Post by Robert Waller on Oct 7, 2023 9:38:14 GMT
The South East of England region gains no fewer than seven constituencies overall in the boundary review that finally reported in June 2023, increasing its tally from 84 to 91 seats. This is by far the largest rise in any region, joint second being the East and South West of England, each with three more, followed by Greater London with two. There are 24 entirely new seats, in the sense that they do not contain the largest part of any existing constituency. One of the clearest examples of this phenomenon is the West Sussex division of East Grinstead and Uckfield.
Its largest element is the section that was previously in Mid Sussex, but even that only made up 30.3% of Mid Sussex’s electorate. East Grinstead & Uckfield also includes 28.5% of Wealden, 16.6% of Horsham, and 11.5% of Lewes. Although it sounds like a typical ‘extra seat’ ragbag, its shape is fairly regular and it hangs together logically enough.
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_308_East%20Grinstead%20and%20Uckfield_Portrait.pdf
This is a slice of solidly respectable, comfortably affluent and historically soundly Tory southern county England.
It is more elderly, on average, than average. It is well into the top decile as far as owner occupied housing is concerned, at over 75%, and less than one tenth by tenure is in the social rented sector. The residents are 94% white according to the 2021 census. East Grinstead & Uckfield is in the top 100 seats for professional and managerial occupations and in the bottom 100 for routine and semi-routine. It is fairly well-educated but not so much so as to come into the liberal intellectual orbit - and there are very few students relative to other seats. All this sounds good for the political party in blue, and it is no surprise that three of the four contributing constituencies have been very safely Conservative – and the one which hasn’t - Lewes, which had a Liberal Democrat MP from 1997 to 2015 - provides the smallest percentage of voters.
Taking the four elements in order of size, the significant element of Mid Sussex which is included is essentially the town of East Grinstead, at the northern end of the new seat. With a population in 2021 of over 26,000, and five wards of Mid Sussex council amounting to an electorate of 19,800, East Grinstead is by some margin the largest town in the new seat, fully deserving its leading position in its name – reappearing after a break of 40 years (there was a constituency just named East Grinstead from 1885 to 1983, and its first appearance as a parliamentary borough was as long ago as 1307). Some know the town as the centre of the Scientology movement in the UK since 1959, when L. Ron Hubbard bought Saint Hill Manor on its south west edge from the Maharajah of Jaipur. However, generally East Grinstead is much more mainstream, with a train line to London that reaches Victoria in 56 minutes, making it by far the best place in the whole constituency as far as connections with the capital city are concerned. In their generally very poor May 2023 Mid Sussex council local election results, East Grinstead was a shining beacon for the Tories. They retained seven of the eight council seats available across the five wards, and were only beaten by an Independent in Baldwins ward in the north of the town.
The second section consists of the western strip of Wealden constituency from Forest Row down to Uckfield, amounting to about 20,000 electors, which will correspondingly form the eastern strip of East Grinstead & Uckfield. Forest Row is known as something of a celebrity hotspot, especially rock musicians (Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd among those who have lived there) but its population is less than 4,000. Uckfield on the other hand has about 15,000 residents, making it the second town of the new constituency. That entitles it to its representation in the name (for the first time ever, unlike East Grinstead) and its geographical location in the south east corner of the seat at the opposite end to its partner. Uckfield itself comprises four of the eight Wealden district wards in the new constituency. In May 2023 the Conservatives won none of them. The Liberal Democrats held Uckfield East. Labour gained North, and one of the two seats available in Uckfield New Town, the other falling to an Independent – and another Indy also gained the more rural Uckfield Ridgewood & Little Horsted. Meanwhile elsewhere in the Wealden section, the Greens held Forest Row and gained Maresfield (on the edge of Ashdown Forest), Buxted and the most rural of all, Danehill & Fletching. Thus there was a Tory wipeout in 2023 within the second largest donation to East Grinstead & Uckfield.
Up to and including the 2019 general election the Horsham constituency included three wards from the Mid Sussex District: Ardingly & Balcombe, Copthorne & Worth and Crawley Down & Turners Hill. These are not the urbanised core of Mid Sussex around the substantial towns of Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill, but consist of deep wooded country interspersed with villages and private boarding schools (Anglo-Catholic Ardingly, alma mater of Iain Hislop of Private Eye, for example, and Roman Catholic Worth, that of Harry Enfield, and by extension, the fictional Tory Boy). These wards were slightly reshuffled before the May 2023 Mid Sussex local elections, and the results might not have completely satisfied ‘TB’, as a Green and several Independents were elected; all this territory is to be moved into the new East Grinstead & Uckfield constituency, accounting for over 14,000 electors.
