Post by John Chanin on Nov 12, 2023 11:26:21 GMT
Thanks to bjornhattan and @europeanlefty who did the original profiles for Banbury and Witney which I have referred to. However this is not simply an update but a new profile in my style.
The Banbury constituency has been substantially altered in the latest round of boundary changes. 40% of the old seat, largely consisting of the rapidly growing town of Bicester, has been removed to the new Oxfordshire seat of Bicester & Woodstock. In exchange come in 15,000 voters from the five northern wards of West Oxfordshire District (and Witney seat), based on the Cotswold town of Chipping Norton.
Banbury is a large industrial town, nestled in the upper Cherwell valley alongside the Oxford canal and the M40, with a population of around 60,000 including the suburb of Bodicote. It accounts for just over half of the voters in the new constituency. Best known of its industry is the connection with motorsport, as the base of the formula 1 Haas team, and the largest coffee processing plant in Europe. The town is thriving with low unemployment, unlike many of the industrial towns further north, and is growing quite fast, if not as fast as Bicester. As an industrial town it is quite working class. The hilly Bretch Hill area west of town is dominated by council estates with twice as many routine workers as managerial, and low educational qualifications. It is safely Labour. To the east is Grimsbury, where the town’s substantial Asian population is concentrated. Owner-occupation is only 50% here, with much private renting, and this area is also working-class if not as heavily as to the west, and safely Labour at local elections. In between is the town centre, with its large pedestrianised high street and market square, and the huge modern development at Castle Quays to the north, alongside the Oxford canal. As always the housing is older here, but renting, both council and private is high, and the central Cross & Neithrop ward actually has a lower owner-occupied percentage than Ruscote to the west. It also is Labour, although not quite as heavily. These three Labour wards are contrasted by the two Conservative wards to the north and south, both with large amounts of modern housing. Hardwick to the north is fairly mixed, with a balance between managerial and routine employment, and quite a high level of private renting. The south of town is much more up market, with modern housing in Calthorpe, and a brand new quarter at Longford Park, and older semis along the main A4260 road, including the suburb of Bodicote, outside the town’s boundary but part of a continuous urban area. However even this ward voted Labour in the Conservative’s disastrous 2023 local elections.
The Boundary Commission has named one of its new seats North Cotswolds. This is a misnomer as it is this seat that covers the north Cotswolds. In the north-east on the boundary with Northamptonshire and Warwickshire is Cropredy, known for its folk festival, where the Oxford canal locks over the watershed. Following the arc south-westwards are attractive stone Cotswold villages like Hornton, the neolithic monument of the Rollright stones, Hook Norton, with its famous brewery and giant church, Jeremy Clarkson’s farm near Chadlington, and the one significant settlement in the area, the pleasant market town of Chipping Norton, with its grand neo-classical old town hall in the market square, and a prosperous history based on wool. There is also flatter rural territory towards the Cherwell valley, around the villages of Deddington and the Astons, and in the far south the small mediaeval town of Charlbury on the river Evenlode with its narrow winding streets and old buildings, and a station on the rural Cotswold rail line that connects Oxford with Worcester. In total this rural area accounts for just under half the seat, split fairly evenly between Cherwell and West Oxfordshire districts.
The constituency as a whole resembles many other in the Midlands, where a closely contested town, with a slight Labour bias, is linked with Conservative rural territory around, which keeps the seat as a whole safely in the Conservative column. However it isn’t quite as simple as that. While the rural areas are as middle-class, owner-occupied, and locally Conservative voting as usual, Chipping Norton, depite its posh reputation and association with the Cameron set, votes Labour at local elections. Being a proper town it does have a few more council tenants and routine workers than the surrounding rural area it forms the centre of, but there isn’t much in it, and its political loyalties remain something of a conundrum. Charlbury is smaller, with a population of just 3,000, but is still a proper town. At local level it votes for the Liberal Democrats.
