Post by bsjmcr on Dec 10, 2023 2:24:09 GMT
Both of the Borough of Rochdale's constituencies are currently too large, and so boundary changes have caused the boundary commissioner's pen to slice the town of Middleton in half, in return for gaining the oddly-named Spotland and Falinge ward from Rochdale to bring it into quota. The southern half of Middleton will join Blackley in Manchester (I'm quite happy to do that one too if the originator of the Blackley and Broughton profile doesn't mind). There are probably several alternative scenarios for Greater Manchester that doesn't involve splitting an entire town that wasn't split before, but it is Middleton that drew the short straw, which does not help its often-felt 'left-behind' status.
Although on the face of it you wouldn't perhaps believe it, the previous Heywood and Middleton constituency has actually produced some remarkable election results in the last decade. It was one of the more unprecedented Conservative gains in 2019, having never been taken by the party in the history of the seat, as the 2017 result was a not-really-marginal majority of almost 8,000 for Labour, notwithstanding a stubborn 3,000 votes for UKIP at that election even though their raison d'être seemed extinct at the time. On 6th September 2014 all eyes and cameras were on Clacton to see if UKIP defector Douglas Carswell would keep his seat, he did, but nobody seemed to talk about how UKIP were in recount territory here, where Labour held by just 617 votes - though that was an increased vote share - UKIP's votes coming at the expense of Tories and Lib Dem votes. Less than a year later at the general election and this seat did still produce one of the best results for UKIP in the country, but they still finished runners up, 5,000 votes behind Labour. Going back further, it should also be noted that the BNP comfortably held their deposit with 7% in 2010.
Why is this? Well the two eponymous towns would have been thriving during the Industrial Revolution as cotton mill towns, but as they closed and with little other industry to fall back on, they became pretty deprived and depressed. Covering the western half of the Rochdale borough, there must be disaffection with and detachment from Rochdale proper as well. Those with no qualifications is higher than average, and the proportion of graduates much lower. As such the percentage of professionals and managers is significantly lower than average and elementary occupations higher. Heywood is particularly working class and has struggled for some time, despite being surrounded by green belt and hills to the north. There are attempts at job creation here with the huge Heywood Distribution Park which takes advantage of its convenient location near the motorway. One of the largest if not the largest such 'park' in the North West, it is a local hub of logistics and industry. A few years ago, Elon Musk almost chose Heywood as the location to build his latest line of Teslas, but he went with Berlin in the end (I wonder why?). A sliver of green space and the M62 separates it from Middleton to the south. This buffer between the two towns is being earmarked for some major development under the 'Northern Gateway' element of the ambitious 'Atom Valley' proposals (an echo of Silicon Valley, with reference to Rutherford splitting the Atom at the University of Manchester). Considered a 'Mayoral Development Zone', it would see the green belt decimated in favour of offices and industrial developments with the aim of creating thousands of 'high-tech jobs' and would see thousands of homes across built across this part of Heywood and Middleton.
At present, Middleton is equally working class as its neighbour, also formerly industrial, and dominated by the notorious Langley estate, one of the larger 1960s overspill estates commissioned by Manchester City Council (outside their boundaries, of course Wythenshawe is the biggest). The tower blocks are mostly gone but the depressing terraces are still there and house prices much cheaper than neighbouring Prestwich or even Blackley. The only affluent part of Middleton, Alkrington 'Garden Village', is no longer in this constituency as it is part of 'Middleton South' that is to join Blackley on the other side of the M60 ring-road.
Public transport connections are noticeably surprisingly poor in this area, with no trams at all despite repeated calls by local representatives, for the Metrolink to expand here. The next phase of Metrolink expansion is set to benefit the more well-off Stockport instead. It is little wonder that the areas have felt neglected over the years. There are only sporadic rail stations at Castleton and Mills Hill, and whilst Heywood has a railway station - it is for the heritage East Lancashire Railway! Therefore cars are the only alternative to the slow bus services, something that the Mayor Andy Burnham has highlighted himself by taking a journey from Middleton to MediaCity Salford by public transport, which took well over an hour compared to little over 20 minutes drive.
This is a surprisingly green constituency in more ways than one - it includes most of Scout Moor Wind Farm in the far north, the second largest onshore wind farm in the country. The sparser population can be illustrated in the map of this constituency which is the same length as the neighbouring Bury North and South constituencies combined! Most of the northern area is uninhabited for miles, stretching into the Pennines with several reservoirs, moors and great scenery.
