Post by John Chanin on Oct 20, 2023 13:58:02 GMT
There are many medium sized towns in the country where there is close competition between Labour and Conservative. However they need the addition of a rural hinterland, which is normally very Conservative, in order to reach the appropriate size, and means the constituency will be vulnerable to Labour only in landslide conditions. There are also many places in the country where the Liberal Democrats provide the main competition to the Conservatives locally, while polling well behind Labour at General Elections, which makes it hard to be sure exactly where the Labour vote comes from by looking at local election results. Both these things apply to the Aylesbury constituency.
Aylesbury is a large town with a population of 75,000 and accounts for two-thirds of the seat named after it. It sits at an important junction where the road up the Vale of Aylesbury meets the main road through the Chilterns (and also the railway and the Grand Union canal). It is the county town of Buckinghamshire with a large shopping centre, a new theatre by the canal, and plenty of public sector workers. In popular culture it is probably best known for the Aylesbury duck - a large white domestic breed of uncertain origin which was widely bred in the area from the 1700s. The town has grown rapidly in size since the 1960s, and as a result most of the housing is post-war, and it is still expanding at a rapid rate. The Southcourt area in the south-west has a lot of council housing and is very working class with the lowest educational qualifications, and the highest number of routine workers. Gatehouse to the north, and Walton Court to the east are more of the same. On the north side of the town by the river Thame there is more council housing plus extensive new estates, where rapid development continues. Bedgrove east of the A41 is considerably up market, almost wholly owner-occupied and with a high level of managerial workers, as is the area straddling the mainline railway to the west of the A41 where there are extensive new estates. The area inside the ring road, which contains the town centre is the older part of town, and is also mostly middle-class, although with high levels of private renting, and this is where the substantial Asian population of around 13% is concentrated. There are more council estates in Elmhurst alongside the ring road in the north. And to the north-east there are more new developments, partly outside the boundaries of the Aylesbury wards, and included in the territory added to Aylesbury in the boundary review. In summary Aylesbury is not a particularly high status town. Politically the working class areas used to vote Labour and the middle-class ones Conservative, and the latter still hold the 2 up market wards in the south, but at local level the rest of the town, older areas and new, council estates and owner-occupiers, asian and white, working class and more middling, all now vote Liberal Democrat.
Buckinghamshire is entitled to an extra seat as a result of the population growth in the town and the continuing expansion of Milton Keynes. This has led to an almost complete change in the areas outside the town included in the parliamentary seat. Only the village of Aston Clinton on the A41 and the Grand Union canal remains in the seat. Out go Stoke Mandeville and Wendover to the south. And out goes the Chiltern ridge section which stretched a long way to the south-west. In exchange comes an area formerly in Buckingham constituency. On the edges of Aylesbury around Weedon and Bierton there is new housing as the town continues to expand, with social housing estates as well as owner-occupied, that have now been partly consolidated into an Aylesbury ward. On the main road between Aylesbury and Leighton Buzzard are the large villages of Wing and Wingrave. Lastly there is a salient extending up into the Chilterns at the south-east, which looks more to Leighton Buzzard to the north. There is nothing but small villages in this sparsely populated section that sits to the north of the Tring gap through the Chilterns. Both areas lost and gained are very middle-class, with over 50% managerial occupations, and pretty solidly Conservative, although there is some Liberal Democrat activity and a lone councillor around Wing. However the 28,000 voters lost are more than the 18,000 gained, and Aylesbury will therefore be rather less safe in future, although still Conservative in a normal year, as the rural voters will tip the balance from the fairly evenly divided town. However the 2024 result was grim. The Conservatives lost half their vote, which was not untypical. But this was a seat where the Liberal Democrats had a strong local presence and finished a decent third in 2019. And their vote held up much better than in many other seats, helped no doubt by the fact that they had been a clear second in the quarter of the seat coming in from Buckingham. Labour did just enough to win the seat by a three figure margin, with an increased share of the vote and a 15% swing, but only just over 30% vote share. Only two seats were won by Labour with a lower vote share. The new MP, replacing single term Rob Butler, is Laura Kyrke-Smith, formerly working for refugee charities. This is some change from the two Conservative cabinet members previously representing the seat - Timothy Raison and David Lidington. Her chances of retaining the seat are very slim.
Census data: Owner-occupied 68% (231/575 in England & Wales), private rented 17% (354th), social rented 15% (273rd).
