Post by Robert Waller on Dec 17, 2023 15:00:55 GMT
This is based in an original profile by nobodyimportant, with updates and expansion by myself
There have been substantial boundary changes in the Royal County of Berkshire in the 2023 review, with an entirely new constituency of Earley & Woodley and associated knock-on effects. Some of these effect the Maidenhead division, which has lost nearly half of its acreage in its western part but gains about 20% of the Windsor seat at its own south east corner.
The area that has been lost is now to be shared between Wokingham, which has taken 17.3% of the seat as it was contested at the 2019 general election, and Earley & Woodley (8.8%). Wokingham is extended to its north to take most of the western half of Maidenhead constituency, including a second area of population, this time a cluster of villages stretching from Remenham across the Thames from Henley southwards through Wargrave, Twyford, Sonning and Charvil. The multi-stream River Loddon runs through this area, surrounded by nature reserves and, in the south-west corner of this transferred portion, Dinton Pastures Country Park. Part of the large Reading suburb of Woodley was in Maidenhead, the rest in Reading East, and logically enough all is now in the new Earley & Woodley.
The section Maidenhead has gained from Windsor is its former south-western quadrant, which really looks more to Bracknell, and indeed consists of 16,000 voters in three Bracknell Forest council wards: Binfield with Warfield, Winkfield & Cranbourne and Ascot - which is confusingly and partially inaccurately named, as it only includes parts of North Ascot. There is also an Ascot & Sunninghill ward still in Windsor which covers the town centre, the famed racecourse, and South Ascot.
Of the parts that stay in Maidenhead, it covers most of the northwards bump in the River Thames between Windsor and Reading. Over half the constituency population live in the town of Maidenhead itself, which had 67,000 inhabitants in 2021. Other than that there are various villages along the Thames such as Cookham and Bray. There is still a large, rural area in the heart of the constituency, which today is an area of relatively intact green belt agricultural land but historically was notorious for its highwaymen.
The A4 (the Bath Road) and Great Western Main Line run East to West through the centre of the constituency and still provide the main routes through the constituency as they long have done, although both are more likely to be taking people out of the constituency than within it - Reading in the West and London in the East providing the main destinations both for leisure and work purposes. The M4 runs through the central part of the redrawn constituency, but there is only one way of accessing it within the constituency (to the South of Maidenhead), and in peak hours much of the constituency can get to London faster than they can get onto the M4. Other main roads in the constituency include the A404 to Marlow and High Wycombe, and the A308 to Windsor. However the A321 to Henley (in the North) and Wokingham (in the South) now links the section ceded to the Wokingham constituency.
The area is relatively rich throughout, although there are distinct divisions between areas that are merely comfortably off and those occupied exclusively by the super-rich, often within the same village. The poorest part of the constituency is the area around and to the north of Maidenhead town centre, but even here nowhere comes in the one third most deprived areas in the country according to the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation, and most of the constituency falls within the two least deprived deciles. The least deprived MSOAs according to the 2021 census are Maidenhead East (mostly Riverside ward), where 67% of households are not deprived ‘in any dimension’, Maidenhead Highway in the west of the town (63%, Pinkneys Green ward) and in the rural areas 63% in Cookham & Waltham and 67% in Binfield & Popeswood in the newly added Bracknell Forest portion. The least deprived figures – and this is very much a relative term in this constituency – are 49% in Furze Platt, inner north Maidenhead, and 48% Boyn Hill & Norreys Drive (inner south west). These two MSOAs are also those which have the most social rented housing – 28% in Furze Platt, around Queensway, and 20% in Boyn Hill around Suffolk Road and Norreys Drive industrial estate - also only relatively high, in a constituency only 11% social rented overall. There is a substantial Asian population in the seat (Maidenhead is just 5 miles west of Slough on the A4), but the fact that as well as a concentration in Maidenhead Central (21.4%) and Furze Platt (20%), 18% of the very affluent Maidenhead East is Asian suggests this is not in general a financially stressed community. The highest status occupational class figures closely mirror the least deprived household, with Maidenhead East top for profession and managerial workers (55%), lowest Furze Platt – where it is still as much as 36%.