There are some pockets of relative affluence in this constituency, namely in the Rochdale suburbs of Norden and Bamford. These are and have always been safe Conservative seats on the Rochdale Council and would have been the bedrock of the constituency's Conservative vote here through thick and thin (which was never too derisory, only dipping below 10,000 in '05 and '15). There is particularly opulent housing and some mansions to be seen in Bamford and Norden, with the distant hills (and wind turbines) a permanent fixture of the landscape, not what you would think of when you think Rochdale. As alluded to earlier, the Green Belt land between Heywood and Middleton to the west however has been at risk of being lost under the 'Greater Manchester Spatial Framework', which plans a massive extension to the Heywood industrial complex which would see most of the current farmland gone. The manor houses once owned by the factory owners and aristocrats round here have sadly seen better days. Hopwood Hall gives its name to a council ward in Heywood (safely Labour) and Sixth Form college and currently stands derelict. Tonge Hall in Middleton even worse so having been set on fire and just about remains standing.
The new constituency shall now edge even closer to the town centre of Rochdale by addition of Spotland and Falinge. It could not be more different to Norden and Bamford though, bringing in declining terraces to the north-west of the town centre. These areas are more similar to Heywood in terms of deprivation and occupation. However what makes it more 'Rochdale' in character as well as proximity is that it will bring in a significant Asian population into this constituency, as the ward has around 30% Asian/Asian British population. This brings the new Heywood and Middleton North constituency broadly in line with the national average in terms of ethnic makeup, as previously it was whiter than average (the towns of Heywood and Middleton themselves continue to be less diverse than its neighbours). In some ways the Heywood and Middleton North by encroaching Rochdale, as a concept becomes more like Colne Valley or Faversham and Mid Kent by taking in significant parts of its borough's principal town despite its name (Huddersfield and Maidstone respectively in these two examples)
At its incarnation in 1983 the old Heywood and Middleton seat was held by Jim Callaghan (not that one) who astutely followed his Middleton voters from Prestwich and Middleton where he had been since 1974 (at the time Prestwich was still a Tory stronghold). He took it with a majority of 4,000 in Labour's then-nadir and remained here until retiring in 1997. A health centre in Heywood is named after him in honour of his long and dedicated service to the area. Jim Dobbin took over in 1997, with more than double his predecessor's majority at over 17,500. A rare scientist MP (formerly a microbiologist at nearby Royal Oldham Hospital) he had been a local councillor for some time beforehand. His majority was trimmed to less than 6,000 in 2010 when current Bath MP Wera Hobhouse was the Lib Dem candidate who came a close 3rd. Dobbin tragically died in 2014, precipitating the by-election at which Liz McInnes snuck in to Parliament. Remarkably she is also a former biochemist, born in Oldham, Oxford-educated and based in Rossendale to the north prior to her election. She did a good job to boost her majority in 2015 and 17, but was toppled in 2019 by 663 votes. One of her more notable moments towards the end of her tenure was her incessant heckling of former Labour turned independent MPs Ian Austin and Ivan Lewis on a late night sitting.
The 2019 victor is Chris Clarkson, a former Councillor in Salford, for the affluent Worsley ward. In such a marginal seat that will almost certainly swing back, plus with impending boundary changes it is little surprise that he has decided to stand down. Whilst in theory the addition of the Rochdale ward should further increase Labour's chances, it is by no means certain that if it existed in 2019 it would not have swung to the Conservatives on the back of Get Brexit Done, as Spotland and Falinge has shown an anti-Labour sentiment at times, with strong results for the Lib Dems in the past, and UKIP had been runners up in both the council ward and the Rochdale parliamentary constituency in the mid-2010s, albeit not as close as they came in Heywood and Middleton. In some parts UKIP and the Brexit movement gained support from Asian as well as white working class communities alike, over issues such as Eastern European immigration, for example.
In all, whether you like the term or not, this is the typical 'red wall' seat that Labour must win comfortably, without recounts, in their first attempt at the next election to be with any chance of forming the next government, by regaining the trust of communities that had previously felt taken for granted.
When the 2024 exit poll was announced, showing Reform UK gaining a clutch of seats, more than UKIP ever did, you'd be forgiven for thinking this would be one of them given how close they came in the past, alas this could be an example of an area Reform underperformed. Labour's Elsie Blundell easily regained it (or technically held it as the new boundaries made it notionally Labour, just about) with comfortable majority of 6,082 over Reform, followed by a new Conservative candidate and a strong independent (no, not Galloway, that's next door...) and even the Lib Dem held their deposit. For some reason, this was the only constituency in England the Green Party did not stand in. Mrs Blundell is a Rochdale councillor (as is her husband, who also tried for selection here) and was pregnant during the campaign, giving birth to her child at the end of September. She is a former Transport Strategy officer for TfGM, and as such already sits on the Transport Select Committee, appropriate for an area underserved by public transport connections.
