Romford

[John Chanin]

Romford still thinks of itself as an Essex town, and indeed there was no necessity to include it in Greater London in 1964, as it is clearly separate from Chadwell Heath and Dagenham to the west, with open space between them. It is essentially another of the south Essex commuter towns, larger than most, and connected to the city by the east coast mainline, with stations at Romford and Gidea Park. However it is also an older town, with much housing dating from the inter-war years, and the core of the town being even older. Romford is a major shopping hub for east London (although negatively affected by the foundation of the Lakeside shopping mall in Thurrock. Socially it is very uniform , with occupational status and educational qualifications close to average, and is very similar demographically to Upminster & Hornchurch to the east. The northern part of the seat around Havering-atte-Bower (which provided a compromise name for the borough) is a little down market. It is mostly owner-occupied, with very little council housing, but a growing and substantial private rented component in central Romford. As elsewhere in outer London there is a growing ethnic minority population, both black and asian, particularly in Rush Green west of the centre. Although Romford was the right size for a seat, the Boundary Commission had trouble with the rest of Havering borough. Eventually they simply moved 1500 voters from Emerson Park ward into Romford to get the Hornchurch seat down to size.

The seat is very compact, and there is little political variation. All wards are normally won locally by the Conservatives, although Labour managed a single councillor in central Romford in 2022, and Hornchurch Residents expanded into the southern Hylands ward, added to the seat in 2010. Historically after the war Romford was a Labour constituency, but that version of it included the large Harold Hill council estate, in the days when it was monolithically Labour. Since 1974 it has generally been a safe Conservative seat. There was however a revolution in 1997 when Labour, to their own surprise, won the seat by 650 votes on an enormous 16% swing. The Conservatives chose Andrew Rosindell to fight the seat in 2001. Famously he campaigned with a union jack wearing bull terrier, and won the seat back with the largest swing in Britain to the Conservatives in a year when their results were very disappointing. The seat has remained very safe for the Conservatives ever since, managing to hold it even in 2024, despite a swing of over 17%, and Rosindell remains the MP. Reform polled well, but not as well as in the seats to the east, Romford being somewhat transitional between London and Essex.

Census data: Owner-occupied 69% (203/575 in England & Wales), private rented 19% (246th), social rented 12% (442nd).
                      : White 72%(455th), Black 8%(78th), South Asian 10%(108th), Mixed 4%(110th), Other 6%(138th)
                      : Managerial & professional 39% (273rd), Routine & Semi-routine 23% (422nd)
                      : Degree 31% (314th), Minimal qualifications 30% (200th)
                      : Students 6% (215th) , Over 65: 17% (393rd)

Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 98% from Romford and 2% from Hornchurch & Upminster
                       All of the old Romford seat is in the new one.

	2017	%	2019	%	Notional	%	2024	%
Conservative	29,671	59.4	30,494	64.6	31.322	64.8	15,339	34.8
Labour	18,893	31.8	12,601	26.7	12,786	26.4	13,876	31.5
Liberal Democrat	1,215	2.4	2,708	5.7	2,789	5.8	1,895	4.3
UKIP/Reform	2,350	4.7					9,624	21.8
Green	815	1.6	1,428	3.0	1,462	3.0	2,220	5.0
Other							1,093	2.4
Majority	13,778	27.6	17,893	37.9	18,536	38.3	1,463	3.3

[John Chanin]

Of all the seats I have done profiles of, this nondescript slice of suburbia ia the most boring, and I have found it difficult to say anything interesting about it.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Although not much can be said to forecast the immediate future, the difficult position of the incumbent MP with respect to police inquiries is perhaps worth mentioning.

[The Bishop]

Aug 17, 2023 10:52:36 GMT John Chanin said:

Of all the seats I have done profiles of, this nondescript slice of suburbia ia the most boring, and I have found it difficult to say anything interesting about it.

As with other such cases, its uniformity is arguably itself of some interest.

[Pete Whitehead]

I mean there's actually quite the contrast between Oldchurch and Gidea Park

[John Chanin]

Aug 17, 2023 11:51:14 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I mean there's actually quite the contrast between Oldchurch and Gidea Park

Well the centre of Romford (Oldchurch) is indeed different and indeed old, and I did mention it, admittedly in passing, but like the centre of Sutton Coldfield, it is a very small area, and the rest of the seat, particularly Gidea Park, is street after street of inter-war semis. 

And Davıd Boothroyd I did refer to Rosindell's troubles.

[Pete Whitehead]

Aug 17, 2023 12:22:31 GMT John Chanin said:

Aug 17, 2023 11:51:14 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I mean there's actually quite the contrast between Oldchurch and Gidea Park

Well the centre of Romford (Oldchurch) is indeed different and indeed old, and I did mention it, admittedly in passing, but like the centre of Sutton Coldfield, it is a very small area, and the rest of the seat, particularly Gidea Park, is street after street of inter-war semis. 