Finally, three wards are transferred from the Lewes division to form the south western quadrant of East Grinstead & Uckfield: the large villages of Wivelsfield and Newick, which merit a ward each, and the countryside between – Chailey, Barcombe & Hamsey ward. The picture may now be becoming familiar: a glance as at a results map of Lewes council’s May 2023 elections reveals no blue at all.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Lewes_District_Council_election
The Tories lost all 19 of their council seats to a rainbow of other parties. In the case of the three wards to be placed in East Grinstead & Uckfield the victors were all Greens.
Overall, adding up the results from that set of elections across all three local authorities included in the new constituency, the totals read 32% Conservative, 27% Green, 16.5% Liberal Democrats (plus 17% Independent and 8% Labour). Thus the East Grinstead town effect just kept the Tories in the lead, along with the divided nature of the opposition.
There is obviously a huge discrepancy between these figures and the offoial notional results for December 2019 calculated, on sound principles, by Rallings and Rhrasher. In these there is a Conservative lead of pver 20,000, and the Lib Dems, in second, would need a swing of at least 18% to oust them. The Greens only attracted about 4%. Of course May 2023 was only one snapshot, even if the most recent available, and was not electing a national government, and not in general election turnout levels. The Mid Sussex MP, Mims Davies, has chosen to seek and has achieved selection for this seat. The best guess is that the result in the 2024 general election will produce results somewhere between the 2023 municipal contest summation and the 2019 notionals.
Where between exactly will dependent on a number of unknowns, including whether and how far the Conservative government can recover from its deep and multiple woes, what happened to the economy and thus the standard of living, and whether opposition to the Tories here will be severely split or will coalesce behind a single main challenger. The likelihood is that East Grinstead & Uckfield on its first contest will indeed count as an extra and additional Conservative seat in the Commons, but that it will not be so clear and easy as may have been thought when the new boundaries here were initially proposed in June 2021.
2021 Census New Boundaries (ranks England and Wales)
Age 65+ 22.5% 148/575
Owner occupied 75.7% 48/575
Private rented 14.6% 455/575
Social rented 9.7% 529/575
White 94.1% 214/575
Black 0.7% 385/575
Asian 2.3% 367/575
Managerial & professional 41.8% 85/575
Routine & Semi-routine 16.9% 487/575
Degree level 36.3% 178/575
No qualifications 12.4% 529/575
Students 4.9% 423/575
Boundary Changes
East Grinstead and Uckfield consists of
30.3% of Mid Sussex
28.5% of Wealden
16.6% of Horsham
11.5% of Lewes
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_308_East%20Grinstead%20and%20Uckfield_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional Results (Rallings & Thrasher)
Its largest element is the section that was previously in Mid Sussex, but even that only made up 30.3% of Mid Sussex’s electorate. East Grinstead & Uckfield also includes 28.5% of Wealden, 16.6% of Horsham, and 11.5% of Lewes. Although it sounds like a typical ‘extra seat’ ragbag, its shape is fairly regular and it hangs together logically enough.
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_308_East%20Grinstead%20and%20Uckfield_Portrait.pdf
This is a slice of solidly respectable, comfortably affluent and historically soundly Tory southern county England.
It is more elderly, on average, than average. It is well into the top decile as far as owner occupied housing is concerned, at over 75%, and less than one tenth by tenure is in the social rented sector. The residents are 94% white according to the 2021 census. East Grinstead & Uckfield is in the top 100 seats for professional and managerial occupations and in the bottom 100 for routine and semi-routine. It is fairly well-educated but not so much so as to come into the liberal intellectual orbit - and there are very few students relative to other seats. All this sounds good for the political party in blue, and it is no surprise that three of the four contributing constituencies have been very safely Conservative – and the one which hasn’t - Lewes, which had a Liberal Democrat MP from 1997 to 2015 - provides the smallest percentage of voters.
Taking the four elements in order of size, the significant element of Mid Sussex which is included is essentially the town of East Grinstead, at the northern end of the new seat. With a population in 2021 of over 26,000, and five wards of Mid Sussex council amounting to an electorate of 19,800, East Grinstead is by some margin the largest town in the new seat, fully deserving its leading position in its name – reappearing after a break of 40 years (there was a constituency just named East Grinstead from 1885 to 1983, and its first appearance as a parliamentary borough was as long ago as 1307). Some know the town as the centre of the Scientology movement in the UK since 1959, when L. Ron Hubbard bought Saint Hill Manor on its south west edge from the Maharajah of Jaipur. However, generally East Grinstead is much more mainstream, with a train line to London that reaches Victoria in 56 minutes, making it by far the best place in the whole constituency as far as connections with the capital city are concerned. In their generally very poor May 2023 Mid Sussex council local election results, East Grinstead was a shining beacon for the Tories. They retained seven of the eight council seats available across the five wards, and were only beaten by an Independent in Baldwins ward in the north of the town.