The old Banbury seat has only elected Conservative MPs in living memory, and usually their majorities have been fairly safe. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Labour would sometimes be quite competitive, but back then many more residents worked on the railways or in agriculture, both industries where the trade union movement was strong at the time. Labour's strength rapidly waned and even in the landslide of 1997, they were still 5,000 votes away from victory - a bigger margin than in 1955 when they lost nationally. In the boundary changes the small rural areas lost and gained largely balance out. But Banbury is decidedly more Labour than Bicester, and so probably are Chipping Norton and Charlbury, based on local elections. And Banbury now accounts for a full half of the constituency. This is likely to make the revised seat marginal - Conservative in an average year, but vulnerable to Labour if they have a majority in the country. The notionals here are misleading due to the tactical situation in the old Witney seat that led to an unnaturally low Labour vote. The 2024 result demonstrated this - with the Conservatives at a low ebb, Labour won the seat fairly comfortably. The new MP, replacing former Attorney General Victoria Prentis, is Sean Woodcock, locally born and educated, and a former housing worker.
Census data: Owner-occupied 65% (303/575 in England & Wales), private rented 19% (236th), social rented 15% (283rd)
: White 90%(295th), Black 1%(277th), South Asian 4%(221st), Mixed 2%(272nd), Other 2%(299th)
: Managerial & professional 39% (259th), Routine & Semi-routine 29% (274th)
: Degree level 35%(213rd), Minimal qualifications 27%(304th)
: Students 5% (426th), Over 65- 19% (279th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 79% from Banbury, and 21% from Witney
61% of the old seat is in the new one, with 39% going to Bicester & Woodstock
The Banbury constituency has been substantially altered in the latest round of boundary changes. 40% of the old seat, largely consisting of the rapidly growing town of Bicester, has been removed to the new Oxfordshire seat of Bicester & Woodstock. In exchange come in 15,000 voters from the five northern wards of West Oxfordshire District (and Witney seat), based on the Cotswold town of Chipping Norton.
Banbury is a large industrial town, nestled in the upper Cherwell valley alongside the Oxford canal and the M40, with a population of around 60,000 including the suburb of Bodicote. It accounts for just over half of the voters in the new constituency. Best known of its industry is the connection with motorsport, as the base of the formula 1 Haas team, and the largest coffee processing plant in Europe. The town is thriving with low unemployment, unlike many of the industrial towns further north, and is growing quite fast, if not as fast as Bicester. As an industrial town it is quite working class. The hilly Bretch Hill area west of town is dominated by council estates with twice as many routine workers as managerial, and low educational qualifications. It is safely Labour. To the east is Grimsbury, where the town’s substantial Asian population is concentrated. Owner-occupation is only 50% here, with much private renting, and this area is also working-class if not as heavily as to the west, and safely Labour at local elections. In between is the town centre, with its large pedestrianised high street and market square, and the huge modern development at Castle Quays to the north, alongside the Oxford canal. As always the housing is older here, but renting, both council and private is high, and the central Cross & Neithrop ward actually has a lower owner-occupied percentage than Ruscote to the west. It also is Labour, although not quite as heavily. These three Labour wards are contrasted by the two Conservative wards to the north and south, both with large amounts of modern housing. Hardwick to the north is fairly mixed, with a balance between managerial and routine employment, and quite a high level of private renting. The south of town is much more up market, with modern housing in Calthorpe, and a brand new quarter at Longford Park, and older semis along the main A4260 road, including the suburb of Bodicote, outside the town’s boundary but part of a continuous urban area. However even this ward voted Labour in the Conservative’s disastrous 2023 local elections.
