Post by John Chanin on Oct 12, 2023 9:51:06 GMT
The large town of Loughborough, which sits alongside the river Soar and the adjacent Grand Union canal on its way from Leicester to its junction with the Trent just south of Nottingham, has an electorate of just under 50,000, and accounts for two-thirds of the constituency named after it. It is predominantly a Labour town, with 15 councillors elected at the last local elections compared to 2 Conservatives, and a 20% Labour majority in terms of votes. At the 2021 county elections, admittedly a good year for the Conservatives, the majority was only 1% however, with Labour winning 3 of the 5 seats. In this it is very different from the Midlands towns to the south, and hasn’t seen the same swing to the Conservatives over the last decade. One reason for this is the presence of a large university, based to the south-west of the town, which has some 18,000 students, and is far more than the famous sporting centre, which has also sprouted national sporting institutions like the National Cricket Academy, and National Tennis Academy. Half the population of Nanpantan and Ashby wards which cover the large campus are students.
The town centre, with the Grand Union canal winding to the east and north of it, has a lot of older terraced housing. Less than 40% are owner-occupiers here, with significant numbers of council tenants, as well as the private tenants generally associated with universities. East of the centre and the A6, there is a large asian population. Two of the wards here are safely Labour, while the Southfields ward, which contains the main shopping centre, is marginal, with more up market older property as well as the students, where managerial workers exceed routine and educational qualifications are higher. Outwoods west of the university is almost entirely modern owner-occupied housing and accordingly safely Conservative. There is extensive post-war council housing north of the main road to Shepshed, and this is Labour territory. There are more new estates in the north-west of the town, where the old hamlet of Thorpe Acre has been absorbed, but the satellite of Hathern has not. This area is marginal too. More inter and post-war development has taken place in Shelthorpe and Woodthorpe to the south-east, including quite a lot of council housing, and this area is normally Labour, although still middle class.
The rest of the constituency consists of two parts. The town of Shepshed to the west on the other side of the M1 provides 11,000 voters. As its name suggests (Sheeps Head) it was originally built on the wool trade, but these days it essentially provides commuters to Leicester and Nottingham (and to some degree Loughborough). It is quite down market with low educational qualifications and a rundown centre. There are Labour voters here too, though not as many as there used to be, and there is normally a modest Conservative surplus in the town, although both wards were split in 2023. However the Conservative votes stack up in the two large commuter villages to the south of the town - Quorn and Barrow-on-Soar - with some 11,500 voters. As with all commuter villages they are overwhelmingly owner-occupied, with a high proportion of managerial workers. There is also a small rural addendum around the village of Burton-on-the-Wolds with just 2500 voters.
Quorn, with its famous hunt, has only an indirect relationship with the dubious meat substitute named after it, which was never made or invented in the village. There was in the early 20th century a Leicestershire firm called Quorn which made sauces, and was one of many companies absorbed by the growth of the Rank Hovis MacDougall conglomerate. Searching for a name for their new product an executive at RHM chanced on the quirky quorn, which was a trademark already owned by RHM, and so inadvertently gave prominance to the village. Quorn also has a station on the “heritage” railway that runs steam trains on summer weekends between Loughborough and the Leicester suburb of Birstall. Although one does wonder both what decarbonization will do to steam trains, and why anyone who doesn’t live there would want to go to Birstall.
Overall this adds up to a marginal seat, held by Labour from 1945 to 1979, and 1997 to 2010, when the Conservatives gained it with a modest majority. However while there has always been a constituency based on the town the borders have changed substantially with the creation of the new seats of NW Leicestershire in 1983 and Charnwood in 1997. The former removed Shepshed and part of the Leicestershire coalfield which had made the constituency normally Labour, and the latter returned Shepshed while losing some of the commuter villages added in 1983, which made it better for Labour again. If you arrange seats on a Conservative-Labour continuum, the seat was exactly median in 2019, and therefore a seat that Labour must win to get a plurality of seats. The majority was lower in 2019 than 2015 which is unusual, suggesting that there may be a small trend to Labour. They will be helped a little by the boundary changes, as 6000 predominently Conservative voters in Sileby, on the Soar to the south of Barrow, will be removed to the reformed Melton seat. The MP here is Jane Hunt, first elected in 2019 in succession to former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan who won the seat from Labour in 2010, and employed Hunt as an advisor.
Census data: Owner-occupied 65% (317/575 in England & Wales), private rented 21% (182nd), social rented 14% (326th).