The second section consists of the western strip of Wealden constituency from Forest Row down to Uckfield, amounting to about 20,000 electors, which will correspondingly form the eastern strip of East Grinstead & Uckfield. Forest Row is known as something of a celebrity hotspot, especially rock musicians (Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd among those who have lived there) but its population is less than 4,000. Uckfield on the other hand has about 15,000 residents, making it the second town of the new constituency. That entitles it to its representation in the name (for the first time ever, unlike East Grinstead) and its geographical location in the south east corner of the seat at the opposite end to its partner. Uckfield itself comprises four of the eight Wealden district wards in the new constituency. In May 2023 the Conservatives won none of them. The Liberal Democrats held Uckfield East. Labour gained North, and one of the two seats available in Uckfield New Town, the other falling to an Independent – and another Indy also gained the more rural Uckfield Ridgewood & Little Horsted. Meanwhile elsewhere in the Wealden section, the Greens held Forest Row and gained Maresfield (on the edge of Ashdown Forest), Buxted and the most rural of all, Danehill & Fletching. Thus there was a Tory wipeout in 2023 within the second largest donation to East Grinstead & Uckfield.
Up to and including the 2019 general election the Horsham constituency included three wards from the Mid Sussex District: Ardingly & Balcombe, Copthorne & Worth and Crawley Down & Turners Hill. These are not the urbanised core of Mid Sussex around the substantial towns of Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill, but consist of deep wooded country interspersed with villages and private boarding schools (Anglo-Catholic Ardingly, alma mater of Iain Hislop of Private Eye, for example, and Roman Catholic Worth, that of Harry Enfield, and by extension, the fictional Tory Boy). These wards were slightly reshuffled before the May 2023 Mid Sussex local elections, and the results might not have completely satisfied ‘TB’, as a Green and several Independents were elected; all this territory is to be moved into the new East Grinstead & Uckfield constituency, accounting for over 14,000 electors.
Finally, three wards are transferred from the Lewes division to form the south western quadrant of East Grinstead & Uckfield: the large villages of Wivelsfield and Newick, which merit a ward each, and the countryside between – Chailey, Barcombe & Hamsey ward. The picture may now be becoming familiar: a glance as at a results map of Lewes council’s May 2023 elections reveals no blue at all.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Lewes_District_Council_election
The Tories lost all 19 of their council seats to a rainbow of other parties. In the case of the three wards to be placed in East Grinstead & Uckfield the victors were all Greens.
Overall, adding up the results from that set of elections across all three local authorities included in the new constituency, the totals read 32% Conservative, 27% Green, 16.5% Liberal Democrats (plus 17% Independent and 8% Labour). Thus the East Grinstead town effect just kept the Tories in the lead, along with the divided nature of the opposition.
There is obviously a huge discrepancy between these figures and the offoial notional results for December 2019 calculated, on sound principles, by Rallings and Rhrasher. In these there is a Conservative lead of pver 20,000, and the Lib Dems, in second, would need a swing of at least 18% to oust them. The Greens only attracted about 4%. Of course May 2023 was only one snapshot, even if the most recent available, and was not electing a national government, and not in general election turnout levels. The Mid Sussex MP, Mims Davies, has chosen to seek and has achieved selection for this seat. The best guess is that the result in the 2024 general election will produce results somewhere between the 2023 municipal contest summation and the 2019 notionals.
Where between exactly will dependent on a number of unknowns, including whether and how far the Conservative government can recover from its deep and multiple woes, what happened to the economy and thus the standard of living, and whether opposition to the Tories here will be severely split or will coalesce behind a single main challenger. The likelihood is that East Grinstead & Uckfield on its first contest will indeed count as an extra and additional Conservative seat in the Commons, but that it will not be so clear and easy as may have been thought when the new boundaries here were initially proposed in June 2021.
2021 Census New Boundaries (ranks England and Wales)
Age 65+ 22.5% 148/575
Owner occupied 75.7% 48/575
Private rented 14.6% 455/575
Social rented 9.7% 529/575
White 94.1% 214/575
Black 0.7% 385/575
Asian 2.3% 367/575
Managerial & professional 41.8% 85/575
Routine & Semi-routine 16.9% 487/575
Degree level 36.3% 178/575
No qualifications 12.4% 529/575
Students 4.9% 423/575
Boundary Changes
East Grinstead and Uckfield consists of
30.3% of Mid Sussex
28.5% of Wealden
16.6% of Horsham
11.5% of Lewes
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_308_East%20Grinstead%20and%20Uckfield_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional Results (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Con | 33462 | 58.5% |
| LD | 13171 | 23.0% |
| Lab | 7768 | 13.6% |
| Grn | 2830 | 4.9% |
| Majority | 20291 | 35.5% |