: White 78%(416th), Black 4%(165th), South Asian 10%(103rd), Mixed 4%(156th), Other 4%(191st)
: Managerial & professional 42% (192nd), Routine & Semi-routine 24% (387th)
: Degree level 35%(219th), Minimal qualifications 26%(347th)
: Students 5% (325th), Over 65- 16% (426th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 76% from Aylesbury, and 24% from Buckingham
67% of the old seat is in the new one, with 32% going to Mid Buckinghamshire, and 1% to Wycombe
Aylesbury is a large town with a population of 75,000 and accounts for two-thirds of the seat named after it. It sits at an important junction where the road up the Vale of Aylesbury meets the main road through the Chilterns (and also the railway and the Grand Union canal). It is the county town of Buckinghamshire with a large shopping centre, a new theatre by the canal, and plenty of public sector workers. In popular culture it is probably best known for the Aylesbury duck - a large white domestic breed of uncertain origin which was widely bred in the area from the 1700s. The town has grown rapidly in size since the 1960s, and as a result most of the housing is post-war, and it is still expanding at a rapid rate. The Southcourt area in the south-west has a lot of council housing and is very working class with the lowest educational qualifications, and the highest number of routine workers. Gatehouse to the north, and Walton Court to the east are more of the same. On the north side of the town by the river Thame there is more council housing plus extensive new estates, where rapid development continues. Bedgrove east of the A41 is considerably up market, almost wholly owner-occupied and with a high level of managerial workers, as is the area straddling the mainline railway to the west of the A41 where there are extensive new estates. The area inside the ring road, which contains the town centre is the older part of town, and is also mostly middle-class, although with high levels of private renting, and this is where the substantial Asian population of around 13% is concentrated. There are more council estates in Elmhurst alongside the ring road in the north. And to the north-east there are more new developments, partly outside the boundaries of the Aylesbury wards, and included in the territory added to Aylesbury in the boundary review. In summary Aylesbury is not a particularly high status town. Politically the working class areas used to vote Labour and the middle-class ones Conservative, and the latter still hold the 2 up market wards in the south, but at local level the rest of the town, older areas and new, council estates and owner-occupiers, asian and white, working class and more middling, all now vote Liberal Democrat.
Buckinghamshire is entitled to an extra seat as a result of the population growth in the town and the continuing expansion of Milton Keynes. This has led to an almost complete change in the areas outside the town included in the parliamentary seat. Only the village of Aston Clinton on the A41 and the Grand Union canal remains in the seat. Out go Stoke Mandeville and Wendover to the south. And out goes the Chiltern ridge section which stretched a long way to the south-west. In exchange comes an area formerly in Buckingham constituency. On the edges of Aylesbury around Weedon and Bierton there is new housing as the town continues to expand, with social housing estates as well as owner-occupied, that have now been partly consolidated into an Aylesbury ward. On the main road between Aylesbury and Leighton Buzzard are the large villages of Wing and Wingrave. Lastly there is a salient extending up into the Chilterns at the south-east, which looks more to Leighton Buzzard to the north. There is nothing but small villages in this sparsely populated section that sits to the north of the Tring gap through the Chilterns. Both areas lost and gained are very middle-class, with over 50% managerial occupations, and pretty solidly Conservative, although there is some Liberal Democrat activity and a lone councillor around Wing. However the 28,000 voters lost are more than the 18,000 gained, and Aylesbury will therefore be rather less safe in future, although still Conservative in a normal year, as the rural voters will tip the balance from the fairly evenly divided town. However the 2024 result was grim. The Conservatives lost half their vote, which was not untypical. But this was a seat where the Liberal Democrats had a strong local presence and finished a decent third in 2019. And their vote held up much better than in many other seats, helped no doubt by the fact that they had been a clear second in the quarter of the seat coming in from Buckingham. Labour did just enough to win the seat by a three figure margin, with an increased share of the vote and a 15% swing, but only just over 30% vote share. Only two seats were won by Labour with a lower vote share. The new MP, replacing single term Rob Butler, is Laura Kyrke-Smith, formerly working for refugee charities. This is some change from the two Conservative cabinet members previously representing the seat - Timothy Raison and David Lidington. Her chances of retaining the seat are very slim.
Census data: Owner-occupied 68% (231/575 in England & Wales), private rented 17% (354th), social rented 15% (273rd).
: White 78%(416th), Black 4%(165th), South Asian 10%(103rd), Mixed 4%(156th), Other 4%(191st)
: Managerial & professional 42% (192nd), Routine & Semi-routine 24% (387th)
: Degree level 35%(219th), Minimal qualifications 26%(347th)
: Students 5% (325th), Over 65- 16% (426th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 76% from Aylesbury, and 24% from Buckingham
67% of the old seat is in the new one, with 32% going to Mid Buckinghamshire, and 1% to Wycombe
| 2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | 2024 | % | |
| Conservative | 32,313 | 55.0 | 32,737 | 54.0 | 29,924 | 51.7 | 14,451 | 28.9 |
| Labour | 17,617 | 30.0 | 15,364 | 25.4 | 13,284 | 23.0 | 15,081 | 30.2 |
| Liberal Democrat | 5,660 | 9.6 | 10,081 | 16.6 | 12,670 | 21.9 | 10,440 | 20.9 |
| UKIP/Reform | 1,296 | 2.2 | 309 | 0.5 | 6,746 | 13.5 | ||
| Green | 1,237 | 2.1 | 2,394 | 4.0 | 1,701 | 2.9 | 2,590 | 5.2 |
| Other | 620 | 1.1 | 632 | 1.2 | ||||
| Majority | 14,696 | 25.0 | 17,373 | 28.7 | 16,640 | 28.8 | -630 | -1.3 |
