realise. The northern fringes of Clayton-le-Woods touch the fringes of Bamber Bridge and the M65, with the borough spreading out south and east along a central spine towards Bolton MBC's outer fringes of Horwich and Lostock. The eastern parts of the borough, and constituency, are largely remote and agricultural, and include the prominent Rivington hill, Winter Hill, and remote Anglezarke Moor. The outskirts of the borough are highly desirable residential areas, including Adlington and Charnock Richard, the latter home to the M6 service station everybody recognises prior to spending the rest of the journey looking for more architecturally interesting places to stop. Like Tebay. Whilst the outer reaches are expensive to call home, this is not entirely true for everywhere. Coppull is a striking collection of post-war brown as it whizzes past from the window of an Avanti West Coast train. Plans to (re)introduce a railway station at Coppull have long since keeled over and died, alas.
The borough has one of the fastest growth rates of over 60s in the region with the council suggesting a total of 20,700 over 60s living there within the next 20 years on 2009 estimate figures. Almost 4% of Chorley Borough's elderly population subsist with welfare payments or limited budgets and this is predicted to grow more quickly than neighbouring boroughs. Of all Lancashire's overall population statistics, it is Chorley that stands out most starkly: an estimated 16% increase over the next 20 years.
The constituency is not quite coterminous with the borough, losing its western parishes to South Ribble. Much of the growth within the borough and seat comes from Buckshaw Village, one of England's largest residential construction projects in decades. What was the Royal Ordnance Factory in Euxton is now transformed as a Truman Show-esque living nightmare of never ending housing development, each new estate slightly creepier in its absolute perfection than the last. The village has allowed Chorley to become a much more significant place on the railway map, with direct trains to Manchester more frequent, and more likely to be standing room only, and recent electrification schemes should only improve things. Plans for Chorley to become a stand-alone Unitary Authority, incidentally, came to nowt, but that hasn't stopped them trying.
Prior to Sir Lindsay Hoyle becoming the Speaker Seeking Relection, he was safely in place already as a popular and high-profile local MP. His passion to save Chorley hospital's A+E comes from the heart, and his accent comes from the streets. He is well liked and his constant re-election in the face of determined Conservative opposition proves this. There is a line of thought which suggests that Labour was relieved not to have fought an 'ordinary' election here, happier to lose a seat to Speaker than to the Tories. Reader, the decision is yours to believe this or not. Den Dover, latterly an MEP, was Conservative MP here until the Blair landslide, and he had taken it from Labour on the tide of 1979. The local council has no true bias either way: both Labour and Conservatives fight competitively and at County level, Labour often do much better in rural divisions than would be expected. The outer suburbs are more likely to vote Conservative, however. In ordinary times, this seat would be a marginal bunfight. But this is no longer an ordinary seat, and you should not expect ordinary times for many general elections yet.
