Post by Robert Waller on Oct 30, 2023 13:51:10 GMT
This is another updated yellowperil profile, with invaluable boundary changes assistance from Pete Whitehead, and some additions by myself.
Folkestone & Hythe constituency has existed since 1950, and in 2019 comprised as well as, obviously, the contiguous coastal towns of Folkestone and Hythe, two predominantly rural but very different areas. One is Romney Marsh, which self describes as the fifth continent, so you may gather is sturdily independent in its outlook. The Marsh area includes two small market towns, New Romney and Lydd, but the rest is very rural and of course very flat. The other rural area is the predominantly hilly area behind Folkestone and Hythe. Most of that is high up on the North Downs, but it will also include the busy communication corridor at the foot of the Downs, carrying both railways (the old main line heading for Dover and the high speed line), the M20 and the A20. The Channel Tunnel terminal is in this zone. To the south of that traffic corridor, but still part of this same zone, is the greensand ridge forming an inland "cliff" overlooking the Marsh (part of that Saxon Shore, of course).
In 1950 the local government set up within the new constituency reflected this geography pretty well. Folkestone and Hythe were separate boroughs, as were Lydd and New Romney. The deeply rural bit of the Marsh had its own RDC. The hilly back area was another RDC, Elham. Then in 1983 all of this was lumped into a new district coterminous with the parliamentary constituency, but for various reasons the decision was made not to call this new district council Folkestone and Hythe (the pitchforks might have come out on the Marsh at that stage) but instead to call it Shepway. This referred to a famous hill above the Marsh, which allegedly was well known from nursery rhyme, being associated with a certain Jack and Jill. We continued with this strange dichotomy of Shepway/ Folkestone and Hythe until quite recently- the district only changed from Shepway to F&H in 2018. In the 70 years of Folkestone and Hythe constituency there has always been a Conservative MP, and usually with a stonking majority. Of the 20 general elections fought, here 11 produced a Conservative majority in excess of 10,000, and the nearest to defeat they have ever come was in 2001 when Peter Carroll for the Lib Dems managed to reduce Michael Howard's majority down to 5,907. There have only ever been 4 MPs - Harry Mackeson (1950/9), Sir Albert Costain (1959/83), Howard from 1983 to 2010, and the Damian Collins since.
From 2010 onwards the Ashford 2-member ward of Saxon Shore (and now the two single member wards of Saxon Shore and Bircholt) has been part of the Folkestone and Hythe constituency, which probably strengthened the Conservative hold on F&H constituency still further. Given how strong the parliamentary Conservative vote has always been, it is something of a surprise that early in this century the Liberal Democrats were really dominant at the local level. In 2003, for instance, they had 49.1% of the vote in the local elections and 29 out of 46 seats on the council. They led in 7 out of 9 of the Folkestone wards, all 3 wards in Hythe, and even 3 wards in the more rural parts of the district where they clearly were a lot weaker, so the Conservatives were reduced to a couple of Folkestone wards, most of Romney Marsh including Lydd and New Romney and most of the northern rural area- 40.1% of the vote and 19 seats. Since then the Lib Dem collapse has been almost total - by the time the slimmed down council was elected in 2015 there were 22 Conservatives,7 UKIP, and 1 Labour, and the Lib Dems had gone completely.
In May 2023 The current council divided as 5 Conservatives (down 8), 11 Green (up 5), 10 Labour (up 4), 2 Lib Dems (static), and 2 Independents (up 1). Generally speaking, in spite of all the dramatic changes, the overall picture had always been that the Conservatives have always been dominant in the more rural parts of the ward, i.e. Romney Marsh and the old Elham rural district, together with the more affluent bits of Folkestone, while otherwise the towns of Folkestone and Hythe have been pretty volatile, and capable of swinging left or right, a not unknown phenomenon among a lot of south coast seaside resorts/fishing ports. One interesting feature of Hythe is that at local level at least it has now swung strongly Green, gaining all three seats in the town ward in 2019 and retaining them by massive majorities in 2023: the leading candidate achieved a 69% share with the top Conservative on only 23%. The same pattern pertained in Hythe Rural ward – gain in 2019, very strong retain in 2023. In the latter year the Greens also made gains in Cheriton below the tunnel entrance, North Downs East and North Downs West. Labour’s advance in May 2023 was almost as spectacular. They easily gained seats in Folkestone Central and more narrowly in Broadmead, north of Folkestone town centre (by 6 votes) and one in Romney Marsh ward (by 2 votes). The lone Liberal Democrat ward remains Sandgate & Folkestone West, and the Independents added the second seat in New Romney in 2023 at the expense of the Tories.
