Post by Robert Waller on Aug 4, 2023 8:49:52 GMT
By some way the most disparate constituency of the three in Nottingham, South includes several distinct sets of neighbourhoods, all of interest socially and politically, but which add up in the present electoral climate to maintain a very safe Labour seat.
The first is based on the historic city centre, with its well known landmarks such as the Nottingham Castle, which gives its name to the most central ward in the city. This gradually goes downhill till one reaches the main railway station. At that point the character changes, as does the city council ward, as Castle becomes Meadows. The latter neighbourhood extends south to the river Trent and the city side of Trent Bridge (both the Test cricket ground and that of Nottingham Forest football club, restored to the Premier League, are over the river in Rushcliffe constituency). The Meadows was heavily redeveloped with new housing from the 1970s, turning a traditional working class area into what some regarded as a high crime modern wasteland, though matters have improved to an extent as the 21st century has progressed.
www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/gallery/take-look-back-life-meadows-2624018
In the most recent Nottingham city council elections, in May 2023, Meadows ward was won very convincingly by Labour with Independents and a Green ahead of the Tories who polled just 5%. Castle ward was more competitive, with Labour again ahead but a strong showing by the Liberal Democrats (38%). Moving west from the commercial ‘downtown’ centre, and still within Castle ward, is the old west end of the city, the Park estate, which is spaciously and rather grandly laid out in crescents and ‘circuses’. Then, further west (and in many ways this seat could equally be called Nottingham West as South) we find the tight knit terraces of Radford and Lenton. These have passed through more than one transformation in a lifetime; well, in my lifetime anyway. When my father worked in the centre of Nottingham in the 1950s and early 1960s, he boarded during the week as a lodger at a friend’s house off the Derby Road, in Rothesay Avenue. Then at first that road rapidly filled up with ‘immigrants’ from the ‘New Commonwealth’, until my father’s host was able to tell anyone who would listen that he was ‘the last white man in the street’ (you could interpret that opinion two ways).
However if one analyses this neighbourhood using the detailed 2021 census maps, one finds that Radford MSOA is 26% Asian and 16% Black, but the largest group is the 46% who are White. In Lenton and Dunkirk, similar but just to the south, over 66% are now in the White category. The clue is given by another set of statistics applied at the same MSOA level. 57% in Radford are full time students. That figure for Lenton & Dunkirk is over 71%. The ‘immigrants’ have themselves largely moved on and been replaced by a ‘permanent temporary’ community of a very different nature - though currently not dissimilar politics: in May 2023 Radford ward voted for Labour with a share of 74%, and Lenton & Wollaton East with around two thirds of all votes.
Further to the west still, we find the fount of the transformation of the inner western city: the main campus of the University of Nottingham, with its lakes, greenery and rolling slopes, generously endowed by Sir Jesse Boot in the 1920s. It is set in traditionally Nottingham’s top residential neighbourhood, Wollaton. To its north is an even larger green space, Wollaton Park, fringed with highly comfortable detached residences on roads like Parkside and Bramcote Lane. Wollaton used to be the site of the most Conservative voting within Nottingham until it was split into two in 2003, when Wollaton East & Lenton Abbey fell to the Liberal Democrats, and Wollaton West remained solidly Tory until 2015, when one Labour candidate topped the poll in a split result. But in May 2019 Labour took all three council seats in the ward for the first time, which they all retained in 2023.
To find any recent Conservative representation within the Nottingham South division, one has to travel to the final distinct section of the constituency. There is a section of the seat south of the Trent. This mainly consists of Clifton, which has a very large social housing estate but as overspill on the very south western edge of the city boundaries in the 1950s. This is mainly in Clifton East ward which elected three ‘Nottingham Independents’ in 2023 but has generally been strongly Labour in general elections. However there are other elements in this sector too. One is a main campus of Nottingham’s other university, Trent, which is west of the A453 and near the original Clifton village. There is also fairly up-market private housing development. All this is in Clifton West ward, along with the separate community of Wilford. The neighbourhoods in Clifton West are over 70% owner occupied in the 2021 census, and this was the only ward in the South constituency that elected Conservatives in May 2019; previously Clifton’s wards had been divided North as South which weakened the Tory element. But the Tories lost both Clifton West seats in 2023, to Labour and an Independent.
The element that ties together the whole Nottingham South constituency is epitomized by the presence of the two universities, in essence one on each side of the river Trent, and the student accommodation that spreads beyond the campuses themselves. As well as the figures for Lenton & Dunkirk and Radford mentioned above, the 2021 census revealed that 23% of the residents of Clifton North were full time students, 43% in Lenton Abbey, University & Wollaton Park, 57% in The Park and Castle, 42% in City Centre & Trent Bridge (which covers the Meadows). To use a fashionable phrase, Nottingham South could be described as Student Central. Overall the proportion for the constituency as a whole under its current boundaries is 34.5%, which is unsurpassed in any seat in England and Wales, no.1 out of 573. With the present political preferences of young people in general and the highly educated in particular, this undoubtedly helps Labour at present. However this should not be overestimated, as some will not be registered and some will not vote here, especially if elections should happen to fall outside term time. In May 2023 the turnout in Lenton & Wollaton East ward was only 26%, in Radford only 20% - the lowest in the city.
