Post by John Chanin on Aug 9, 2023 16:10:46 GMT
The uninformative name of this seat comes from the compromise name of the District created in the 1970s. It comes from Hadleigh castle, a rather disappointing ruin on the top of the cliffs backing the Thames estuary. However there is an excellent Turner painting in the Tate Gallery of the castle in winter, which is a good evocation of its windswept and stormy side. The constituency was coterminous with the District, but annoyingly under the new rules it was 400 voters too short. After some false starts the Boundary Commission has solved the problem by moving just 1600 voters in from Basildon, in the form of the village of North Benfleet.
There are two distinct parts of the constituency (and District). The larger half, to the north, is essentially an extension of the Southend urban area. It is bounded by the Southend arterial road to the north, which separates it from Rayleigh, and by a narrow muddy channel of the Thames to the south. The A13 London Road runs through the middle of the constituency. North of the ribbon development on the A13 there are 3 residential areas separated by open land. Hadleigh to the east is very much an extension of Southend West with middle-class owner-occupied housing. Thundersley in the centre is mostly new with many bungalows, while the older Thundersley to the west is really quite run down, lots of small houses and flat blocks, built in the immediate post-war period and showing their age. In the north-east corner is the anomalously plush little village of Daws Heath with its large houses, surrounded by countryside. To the south of the A13 there is the Hadleigh country park, with the c2c railway line running through it to the station at South Benfleet. South Benfleet is not quite as run down as Thundersley, but it isn’t rich either.
The smaller southern half of the seat is Canvey Island - a strange and isolated place, with just 2 roads connecting it to the mainland. It is low lying and densely packed with housing, with an old oil refinery to the west, and an attempt at a beach on the estuary shore, rather spoiled by the sea walls cutting it off from the town, built after the 1953 floods which drowned the island. The inland shore is uninhabited marsh, but there is some higher ground to the east of the island known as Canvey Heights. Global warming is a threat here, and new building has been limited because of the threat of flooding. One recent social trend has been the immigration of a number of Haredi jews, abandoning expensive Hackney for the cheap housing on Canvey - a group for whom the isolation is not a problem.
This seat notoriously is one of the poorest seats to be safely Conservative - very much the epitome of proudly nationalistic south Essex. It is almost wholly owner-occupied with one of the top 10 percentages in the country, and no social housing to speak of - indeed the very lowest percentage in the whole country. It is also almost entirely white. The seat is also distinctive for its high level of workers in intermediate occupations, and is perhaps the worst educated seat in southern England. Qualifications are low throughout, but exceptionally so on Canvey where less than 15% have degrees. Canvey is noticeably more working class than Benfleet, with routine workers exceeding managerial throughout the island, whereas the opposite is the case on the mainland. Note also the high proportion of older people, which also affects its politics.
Local politics used to consist of a stand off between Conservative Benfleet, and the Canvey Island Independents, who hold almost all the seats on the island. Since Benfleet is bigger they were a permanently impotent minority, but now an independent movement has grown up on the mainland too, and the independents run the local council. There is a history of large swings. This was one of the District councils that went Labour from a near zero start in 1995, and nationally Labour followed up their 1995 victory by a surprise win at the 1997 general election with an astonishing 17% swing, one of the highest in the country. However this was one of the 5 seats (3 of them in south Essex) which reverted to the Conservatives in 2001. The returning MP Bob Spink became increasingly detached from the Conservatives, resigning the whip in 2008, and then linking with UKIP, although he stood for re-election in 2010 as an independent, getting over 30% of the vote. No Labour councillor has been seen here now for many years, and this was one of the strongest areas for UKIP in the last decade. The present MP is Rebecca Harris, first elected in 2010, a former marketing director at a publisher. The seat now looks very safe for the Conservatives, remarkably the third safest in the country at the 2019 election, but its history shows this is not a foregone conclusion. Indeed at the 2024 election this was one of the best results for Reform, who moved into a clear second place after the Conservative vote halved.
Census data: Owner-occupied 80% (6/575 in England & Wales), private rented 14% (475th), social rented 5% (575th).
: White 95%(196th), Black 1%(286th), South Asian 1%(397th), Mixed 2%(395th), Other 1%(434th)
: Managerial & professional 34% (408th), Routine & Semi-routine 28% (303rd)
: Degree 19% (572nd), Minimal qualifications 38% (33rd)
: Students 4% (531st), Over 65: 25% (76th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 98% from Castle Point and 2% from South Basildon & East Thurrock
The whole of the old Castle Point seat is in the new one.