The Boundary Commission has named one of its new seats North Cotswolds. This is a misnomer as it is this seat that covers the north Cotswolds. In the north-east on the boundary with Northamptonshire and Warwickshire is Cropredy, known for its folk festival, where the Oxford canal locks over the watershed. Following the arc south-westwards are attractive stone Cotswold villages like Hornton, the neolithic monument of the Rollright stones, Hook Norton, with its famous brewery and giant church, Jeremy Clarkson’s farm near Chadlington, and the one significant settlement in the area, the pleasant market town of Chipping Norton, with its grand neo-classical old town hall in the market square, and a prosperous history based on wool. There is also flatter rural territory towards the Cherwell valley, around the villages of Deddington and the Astons, and in the far south the small mediaeval town of Charlbury on the river Evenlode with its narrow winding streets and old buildings, and a station on the rural Cotswold rail line that connects Oxford with Worcester. In total this rural area accounts for just under half the seat, split fairly evenly between Cherwell and West Oxfordshire districts.
The constituency as a whole resembles many other in the Midlands, where a closely contested town, with a slight Labour bias, is linked with Conservative rural territory around, which keeps the seat as a whole safely in the Conservative column. However it isn’t quite as simple as that. While the rural areas are as middle-class, owner-occupied, and locally Conservative voting as usual, Chipping Norton, depite its posh reputation and association with the Cameron set, votes Labour at local elections. Being a proper town it does have a few more council tenants and routine workers than the surrounding rural area it forms the centre of, but there isn’t much in it, and its political loyalties remain something of a conundrum. Charlbury is smaller, with a population of just 3,000, but is still a proper town. At local level it votes for the Liberal Democrats.
The old Banbury seat has only elected Conservative MPs in living memory, and usually their majorities have been fairly safe. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Labour would sometimes be quite competitive, but back then many more residents worked on the railways or in agriculture, both industries where the trade union movement was strong at the time. Labour's strength rapidly waned and even in the landslide of 1997, they were still 5,000 votes away from victory - a bigger margin than in 1955 when they lost nationally. In the boundary changes the small rural areas lost and gained largely balance out. But Banbury is decidedly more Labour than Bicester, and so probably are Chipping Norton and Charlbury, based on local elections. And Banbury now accounts for a full half of the constituency. This is likely to make the revised seat marginal - Conservative in an average year, but vulnerable to Labour if they have a majority in the country. The notionals here are misleading due to the tactical situation in the old Witney seat that led to an unnaturally low Labour vote. The 2024 result demonstrated this - with the Conservatives at a low ebb, Labour won the seat fairly comfortably. The new MP, replacing former Attorney General Victoria Prentis, is Sean Woodcock, locally born and educated, and a former housing worker.
Census data: Owner-occupied 65% (303/575 in England & Wales), private rented 19% (236th), social rented 15% (283rd)
: White 90%(295th), Black 1%(277th), South Asian 4%(221st), Mixed 2%(272nd), Other 2%(299th)
: Managerial & professional 39% (259th), Routine & Semi-routine 29% (274th)
: Degree level 35%(213rd), Minimal qualifications 27%(304th)
: Students 5% (426th), Over 65- 19% (279th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 79% from Banbury, and 21% from Witney
61% of the old seat is in the new one, with 39% going to Bicester & Woodstock
| 2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | 2024 | % | |
| Conservative | 33.388 | 54.2 | 34,148 | 54.3 | 26,397 | 52.0 | 15,212 | 31.6 |
| Labour | 20,989 | 34.1 | 17,355 | 27.6 | 12,598 | 24.8 | 18,468 | 38.3 |
| Liberal Democrat | 3,452 | 5.6 | 8,831 | 14.0 | 10,335 | 20.3 | 4,352 | 9.0 |
| UKIP/Reform | 1,581 | 2.6 | 6,284 | 13.0 | ||||
| Green | 1,225 | 2.0 | 2,607 | 4.1 | 1,480 | 2.9 | 2,615 | 5.4 |
| Other | 927 | 1.5 | 1,247 | 2.6 | ||||
| Majority | 12,399 | 20.1 | 16,813 | 26.7 | 13,799 | 27.2 | -3,256 | -6.8 |