: White 83%(378th), Black 2%(229th), South Asian 8%(134th), Mixed 3%(242nd), Other 4%(190th)
: Managerial & professional 41% (227th), Routine & Semi-routine 29% (273rd)
: Degree level 33%(261st), Minimal qualifications 22%(470th)
: Students 20% (22nd), Over 65- 17% (364th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 100% from Loughborough
92% of the old seat is in the new one, with 8% going to Melton & Syston
The town centre, with the Grand Union canal winding to the east and north of it, has a lot of older terraced housing. Less than 40% are owner-occupiers here, with significant numbers of council tenants, as well as the private tenants generally associated with universities. East of the centre and the A6, there is a large asian population. Two of the wards here are safely Labour, while the Southfields ward, which contains the main shopping centre, is marginal, with more up market older property as well as the students, where managerial workers exceed routine and educational qualifications are higher. Outwoods west of the university is almost entirely modern owner-occupied housing and accordingly safely Conservative. There is extensive post-war council housing north of the main road to Shepshed, and this is Labour territory. There are more new estates in the north-west of the town, where the old hamlet of Thorpe Acre has been absorbed, but the satellite of Hathern has not. This area is marginal too. More inter and post-war development has taken place in Shelthorpe and Woodthorpe to the south-east, including quite a lot of council housing, and this area is normally Labour, although still middle class.
The rest of the constituency consists of two parts. The town of Shepshed to the west on the other side of the M1 provides 11,000 voters. As its name suggests (Sheeps Head) it was originally built on the wool trade, but these days it essentially provides commuters to Leicester and Nottingham (and to some degree Loughborough). It is quite down market with low educational qualifications and a rundown centre. There are Labour voters here too, though not as many as there used to be, and there is normally a modest Conservative surplus in the town, although both wards were split in 2023. However the Conservative votes stack up in the two large commuter villages to the south of the town - Quorn and Barrow-on-Soar - with some 11,500 voters. As with all commuter villages they are overwhelmingly owner-occupied, with a high proportion of managerial workers. There is also a small rural addendum around the village of Burton-on-the-Wolds with just 2500 voters.
Quorn, with its famous hunt, has only an indirect relationship with the dubious meat substitute named after it, which was never made or invented in the village. There was in the early 20th century a Leicestershire firm called Quorn which made sauces, and was one of many companies absorbed by the growth of the Rank Hovis MacDougall conglomerate. Searching for a name for their new product an executive at RHM chanced on the quirky quorn, which was a trademark already owned by RHM, and so inadvertently gave prominance to the village. Quorn also has a station on the “heritage” railway that runs steam trains on summer weekends between Loughborough and the Leicester suburb of Birstall. Although one does wonder both what decarbonization will do to steam trains, and why anyone who doesn’t live there would want to go to Birstall.
Overall this adds up to a marginal seat, held by Labour from 1945 to 1979, and 1997 to 2010, when the Conservatives gained it with a modest majority. However while there has always been a constituency based on the town the borders have changed substantially with the creation of the new seats of NW Leicestershire in 1983 and Charnwood in 1997. The former removed Shepshed and part of the Leicestershire coalfield which had made the constituency normally Labour, and the latter returned Shepshed while losing some of the commuter villages added in 1983, which made it better for Labour again. If you arrange seats on a Conservative-Labour continuum, the seat was exactly median in 2019, and therefore a seat that Labour must win to get a plurality of seats. The majority was lower in 2019 than 2015 which is unusual, suggesting that there may be a small trend to Labour. They will be helped a little by the boundary changes, as 6000 predominently Conservative voters in Sileby, on the Soar to the south of Barrow, will be removed to the reformed Melton seat. The MP here is Jane Hunt, first elected in 2019 in succession to former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan who won the seat from Labour in 2010, and employed Hunt as an advisor.
Census data: Owner-occupied 65% (317/575 in England & Wales), private rented 21% (182nd), social rented 14% (326th).
: White 83%(378th), Black 2%(229th), South Asian 8%(134th), Mixed 3%(242nd), Other 4%(190th)
: Managerial & professional 41% (227th), Routine & Semi-routine 29% (273rd)
: Degree level 33%(261st), Minimal qualifications 22%(470th)
: Students 20% (22nd), Over 65- 17% (364th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 100% from Loughborough
92% of the old seat is in the new one, with 8% going to Melton & Syston
2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | |
Conservative | 27,022 | 49.9 | 27,954 | 51.2 | 26,088 | 50.6 |
Labour | 22,753 | 42.0 | 20,785 | 38.0 | 19,997 | 38.8 |
Liberal Democrat | 1,937 | 3.6 | 4,153 | 7.6 | 3,935 | 7.6 |
UKIP | 1,465 | 2.7 | ||||
Green | 971 | 1.8 | 1,504 | 2.8 | 1,342 | 2.6 |
Other | 235 | 0.4 | 235 | 0.5 | ||
| Majority | 4,269 | 7.9 | 7,169 | 13.1 | 6,091 | 11.8 |
