Telford

[John Chanin]

This area of east Shropshire was one of the cradles of the industrial revolution. The combination of ironstone, coal, and clay for brick-making, alongside river transport on first the Severn, and later a number of canals, made it ideal for some of the first industry. Most famously Abraham Darby established his ironworks at Coalbrookdale, and built the Ironbridge across the Severn Gorge. This area sits at the south of the Telford constituency, and is a world heritage site with a number of museums. It is the only part of the seat that most outsiders will be familiar with.

After the second world war the area was designated as a new town, originally called Dawley after the largest of the industrial villages. The area was expanded in the late 1960s and renamed after Thomas Telford, the engineer and canal builder who is closely associated with Shropshire. The new town was based on the 3 small industrial towns of Oakengates (to the N), Dawley (to the S), and Madeley (down by the Severn), plus the rather larger Wellington (to the NW). The heart of the new town development took place in the open space between these towns, including a rather grim concrete town centre right in the middle, although there is also a pleasant and extensive town park to the south of the centre, which was not developed for housing.

The area under the development corporation extended quite widely beyond the original built-up area, and became an ordinary District Council in 1975, and a unitary under the name of Telford & the Wrekin in 1998. The parliamentary constituency which covered the same area was a key marginal from 1950 onwards - Labour until 1955, won back in 1964, lost in 1970, won in 1974, lost in 1979, won in 1987. The boundary commission then spoiled the fun by splitting the oversized seat into two. The heart of the new town became Telford constituency, and was assumed to be a safe Labour seat, while the outlying areas, including the rural part of the borough, were linked with parts of Shropshire to form what was assumed to be a safe Conservative seat, and which retained the name of the Wrekin. However things haven’t quite turned out that way.

The present Telford seat extends from Trench in the north through Oakengates to the M54 which bisects the seat (and the town). Wellington is in the Wrekin constituency, as are the new town districts of Leegomery and Donnington on the northern edge. South of the M54 is the town centre, with extensive new town development south of here, east of Dawley, and between Dawley and Madeley. Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge sit to the south of Madeley. Like all new towns a great deal of council housing was built, and most of the wards still have over 15% social housing (it is run by a housing association these days). Figures are particularly high in Malinslee, The Nedge, Woodside, and Brookside, which are the main new town neighbourhoods, although there is also some infill and older council housing around the original towns, which all have badly rundown high streets. As is usual much of the pleasant low-rise council housing has been sold under right to buy, and moved seamlessly into private renting, which now exceeds social renting. The new town areas are also those with the highest proportion of routine workers, who exceed managerial workers in 9 of the 13 wards. This closely matches educational qualifications as well - as the data below shows this is a decidedly working-class seat. And in local politics this is reflected in the traditional way. At the 2023 local elections Labour won 12 of the 13 wards, with only middle-class Priorslee on the NE edge of town Conservative, repeating a similar victory in 2019. This included middle-class Horsehay & Lightmoor on the SW edge of the town. The third middle-class ward (Ironbridge Gorge) is rather different in character, with the highest level of degree holders, and over 75% owner-occupied in older housing, and subject to flooding whenever there is heavy rain in mid Wales, but it too is comfortably Labour in recent years. The seat is mostly white, although not as much so as some other working class constituencies. There is a small asian population in the north of the seat, although the main concentration of asian households is in Wellington.

So a safe Labour seat, with 28 of the 30 councillors elected in 2023? Far from it - at parliamentary level it was a close marginal in 2010, 2015, and 2017, and was one of just 8 seats the Conservatives took from Labour in 2015. And in 2019 a huge 12% swing (the 20th highest in the country) gave the Conservatives a majority of over 10,000. In this Telford was similar to other working-class industrial towns in the midlands like Nuneaton and Cannock, enhanced by the long-term trend away from Labour in new towns, partly due to right-to-buy, and partly by the economic concentration on poor performing areas of the economy. New towns as envisaged in the 1960s have aged poorly, and their inhabitants have noticed. Still, the divergence with local election results, also seen in Nuneaton and Cannock requires some explanation. Turnout is the likely issue. Many people who do not bother to vote at local elections, and are disillusioned with politics, seem to have come out in force to “get Brexit done”. The continued Labour success at local elections suggests that the Conservative dominance here may be transient and it is likely that this seat will return to marginal status in future, given its social composition.

Telford is a few hundred voters too small under the new rules, but all that is required to bring it up to size is realignment to new ward boundaries in the Oakengates area, moving some 1400 voters in from The Wrekin. The current MP is Lucy Allan, a former accountant and investment manager, originally from the West Country, who won the seat from Labour in 2015. She has announced her retirement at the next General Election.

Census data : Owner-occupied 57% (434/575 in England & Wales), private rented 23% (149th), social rented 20% (154th).
                      : White 89%(309th), Black 3%(177th), South Asian 3%(253rd), Mixed 3%(237th), Other 2%(356th)
                      : Managerial & professional 31% (479th), Routine & Semi-routine 37% (68th)
                      : Degree level 24%(512th), Minimal qualifications 33%(104th)
                      : Students 5% (310th), Over 65: 16% (419th)

Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 98% from Telford and 2% from the Wrekin
                       100% of the old seat is in the new one

	2017	%	2019	%	Notional	%
Conservative	21,777	48.7	25,546	59.7	25,842	59.4
Labour	21,057	47.1	14,605	34.1	14,942	34.3
Liberal Democrat	954	2.1	2,674	6.2	2,714	6.2
Green	898	2.0			27	0.1
Majority	720	1.6	10,941	25.5	10,900	25.0

[Pete Whitehead]

I've never quite understood the Labuor strength in Ironbridge. Is it (in shorthand) Guardian readers?

[Sibboleth]

Oct 4, 2023 14:53:32 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I've never quite understood the Labuor strength in Ironbridge. Is it (in shorthand) Guardian readers?

This is a little complicated. Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale are technically part of Telford and have always been its public face to an extent, but because they were protected from the main waves of New Town development they are also very much traditional Shropshire settlements still. Specifically, they are the type of Shropshire settlements with a significant artsy/alternative culture sitting quite happily alongside the mainstream, all the more so as so much of the local economy depends on various conservation efforts (both environmental and architectural) and, of course, all of those museums. There are a lot of people employed in the building trades (many of whom, as is typical for villages and small towns in Shropshire, are self-employed) and actually the only place in the Telford and Wrekin district to have more proportionately is Madeley Town next door. There's still some manufacturing in the Gorge (largely teddy bears now that the AGA-Rayburn factory in Coalbrookdale has gone) and because property prices are in the normal range for Shropshire, the area is popular with professionals who prefer a sense of community to a larger house. That's the background which, if you put it together, explains why the area is at least competitive. The explanation for why it is presently rather better than that for Labour in local elections is mostly down to candidate choices ('traditional Shropshire settlements', you see). Since the 90s they've mostly run people who are very active in the local community, and the present councillor is especially so. This is an even bigger deal than in most places in Shropshire because the Gorge changed from being one of the grimmest postindustrial hellholes in England to a rather nice place well within living memory, a fact that locals are keenly aware of.