However generally speaking Nottingham South is essentially a Labour seat for other reasons too: despite population movements by ethnic minority residents away from the student areas, it was still only 65% white in 2021, a five per cent reduction from 2011.The managerial and professional worker proportion was still in the bottom decile of all seats in England and Wales. South was won by the Conservatives in its first contest in 1983 and held until 1992. This was basically because of Labour’s poor showing at both national and regional level in 1983 and 1987; in 1992 Alan Simpson managed to claim Labour’s inheritance in South, ousting Martin Brandon-Bravo by over 3,000 votes with a 5% swing. Since then Labour has only been seriously challenged once, in 2010, when in Lilian Greenwood’s first contest the majority over the Tories fell to 1,772. Her share increased by more than 10% in 2015 and by nearly 15% in 2017, meaning that it had risen from 37% to over 62% in just two cycles. It fell back by 7% in December 2019, but the Tories did not benefit; there was very little traction for Brexit here, with the party of that name only getting 4% in that general election, and indeed it was the Liberal Democrats who advanced most. This is not surprising in a seat which is estimated to have voted to Remain in the EU in 2016, by around 54% to 46%.
Labour’s position is very strong in Nottingham South now, and this will not be challenged by the forthcoming boundary changes. Castle ward in the city centre is to be transferred to the Nottingham East division and Leen Valley to North, and in exchange Bilborough picked up from North. This will make South even more diverse, as Bilborough is a very working class ward based on large social housing estates and with relatively few students, but it is even more strongly Labour than Castle and Leen Valley are in most circumstances, and gave them 78% of the vote in the May 2023 city council election. Overall in South the proportion of private rented housing is reduced and social housing increased, and the non-white resident percentage reduced by 4%.
The redrawn Nottingham South does not quite retain its position as the most full-time student heavy constituency in the entire country, but it’s still not far off, at no.4 out of the 575 in England and Wales (and in 2nd place for those whose highest educational qualification is A levels. Even without the students, South increasingly looks like a one-horse race. Given their sharp decline since 2019, it was not at all surprising that the Conservatives returned no councillors at all within the seat (or indeed in the city) in the May 2023 Nottingham council elections, including in the more favoured residential areas. The local and indeed national political landscape has changed dramatically since the Tories won those first contests here back in the 1980s. There was only a relatively small further swing to Labour in the July 2024 general election, but there didn't need to be.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 12.4% 505/575
Owner occupied 47.3% 523/575
Private rented 26.9% 91/575
Social rented 25.8% 59/575
White 69.1% 469/575
Black 8.0% 81/575
Asian 14.3% 100/575
Managerial & professional 20.2% 556/575
Routine & Semi-routine 21.2% 370/575
Degree level 27.5% 301/575
Level 3 qualifications (A levels) 32.4% 2/575
No qualifications 16.8% 431/575
Students 32.5% 4/575
General Election 2024: Nottingham South
Labour Lilian Greenwood 15,579 47.4 −6.4
Conservative Zarmeena Quraishi 5,285 16.1 −15.5
Reform UK Mykel Hedge 4,936 15.0 +10.4
Green Cath Sutherland 2,923 8.9 +5.6
Liberal Democrats Christina Morgan-Danvers 2,059 6.3 −0.4
Workers Party Paras Ghazni 1,496 4.6 N/A
Independent Shaghofta Akhtar 449 1.4 N/A
Independent Mohammed Sayeed 152 0.5 N/A
Lab Majority 10,294 31.3 +5.2
Turnout 32,879 51.2 −9.4
Registered electors 64,255
Labour hold
Swing 4.5 C to Lab
General Election 2019: Nottingham South
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Lilian Greenwood 26,586 55.2 -7.2
Conservative Marc Nykolyszyn 14,018 29.1 -1.8
Liberal Democrats Barry Holliday 3,935 8.2 +5.0
Brexit Party John Lawson 2,012 4.2 +4.2
Green Cath Sutherland 1,583 3.3 +2.1
Lab Majority 12,568 26.1 -5.4
2019 electorate 79,485
Turnout 48,134 60.6 -5.0
Labour hold
Swing 2.7 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
The redrawn Nottingham South seat consists of
80.5% of Nottingham South
17.8% of Nottingham North
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/b65f7782-658b-4c4a-9cba-59c16c807f77/a3-maps/EM_38_Nottingham%20South%20BC.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
The first is based on the historic city centre, with its well known landmarks such as the Nottingham Castle, which gives its name to the most central ward in the city. This gradually goes downhill till one reaches the main railway station. At that point the character changes, as does the city council ward, as Castle becomes Meadows. The latter neighbourhood extends south to the river Trent and the city side of Trent Bridge (both the Test cricket ground and that of Nottingham Forest football club, restored to the Premier League, are over the river in Rushcliffe constituency). The Meadows was heavily redeveloped with new housing from the 1970s, turning a traditional working class area into what some regarded as a high crime modern wasteland, though matters have improved to an extent as the 21st century has progressed.