The area around the station is like that but I'm not sure the name of that station isn't a misnomer. Further North in Gidea Park proper there are very substantial detached houses and this is quite an extensive area. Have a look at the area around Gidea Park lawn tennis club for example

[Davıd Boothroyd]

A mention, yes.

But without specuulating on the police investigation itself and without knowing anything about the underlying allegations, there is more to be said. What happens if Parliament is dissolved, but the situation remains as now - with Rosindell remaining subject to an investigation but without any charges having been brought? Legally he may be presumed innocent but political considerations are different. Should he remain as a candidate, and what would electors make of the police inquiries?

The fact of the investigation means there is a potential of criminal charges being brought. Someone charged with a crime is still presumed iinnocent in the eyes of the law but not since 1979 has an MP sought to defend their seat while charged with serious criminal offences, and politically that was a bad problem. At that point we did not have the social media we have now, and reporting restrictions on the committal proceedings had been lifted. How is publicity and political campaigning going to cope in the 2020s?

In the event the investigation ends before the election, with no charges, there will still be pressure to publish the details so that electors can make their own decisions. Will that affect confidence within the Conservative Party and within the constituency?

[Deleted]

I'm not entirely sure that's of relevance to the seat profile, beyond the bare facts that John stated.

This isn't the 'by-elections rumoured and ramped' thread.

[Deleted]

Quite right, back to Romford constituency. The Right to Buy hasn't had the same effect here as in Wandsworth LB etc.

I feel that much of the Right to Buy stock is still owner-occupied, rather than the RTB Buy to Let pipeline elsewhere.

I think the Elizabeth Line and better links to Central London will start to impact this seat in the next few years.

It's not all 'geezers' nowadays either, but it's still excellent demographics for the Tories here.

That said, while this seat may or may not shift, other areas could go the other way one day.

In 2024, the Tories should be safe as (Right to Buy, ex-council) houses here, even in a B-e.

[Pete Whitehead]

Aug 18, 2023 9:25:25 GMT @weld said:

Quite right, back to Romford constituency. The Right to Buy hasn't had the same effect here as in Wandsworth LB etc.

I feel that much of the Right to Buy stock is still owner-occupied, rather than the RTB Buy to Let pipeline elsewhere.

I think the Elizabeth Line and better links to Central London will start to impact this seat in the next few years.

It's not all 'geezers' nowadays either, but it's still excellent demographics for the Tories here.

That said, while this seat may or may not shift, other areas could go the other way one day.

In 2024, the Tories should be safe as (Right to Buy, ex-council) houses here, even in a B-e.

There was never much council housing here to start with, apart from in Chase Cross

[bjornhattan]

Aug 18, 2023 9:25:25 GMT @weld said:

Quite right, back to Romford constituency. The Right to Buy hasn't had the same effect here as in Wandsworth LB etc.

I feel that much of the Right to Buy stock is still owner-occupied, rather than the RTB Buy to Let pipeline elsewhere.

I think the Elizabeth Line and better links to Central London will start to impact this seat in the next few years.

It's not all 'geezers' nowadays either, but it's still excellent demographics for the Tories here.

That said, while this seat may or may not shift, other areas could go the other way one day.

In 2024, the Tories should be safe as (Right to Buy, ex-council) houses here, even in a B-e.

It's very much becoming a seat of two halves - the south west (including the town centre and Rush Green) speaking is seeing very rapid demographic change with sharp increases in private renting and ethnic diversity. This area also now have the highest proportions of university graduates in the borough and the lowest median age. But the more outlying parts of Romford like Hylands, Collier Row, and Gidea Park, on the other hand, seem to be seeing far less demographic change, especially in terms of housing tenure.

I expect Romford will eventually become a marginal seat in a decade or two - with a young and mostly renting town centre which votes mainly Labour contrasting with owner occupied fringes which back the Conservatives.

[batman]

This seat is sometimes described as a working-class Tory seat, but on the present boundaries, with Harold Hill not included since the creation of the Upminster seat in 1974, this has never really been accurate. It has many small businesspeople but not many manual employed (as opposed to self-employed) workers and as Pete says not a lot of council housing. The fact that Labour were not that close in October 1974 says quite a lot about the seat's social composition and Labour's win in 1997 should be seen as aberrant, rather than a normality that they have consistently failed to live up to at other times. There are signs that Labour's vote is reviving a bit, but it's still a seat the Tories would require a huge landslide defeat to lose until such time as Harold Hill is included again. And as has been correctly said even Harold Hill is not anything like as heavily Labour as it once was.