As for the Conservatives, they only held all the seats in a single ward, Walland & Denge Marsh, along with their share of split representation in Romney Marsh and the two North Downs wards. This was their worst ever performance in Folkestone & Hythe council by some margin, and a steep decline from the 44 out of 46 they took in 2011, for example. Both the wards within Ashford district covering territory in Folkestone & Hythe constituency, Saxon Shore and Bircholt, were Independent victories in May 2023 – the latter a gain from the Tories.
Folkestone & Hythe is not a very upper class seat, and the areas with the highest proportion of routine and semi-routine workers are the east end of Folkestone itself and parts of Romney Marsh, especially Lydd. It has generally lower than average educational qualifications, although this is also a function of being in the 100 seats in England and Wales with the highest percentage of pensioners; the neighbourhoods with most with no educational qualifications are in central and eastern Folkestone and its Cheriton and Shorncliffe districts further west – and the Marsh. The parts with the most holding degrees are west Folkestone and Sandgate, and Hythe especially around Saltwood (location of Kenneth then Alan Clark’s castle, so very familiar to readers of the latter’s entertaining diaries). There is very little social rented housing in the constituency, the estate along the A260 in north east Folkestone being a rare exception. There is however a sizeable private rented sector, reaching 50% in Folkestone Central MSOA in the 2021 census and 58% in Folkestone Harbour.
Folkestone & Hythe has nearly 90,000 electors on current boundaries and in the Boundary Commission proposals, more than 18,500 are to be removed in the area inland from the eponymous towns (the two North Downs wards, East and West, and the part of Ashford borough currently included). Most of this territory goes to the newly configured Ashford seat. This strengthens the influence of the eponymous towns here and especially Folkestone which will now hold more than half the electorate. This takes a big chunk out of the Conservative majority.
Whether this makes the seat marginal depends on just how big a disaster they will have in the next general election. Adding up the May 2023 local election results throughout the constituency on new boundaries, the Greens would have been in the lead, although with less than 29%, followed by Conservatives on 24.6% and Labour on 22.8%. The Liberal Democrats were just under 15% and the 9% polled by Independents adds to the mystery. We now that municipal contests are not a good guide to what happened in Folkestone & Hythe, though, from those years towards the beginning of the century when the Lib Dems flattered to deceive. The Green advance may also have the effect of diluting the challenge to the sitting Conservatives and making it less likely Labour could fully close the gap from their 2019 second place, even if the boundary changes reduce that to a still steep 15,000 plus needing a 17% swing.
However, even discussing the possibility of the Tories losing this seat shows the magnitude if their decline since 2019, and this is not one of those coastal areas in long term economic decline. Indeed, as the terminus of the M20 and the English end of the Channel Tunnel, it has become more lively in recent decades, and the seafront has undergone regeneration in the multiplicity of retail outlets in Harbour Arm complex (at least in the summer). Probably the most likely outcome is a Tory hold with a considerably narrower majority, with some consolation for those agreeing with the politics of one famous former resident of this constituency, Alan Clark, rather than the very much more radical Derek Jarman, who lived on Dungeness for the last decade of his life. Nevertheless that contrast is to some extent reflected in Folkestone & Hythe’s rainbow political colours at local level at least.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 25.1% 81/575
Owner occupied 64.2% 327/575
Private rented 24.3% 127/575
Social rented 11.5% 454/575
White 91.9% 261/575
Black 0.7% 396/575
Asian 4.3% 284/575
Managerial & professional 30.1% 351/575
Routine & Semi-routine 25.1% 236/575
Degree level 26.7% 445/575
No qualifications 20.2% 188/575
Students 4.5% 499/575
General election 2019: Folkestone and Hythe
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative
Damian Collins
35,483 60.1 +5.4
Labour
Laura Davison 14,146 24.0 -4.5
Liberal Democrats
Simon Bishop 5,755 9.8 +2.6
Green
Georgina Treloar 2,706 4.6 +0.4
Independent
Henry Bolton
576 1.0 New
SDP
Colin Menniss 190 0.3 New
Young People's
Rohen Kapur 80 0.1 New
Socialist (GB)
Andy Thomas 69 0.1 New
C Majority 21,337 36.1 +9.9
2019 electorate 88,273
Turnout
59,005 66.8 -1.6
Conservative hold
Swing
5.0 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Folkestone & Hythe consists of
79.1% of Folkestone & Hythe
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_320_Folkestone%20and%20Hythe_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional Result (Rallings & Thrasher)
Folkestone & Hythe constituency has existed since 1950, and in 2019 comprised as well as, obviously, the contiguous coastal towns of Folkestone and Hythe, two predominantly rural but very different areas. One is Romney Marsh, which self describes as the fifth continent, so you may gather is sturdily independent in its outlook. The Marsh area includes two small market towns, New Romney and Lydd, but the rest is very rural and of course very flat. The other rural area is the predominantly hilly area behind Folkestone and Hythe. Most of that is high up on the North Downs, but it will also include the busy communication corridor at the foot of the Downs, carrying both railways (the old main line heading for Dover and the high speed line), the M20 and the A20. The Channel Tunnel terminal is in this zone. To the south of that traffic corridor, but still part of this same zone, is the greensand ridge forming an inland "cliff" overlooking the Marsh (part of that Saxon Shore, of course).