As for Chris Clarkson, he ended up being an example of a failed 'chicken run', heading over 100 miles away to the south to stand in Stratford-on-Avon instead, with the aim of inheriting Nadhim Zahawi's seat, using the boundary changes here as an excuse. In the event he lost convincingly to the Liberal Democrat candidate.
Although on the face of it you wouldn't perhaps believe it, the previous Heywood and Middleton constituency has actually produced some remarkable election results in the last decade. It was one of the more unprecedented Conservative gains in 2019, having never been taken by the party in the history of the seat, as the 2017 result was a not-really-marginal majority of almost 8,000 for Labour, notwithstanding a stubborn 3,000 votes for UKIP at that election even though their raison d'être seemed extinct at the time. On 6th September 2014 all eyes and cameras were on Clacton to see if UKIP defector Douglas Carswell would keep his seat, he did, but nobody seemed to talk about how UKIP were in recount territory here, where Labour held by just 617 votes - though that was an increased vote share - UKIP's votes coming at the expense of Tories and Lib Dem votes. Less than a year later at the general election and this seat did still produce one of the best results for UKIP in the country, but they still finished runners up, 5,000 votes behind Labour. Going back further, it should also be noted that the BNP comfortably held their deposit with 7% in 2010.
Why is this? Well the two eponymous towns would have been thriving during the Industrial Revolution as cotton mill towns, but as they closed and with little other industry to fall back on, they became pretty deprived and depressed. Covering the western half of the Rochdale borough, there must be disaffection with and detachment from Rochdale proper as well. Those with no qualifications is higher than average, and the proportion of graduates much lower. As such the percentage of professionals and managers is significantly lower than average and elementary occupations higher. Heywood is particularly working class and has struggled for some time, despite being surrounded by green belt and hills to the north. There are attempts at job creation here with the huge Heywood Distribution Park which takes advantage of its convenient location near the motorway. One of the largest if not the largest such 'park' in the North West, it is a local hub of logistics and industry. A few years ago, Elon Musk almost chose Heywood as the location to build his latest line of Teslas, but he went with Berlin in the end (I wonder why?). A sliver of green space and the M62 separates it from Middleton to the south. This buffer between the two towns is being earmarked for some major development under the 'Northern Gateway' element of the ambitious 'Atom Valley' proposals (an echo of Silicon Valley, with reference to Rutherford splitting the Atom at the University of Manchester). Considered a 'Mayoral Development Zone', it would see the green belt decimated in favour of offices and industrial developments with the aim of creating thousands of 'high-tech jobs' and would see thousands of homes across built across this part of Heywood and Middleton.
At present, Middleton is equally working class as its neighbour, also formerly industrial, and dominated by the notorious Langley estate, one of the larger 1960s overspill estates commissioned by Manchester City Council (outside their boundaries, of course Wythenshawe is the biggest). The tower blocks are mostly gone but the depressing terraces are still there and house prices much cheaper than neighbouring Prestwich or even Blackley. The only affluent part of Middleton, Alkrington 'Garden Village', is no longer in this constituency as it is part of 'Middleton South' that is to join Blackley on the other side of the M60 ring-road.
Public transport connections are noticeably surprisingly poor in this area, with no trams at all despite repeated calls by local representatives, for the Metrolink to expand here. The next phase of Metrolink expansion is set to benefit the more well-off Stockport instead. It is little wonder that the areas have felt neglected over the years. There are only sporadic rail stations at Castleton and Mills Hill, and whilst Heywood has a railway station - it is for the heritage East Lancashire Railway! Therefore cars are the only alternative to the slow bus services, something that the Mayor Andy Burnham has highlighted himself by taking a journey from Middleton to MediaCity Salford by public transport, which took well over an hour compared to little over 20 minutes drive.
This is a surprisingly green constituency in more ways than one - it includes most of Scout Moor Wind Farm in the far north, the second largest onshore wind farm in the country. The sparser population can be illustrated in the map of this constituency which is the same length as the neighbouring Bury North and South constituencies combined! Most of the northern area is uninhabited for miles, stretching into the Pennines with several reservoirs, moors and great scenery.
There are some pockets of relative affluence in this constituency, namely in the Rochdale suburbs of Norden and Bamford. These are and have always been safe Conservative seats on the Rochdale Council and would have been the bedrock of the constituency's Conservative vote here through thick and thin (which was never too derisory, only dipping below 10,000 in '05 and '15). There is particularly opulent housing and some mansions to be seen in Bamford and Norden, with the distant hills (and wind turbines) a permanent fixture of the landscape, not what you would think of when you think Rochdale. As alluded to earlier, the Green Belt land between Heywood and Middleton to the west however has been at risk of being lost under the 'Greater Manchester Spatial Framework', which plans a massive extension to the Heywood industrial complex which would see most of the current farmland gone. The manor houses once owned by the factory owners and aristocrats round here have sadly seen better days. Hopwood Hall gives its name to a council ward in Heywood (safely Labour) and Sixth Form college and currently stands derelict. Tonge Hall in Middleton even worse so having been set on fire and just about remains standing.