There are two distinct parts of the constituency (and District). The larger half, to the north, is essentially an extension of the Southend urban area. It is bounded by the Southend arterial road to the north, which separates it from Rayleigh, and by a narrow muddy channel of the Thames to the south. The A13 London Road runs through the middle of the constituency. North of the ribbon development on the A13 there are 3 residential areas separated by open land. Hadleigh to the east is very much an extension of Southend West with middle-class owner-occupied housing. Thundersley in the centre is mostly new with many bungalows, while the older Thundersley to the west is really quite run down, lots of small houses and flat blocks, built in the immediate post-war period and showing their age. In the north-east corner is the anomalously plush little village of Daws Heath with its large houses, surrounded by countryside. To the south of the A13 there is the Hadleigh country park, with the c2c railway line running through it to the station at South Benfleet. South Benfleet is not quite as run down as Thundersley, but it isn’t rich either.
The smaller southern half of the seat is Canvey Island - a strange and isolated place, with just 2 roads connecting it to the mainland. It is low lying and densely packed with housing, with an old oil refinery to the west, and an attempt at a beach on the estuary shore, rather spoiled by the sea walls cutting it off from the town, built after the 1953 floods which drowned the island. The inland shore is uninhabited marsh, but there is some higher ground to the east of the island known as Canvey Heights. Global warming is a threat here, and new building has been limited because of the threat of flooding. One recent social trend has been the immigration of a number of Haredi jews, abandoning expensive Hackney for the cheap housing on Canvey - a group for whom the isolation is not a problem.
This seat notoriously is one of the poorest seats to be safely Conservative - very much the epitome of proudly nationalistic south Essex. It is almost wholly owner-occupied with one of the top 10 percentages in the country, and no social housing to speak of - indeed the very lowest percentage in the whole country. It is also almost entirely white. The seat is also distinctive for its high level of workers in intermediate occupations, and is perhaps the worst educated seat in southern England. Qualifications are low throughout, but exceptionally so on Canvey where less than 15% have degrees. Canvey is noticeably more working class than Benfleet, with routine workers exceeding managerial throughout the island, whereas the opposite is the case on the mainland. Note also the high proportion of older people, which also affects its politics.
Local politics used to consist of a stand off between Conservative Benfleet, and the Canvey Island Independents, who hold almost all the seats on the island. Since Benfleet is bigger they were a permanently impotent minority, but now an independent movement has grown up on the mainland too, and the independents run the local council. There is a history of large swings. This was one of the District councils that went Labour from a near zero start in 1995, and nationally Labour followed up their 1995 victory by a surprise win at the 1997 general election with an astonishing 17% swing, one of the highest in the country. However this was one of the 5 seats (3 of them in south Essex) which reverted to the Conservatives in 2001. The returning MP Bob Spink became increasingly detached from the Conservatives, resigning the whip in 2008, and then linking with UKIP, although he stood for re-election in 2010 as an independent, getting over 30% of the vote. No Labour councillor has been seen here now for many years, and this was one of the strongest areas for UKIP in the last decade. The present MP is Rebecca Harris, first elected in 2010, a former marketing director at a publisher. The seat now looks very safe for the Conservatives, remarkably the third safest in the country at the 2019 election, but its history shows this is not a foregone conclusion. Indeed at the 2024 election this was one of the best results for Reform, who moved into a clear second place after the Conservative vote halved.
Census data: Owner-occupied 80% (6/575 in England & Wales), private rented 14% (475th), social rented 5% (575th).
: White 95%(196th), Black 1%(286th), South Asian 1%(397th), Mixed 2%(395th), Other 1%(434th)
: Managerial & professional 34% (408th), Routine & Semi-routine 28% (303rd)
: Degree 19% (572nd), Minimal qualifications 38% (33rd)
: Students 4% (531st), Over 65: 25% (76th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 98% from Castle Point and 2% from South Basildon & East Thurrock
The whole of the old Castle Point seat is in the new one.
| 2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | 2024 | % | |
| Conservative | 30,076 | 67.3 | 33,971 | 76.7 | 34,611 | 76.5 | 15,485 | 38.1 |
| Labour | 11,204 | 25.1 | 7,337 | 16.6 | 7,602 | 16.8 | 9,455 | 23.3 |
| Liberal Democrat | 1,049 | 2.3 | 2,969 | 6.7 | 3,004 | 6.6 | 1,341 | 3.3 |
| UKIP/Reform | 2,381 | 5.3 | 12,234 | 30.1 | ||||
| Green | 2,118 | 5.2 | ||||||
| Majority | 18,872 | 42.2 | 26,634 | 60.2 | 27,009 | 59.7 | 3,251 | 8.0 |