In 1950 the local government set up within the new constituency reflected this geography pretty well. Folkestone and Hythe were separate boroughs, as were Lydd and New Romney. The deeply rural bit of the Marsh had its own RDC. The hilly back area was another RDC, Elham. Then in 1983 all of this was lumped into a new district coterminous with the parliamentary constituency, but for various reasons the decision was made not to call this new district council Folkestone and Hythe (the pitchforks might have come out on the Marsh at that stage) but instead to call it Shepway. This referred to a famous hill above the Marsh, which allegedly was well known from nursery rhyme, being associated with a certain Jack and Jill. We continued with this strange dichotomy of Shepway/ Folkestone and Hythe until quite recently- the district only changed from Shepway to F&H in 2018. In the 70 years of Folkestone and Hythe constituency there has always been a Conservative MP, and usually with a stonking majority. Of the 20 general elections fought, here 11 produced a Conservative majority in excess of 10,000, and the nearest to defeat they have ever come was in 2001 when Peter Carroll for the Lib Dems managed to reduce Michael Howard's majority down to 5,907. There have only ever been 4 MPs - Harry Mackeson (1950/9), Sir Albert Costain (1959/83), Howard from 1983 to 2010, and the Damian Collins since.
From 2010 onwards the Ashford 2-member ward of Saxon Shore (and now the two single member wards of Saxon Shore and Bircholt) has been part of the Folkestone and Hythe constituency, which probably strengthened the Conservative hold on F&H constituency still further. Given how strong the parliamentary Conservative vote has always been, it is something of a surprise that early in this century the Liberal Democrats were really dominant at the local level. In 2003, for instance, they had 49.1% of the vote in the local elections and 29 out of 46 seats on the council. They led in 7 out of 9 of the Folkestone wards, all 3 wards in Hythe, and even 3 wards in the more rural parts of the district where they clearly were a lot weaker, so the Conservatives were reduced to a couple of Folkestone wards, most of Romney Marsh including Lydd and New Romney and most of the northern rural area- 40.1% of the vote and 19 seats. Since then the Lib Dem collapse has been almost total - by the time the slimmed down council was elected in 2015 there were 22 Conservatives,7 UKIP, and 1 Labour, and the Lib Dems had gone completely.
In May 2023 The current council divided as 5 Conservatives (down 8), 11 Green (up 5), 10 Labour (up 4), 2 Lib Dems (static), and 2 Independents (up 1). Generally speaking, in spite of all the dramatic changes, the overall picture had always been that the Conservatives have always been dominant in the more rural parts of the ward, i.e. Romney Marsh and the old Elham rural district, together with the more affluent bits of Folkestone, while otherwise the towns of Folkestone and Hythe have been pretty volatile, and capable of swinging left or right, a not unknown phenomenon among a lot of south coast seaside resorts/fishing ports. One interesting feature of Hythe is that at local level at least it has now swung strongly Green, gaining all three seats in the town ward in 2019 and retaining them by massive majorities in 2023: the leading candidate achieved a 69% share with the top Conservative on only 23%. The same pattern pertained in Hythe Rural ward – gain in 2019, very strong retain in 2023. In the latter year the Greens also made gains in Cheriton below the tunnel entrance, North Downs East and North Downs West. Labour’s advance in May 2023 was almost as spectacular. They easily gained seats in Folkestone Central and more narrowly in Broadmead, north of Folkestone town centre (by 6 votes) and one in Romney Marsh ward (by 2 votes). The lone Liberal Democrat ward remains Sandgate & Folkestone West, and the Independents added the second seat in New Romney in 2023 at the expense of the Tories.