The new constituency shall now edge even closer to the town centre of Rochdale by addition of Spotland and Falinge. It could not be more different to Norden and Bamford though, bringing in declining terraces to the north-west of the town centre. These areas are more similar to Heywood in terms of deprivation and occupation. However what makes it more 'Rochdale' in character as well as proximity is that it will bring in a significant Asian population into this constituency, as the ward has around 30% Asian/Asian British population. This brings the new Heywood and Middleton North constituency broadly in line with the national average in terms of ethnic makeup, as previously it was whiter than average (the towns of Heywood and Middleton themselves continue to be less diverse than its neighbours). In some ways the Heywood and Middleton North by encroaching Rochdale, as a concept becomes more like Colne Valley or Faversham and Mid Kent by taking in significant parts of its borough's principal town despite its name (Huddersfield and Maidstone respectively in these two examples)
At its incarnation in 1983 the old Heywood and Middleton seat was held by Jim Callaghan (not that one) who astutely followed his Middleton voters from Prestwich and Middleton where he had been since 1974 (at the time Prestwich was still a Tory stronghold). He took it with a majority of 4,000 in Labour's then-nadir and remained here until retiring in 1997. A health centre in Heywood is named after him in honour of his long and dedicated service to the area. Jim Dobbin took over in 1997, with more than double his predecessor's majority at over 17,500. A rare scientist MP (formerly a microbiologist at nearby Royal Oldham Hospital) he had been a local councillor for some time beforehand. His majority was trimmed to less than 6,000 in 2010 when current Bath MP Wera Hobhouse was the Lib Dem candidate who came a close 3rd. Dobbin tragically died in 2014, precipitating the by-election at which Liz McInnes snuck in to Parliament. Remarkably she is also a former biochemist, born in Oldham, Oxford-educated and based in Rossendale to the north prior to her election. She did a good job to boost her majority in 2015 and 17, but was toppled in 2019 by 663 votes. One of her more notable moments towards the end of her tenure was her incessant heckling of former Labour turned independent MPs Ian Austin and Ivan Lewis on a late night sitting.
The 2019 victor is Chris Clarkson, a former Councillor in Salford, for the affluent Worsley ward. In such a marginal seat that will almost certainly swing back, plus with impending boundary changes it is little surprise that he has decided to stand down. Whilst in theory the addition of the Rochdale ward should further increase Labour's chances, it is by no means certain that if it existed in 2019 it would not have swung to the Conservatives on the back of Get Brexit Done, as Spotland and Falinge has shown an anti-Labour sentiment at times, with strong results for the Lib Dems in the past, and UKIP had been runners up in both the council ward and the Rochdale parliamentary constituency in the mid-2010s, albeit not as close as they came in Heywood and Middleton. In some parts UKIP and the Brexit movement gained support from Asian as well as white working class communities alike, over issues such as Eastern European immigration, for example.
In all, whether you like the term or not, this is the typical 'red wall' seat that Labour must win comfortably, without recounts, in their first attempt at the next election to be with any chance of forming the next government, by regaining the trust of communities that had previously felt taken for granted.
When the 2024 exit poll was announced, showing Reform UK gaining a clutch of seats, more than UKIP ever did, you'd be forgiven for thinking this would be one of them given how close they came in the past, alas this could be an example of an area Reform underperformed. Labour's Elsie Blundell easily regained it (or technically held it as the new boundaries made it notionally Labour, just about) with comfortable majority of 6,082 over Reform, followed by a new Conservative candidate and a strong independent (no, not Galloway, that's next door...) and even the Lib Dem held their deposit. For some reason, this was the only constituency in England the Green Party did not stand in. Mrs Blundell is a Rochdale councillor (as is her husband, who also tried for selection here) and was pregnant during the campaign, giving birth to her child at the end of September. She is a former Transport Strategy officer for TfGM, and as such already sits on the Transport Select Committee, appropriate for an area underserved by public transport connections.
As for Chris Clarkson, he ended up being an example of a failed 'chicken run', heading over 100 miles away to the south to stand in Stratford-on-Avon instead, with the aim of inheriting Nadhim Zahawi's seat, using the boundary changes here as an excuse. In the event he lost convincingly to the Liberal Democrat candidate.