www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/gallery/take-look-back-life-meadows-2624018
In the most recent Nottingham city council elections, in May 2023, Meadows ward was won very convincingly by Labour with Independents and a Green ahead of the Tories who polled just 5%. Castle ward was more competitive, with Labour again ahead but a strong showing by the Liberal Democrats (38%). Moving west from the commercial ‘downtown’ centre, and still within Castle ward, is the old west end of the city, the Park estate, which is spaciously and rather grandly laid out in crescents and ‘circuses’. Then, further west (and in many ways this seat could equally be called Nottingham West as South) we find the tight knit terraces of Radford and Lenton. These have passed through more than one transformation in a lifetime; well, in my lifetime anyway. When my father worked in the centre of Nottingham in the 1950s and early 1960s, he boarded during the week as a lodger at a friend’s house off the Derby Road, in Rothesay Avenue. Then at first that road rapidly filled up with ‘immigrants’ from the ‘New Commonwealth’, until my father’s host was able to tell anyone who would listen that he was ‘the last white man in the street’ (you could interpret that opinion two ways).
However if one analyses this neighbourhood using the detailed 2021 census maps, one finds that Radford MSOA is 26% Asian and 16% Black, but the largest group is the 46% who are White. In Lenton and Dunkirk, similar but just to the south, over 66% are now in the White category. The clue is given by another set of statistics applied at the same MSOA level. 57% in Radford are full time students. That figure for Lenton & Dunkirk is over 71%. The ‘immigrants’ have themselves largely moved on and been replaced by a ‘permanent temporary’ community of a very different nature - though currently not dissimilar politics: in May 2023 Radford ward voted for Labour with a share of 74%, and Lenton & Wollaton East with around two thirds of all votes.
Further to the west still, we find the fount of the transformation of the inner western city: the main campus of the University of Nottingham, with its lakes, greenery and rolling slopes, generously endowed by Sir Jesse Boot in the 1920s. It is set in traditionally Nottingham’s top residential neighbourhood, Wollaton. To its north is an even larger green space, Wollaton Park, fringed with highly comfortable detached residences on roads like Parkside and Bramcote Lane. Wollaton used to be the site of the most Conservative voting within Nottingham until it was split into two in 2003, when Wollaton East & Lenton Abbey fell to the Liberal Democrats, and Wollaton West remained solidly Tory until 2015, when one Labour candidate topped the poll in a split result. But in May 2019 Labour took all three council seats in the ward for the first time, which they all retained in 2023.
To find any recent Conservative representation within the Nottingham South division, one has to travel to the final distinct section of the constituency. There is a section of the seat south of the Trent. This mainly consists of Clifton, which has a very large social housing estate but as overspill on the very south western edge of the city boundaries in the 1950s. This is mainly in Clifton East ward which elected three ‘Nottingham Independents’ in 2023 but has generally been strongly Labour in general elections. However there are other elements in this sector too. One is a main campus of Nottingham’s other university, Trent, which is west of the A453 and near the original Clifton village. There is also fairly up-market private housing development. All this is in Clifton West ward, along with the separate community of Wilford. The neighbourhoods in Clifton West are over 70% owner occupied in the 2021 census, and this was the only ward in the South constituency that elected Conservatives in May 2019; previously Clifton’s wards had been divided North as South which weakened the Tory element. But the Tories lost both Clifton West seats in 2023, to Labour and an Independent.
The element that ties together the whole Nottingham South constituency is epitomized by the presence of the two universities, in essence one on each side of the river Trent, and the student accommodation that spreads beyond the campuses themselves. As well as the figures for Lenton & Dunkirk and Radford mentioned above, the 2021 census revealed that 23% of the residents of Clifton North were full time students, 43% in Lenton Abbey, University & Wollaton Park, 57% in The Park and Castle, 42% in City Centre & Trent Bridge (which covers the Meadows). To use a fashionable phrase, Nottingham South could be described as Student Central. Overall the proportion for the constituency as a whole under its current boundaries is 34.5%, which is unsurpassed in any seat in England and Wales, no.1 out of 573. With the present political preferences of young people in general and the highly educated in particular, this undoubtedly helps Labour at present. However this should not be overestimated, as some will not be registered and some will not vote here, especially if elections should happen to fall outside term time. In May 2023 the turnout in Lenton & Wollaton East ward was only 26%, in Radford only 20% - the lowest in the city.