As for the Conservatives, they only held all the seats in a single ward, Walland & Denge Marsh, along with their share of split representation in Romney Marsh and the two North Downs wards. This was their worst ever performance in Folkestone & Hythe council by some margin, and a steep decline from the 44 out of 46 they took in 2011, for example. Both the wards within Ashford district covering territory in Folkestone & Hythe constituency, Saxon Shore and Bircholt, were Independent victories in May 2023 – the latter a gain from the Tories.
Folkestone & Hythe is not a very upper class seat, and the areas with the highest proportion of routine and semi-routine workers are the east end of Folkestone itself and parts of Romney Marsh, especially Lydd. It has generally lower than average educational qualifications, although this is also a function of being in the 100 seats in England and Wales with the highest percentage of pensioners; the neighbourhoods with most with no educational qualifications are in central and eastern Folkestone and its Cheriton and Shorncliffe districts further west – and the Marsh. The parts with the most holding degrees are west Folkestone and Sandgate, and Hythe especially around Saltwood (location of Kenneth then Alan Clark’s castle, so very familiar to readers of the latter’s entertaining diaries). There is very little social rented housing in the constituency, the estate along the A260 in north east Folkestone being a rare exception. There is however a sizeable private rented sector, reaching 50% in Folkestone Central MSOA in the 2021 census and 58% in Folkestone Harbour.
Folkestone & Hythe has nearly 90,000 electors on current boundaries and in the Boundary Commission proposals, more than 18,500 are to be removed in the area inland from the eponymous towns (the two North Downs wards, East and West, and the part of Ashford borough currently included). Most of this territory goes to the newly configured Ashford seat. This strengthens the influence of the eponymous towns here and especially Folkestone which will now hold more than half the electorate. This takes a big chunk out of the Conservative majority.
Whether this makes the seat marginal depends on just how big a disaster they will have in the next general election. Adding up the May 2023 local election results throughout the constituency on new boundaries, the Greens would have been in the lead, although with less than 29%, followed by Conservatives on 24.6% and Labour on 22.8%. The Liberal Democrats were just under 15% and the 9% polled by Independents adds to the mystery. We now that municipal contests are not a good guide to what happened in Folkestone & Hythe, though, from those years towards the beginning of the century when the Lib Dems flattered to deceive. The Green advance may also have the effect of diluting the challenge to the sitting Conservatives and making it less likely Labour could fully close the gap from their 2019 second place, even if the boundary changes reduce that to a still steep 15,000 plus needing a 17% swing.
However, even discussing the possibility of the Tories losing this seat shows the magnitude if their decline since 2019, and this is not one of those coastal areas in long term economic decline. Indeed, as the terminus of the M20 and the English end of the Channel Tunnel, it has become more lively in recent decades, and the seafront has undergone regeneration in the multiplicity of retail outlets in Harbour Arm complex (at least in the summer). Probably the most likely outcome is a Tory hold with a considerably narrower majority, with some consolation for those agreeing with the politics of one famous former resident of this constituency, Alan Clark, rather than the very much more radical Derek Jarman, who lived on Dungeness for the last decade of his life. Nevertheless that contrast is to some extent reflected in Folkestone & Hythe’s rainbow political colours at local level at least.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 25.1% 81/575
Owner occupied 64.2% 327/575
Private rented 24.3% 127/575
Social rented 11.5% 454/575
White 91.9% 261/575
Black 0.7% 396/575
Asian 4.3% 284/575
Managerial & professional 30.1% 351/575
Routine & Semi-routine 25.1% 236/575
Degree level 26.7% 445/575
No qualifications 20.2% 188/575
Students 4.5% 499/575
General election 2019: Folkestone and Hythe
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative
Damian Collins
35,483 60.1 +5.4
Labour
Laura Davison 14,146 24.0 -4.5
Liberal Democrats
Simon Bishop 5,755 9.8 +2.6
Green
Georgina Treloar 2,706 4.6 +0.4
Independent
Henry Bolton
576 1.0 New
SDP
Colin Menniss 190 0.3 New
Young People's
Rohen Kapur 80 0.1 New
Socialist (GB)
Andy Thomas 69 0.1 New
C Majority 21,337 36.1 +9.9
2019 electorate 88,273
Turnout
59,005 66.8 -1.6
Conservative hold
Swing
5.0 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Folkestone & Hythe consists of
79.1% of Folkestone & Hythe
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_320_Folkestone%20and%20Hythe_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional Result (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Con | 25227 | 56.3% |
| Lab | 11988 | 26.8% |
| LD | 4481 | 10.0% |
| Grn | 2184 | 4.9% |
| Oths | 915 | 2.0% |
| Majority | 13239 | 29.6% |