However generally speaking Nottingham South is essentially a Labour seat for other reasons too: despite population movements by ethnic minority residents away from the student areas, it was still only 65% white in 2021, a five per cent reduction from 2011.The managerial and professional worker proportion was still in the bottom decile of all seats in England and Wales. South was won by the Conservatives in its first contest in 1983 and held until 1992. This was basically because of Labour’s poor showing at both national and regional level in 1983 and 1987; in 1992 Alan Simpson managed to claim Labour’s inheritance in South, ousting Martin Brandon-Bravo by over 3,000 votes with a 5% swing. Since then Labour has only been seriously challenged once, in 2010, when in Lilian Greenwood’s first contest the majority over the Tories fell to 1,772. Her share increased by more than 10% in 2015 and by nearly 15% in 2017, meaning that it had risen from 37% to over 62% in just two cycles. It fell back by 7% in December 2019, but the Tories did not benefit; there was very little traction for Brexit here, with the party of that name only getting 4% in that general election, and indeed it was the Liberal Democrats who advanced most. This is not surprising in a seat which is estimated to have voted to Remain in the EU in 2016, by around 54% to 46%.
Labour’s position is very strong in Nottingham South now, and this will not be challenged by the forthcoming boundary changes. Castle ward in the city centre is to be transferred to the Nottingham East division and Leen Valley to North, and in exchange Bilborough picked up from North. This will make South even more diverse, as Bilborough is a very working class ward based on large social housing estates and with relatively few students, but it is even more strongly Labour than Castle and Leen Valley are in most circumstances, and gave them 78% of the vote in the May 2023 city council election. Overall in South the proportion of private rented housing is reduced and social housing increased, and the non-white resident percentage reduced by 4%.
The redrawn Nottingham South does not quite retain its position as the most full-time student heavy constituency in the entire country, but it’s still not far off, at no.4 out of the 575 in England and Wales (and in 2nd place for those whose highest educational qualification is A levels. Even without the students, South increasingly looks like a one-horse race. Given their sharp decline since 2019, it was not at all surprising that the Conservatives returned no councillors at all within the seat (or indeed in the city) in the May 2023 Nottingham council elections, including in the more favoured residential areas. The local and indeed national political landscape has changed dramatically since the Tories won those first contests here back in the 1980s. There was only a relatively small further swing to Labour in the July 2024 general election, but there didn't need to be.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 12.4% 505/575
Owner occupied 47.3% 523/575
Private rented 26.9% 91/575
Social rented 25.8% 59/575
White 69.1% 469/575
Black 8.0% 81/575
Asian 14.3% 100/575
Managerial & professional 20.2% 556/575
Routine & Semi-routine 21.2% 370/575
Degree level 27.5% 301/575
Level 3 qualifications (A levels) 32.4% 2/575
No qualifications 16.8% 431/575
Students 32.5% 4/575
General Election 2024: Nottingham South
Labour Lilian Greenwood 15,579 47.4 −6.4
Conservative Zarmeena Quraishi 5,285 16.1 −15.5
Reform UK Mykel Hedge 4,936 15.0 +10.4
Green Cath Sutherland 2,923 8.9 +5.6
Liberal Democrats Christina Morgan-Danvers 2,059 6.3 −0.4
Workers Party Paras Ghazni 1,496 4.6 N/A
Independent Shaghofta Akhtar 449 1.4 N/A
Independent Mohammed Sayeed 152 0.5 N/A
Lab Majority 10,294 31.3 +5.2
Turnout 32,879 51.2 −9.4
Registered electors 64,255
Labour hold
Swing 4.5 C to Lab
General Election 2019: Nottingham South
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Lilian Greenwood 26,586 55.2 -7.2
Conservative Marc Nykolyszyn 14,018 29.1 -1.8
Liberal Democrats Barry Holliday 3,935 8.2 +5.0
Brexit Party John Lawson 2,012 4.2 +4.2
Green Cath Sutherland 1,583 3.3 +2.1
Lab Majority 12,568 26.1 -5.4
2019 electorate 79,485
Turnout 48,134 60.6 -5.0
Labour hold
Swing 2.7 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
The redrawn Nottingham South seat consists of
80.5% of Nottingham South
17.8% of Nottingham North
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/b65f7782-658b-4c4a-9cba-59c16c807f77/a3-maps/EM_38_Nottingham%20South%20BC.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Lab | 24281 | 53.8% |
| Con | 14240 | 31.6% |
| LD | 3032 | 6.7% |
| Brexit | 2090 | 4.6% |
| Green | 1483 | 3.3% |
| Lab Majority | 10041 | 22.3% |