Not surprisingly in view of its overall very high socio-economic class numbers (Maidenhead is in the top 20 nationally for professional/managerial employment), the seat itself has been continuously Conservative since its creation in 1997 (and represented by just a single MP during that time), with much of the constituency having been represented by Conservatives continuously since 1874. The party has typically been dominant in local elections as well. The Conservatives have achieved over half the vote in each of the last 5 elections, and even won a majority of more than 50% in 2015.
The Lib Dems have challenged at times, however, and on a local level have occasionally dominated - the 2003 local results, in which the Lib Dems won 24 of the 30 seats RBWM part of the constituency, as well as both Twyford and Coronation in the Wokingham part, led to this being designated a Lib Dem target seat for the 2005 election as part of their "decapitation" strategy, but like most such seats this one refused to change colour and actually swung slightly in the other direction. After that it was continuously downhill for the Lib Dems both on both local and national level to 2015, when they were beaten by Labour for the first time ever, while on a local level they were reduced to just two councillors in the constituency, only one of whom had been up that year.
Since then the party has recovered considerably, winning 8 of the 11 wards in the borough within the new Maidenhead lines in May 2023 outright, sharing the representation of the rural Hurley & Walthams with a rare Tory, while the only wards the LDs missed out on completely were Oldfield, was taken by Independents, and the super-wealthy culinary centre of Bray, where a Conservative and an Independent won. In the Bracknell Forest council area taken from Windsor there have been ward boundary changes since the Commission’s deliberations (which means that two wards are now shared with Bracknell constituency). The Conservatives won Winkfield & Warfield East (which includes North Ascot) and the new housing of Whitegrove on the edge if Bracknell, shared the elected seats in Binfield North & Warfield West with the Greens, but lost in both those that now cross the seat boundaries, to Labour in Binfield South & Jennetts Park (60% of which is now in Maidenhead) and to the Liberal Democrats in Swinley Forest (36% now here around Martin’s Heron). Overall in May 2023 across the new lines of the constituency the votes added up to 45.1% Liberal Democrat compared with 31.6% for the Conservatives
Labour are notable mainly by their absence - they last won a ward within the previous boundaries of this constituency in 1995 (in Oldfield ward in southern Maidenhead), and have never attained over a fifth of the vote in a general election. In 2015 and both elections since Labour has ran a campaign primarily aimed at people who usually vote Lib Dem, enabling them to take second place in 2015 and extend it in 2017 when they got an all-time high vote share of 19.3%, but fell apart in 2019, when the Lib Dems took back a clear second place in the constituency, following successful local elections earlier in the year for the Lib Dems in both local councils.
By 2019 this was now back to being a comfortable Conservative seat, with the Lib Dems in a clear but distant second - which is probably the default state of a constituency like this. It is unlikely that the Liberal Democrats will actually win it - rumour has it that this may have been the seat of the Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019 – but with the Conservatives languishing in the opinion polls, they will entertain hopes that they might, or at least get as close as they did in 2001 (majority only 3,284) or 2005 (6,231). These were the closest shaves that Theresa May has had since her initial election in 1997 – in 2015 her lead was over 29,000 and in 2017 over 26,000, despite the poor overall outcome for her party of her decision to hold an election then. The local election situation may be thought to give the Lib Dems even more encouragement: they gained control of Windsor and Maidenhead borough in 2023 increasing their number of seats by 15 and, as noted above, led in this seat by 14.5% within the new boundaries of Maidenhead in May 2023. But they have been in a similar municipal situation before, winning an overall majority of councillors in 1995 and 2003. Theresa May has been selected to attempt an eighth term here, and it really would be a feather in the LD cap if they could go further and actually win Maidenhead for the first time ever - and oust a former PM in the process.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 17.3% 269/650
Owner occupied 71.3% 145/573
Private rented 18.0% 286/573
Social rented 10.8% 487/573
White 81.1%
Black 1.4%
Asian 12.7%
Managerial & professional 47.5% 17/573
Routine & Semi-routine 14.2% 541/573
Degree level 46.0% 55/573
No qualifications 12.3% 535/573
Students 5.8% 515/650
General Election 2019: Maidenhead
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Theresa May 32,620 57.7 -6.9
Liberal Democrats Joshua Reynolds 13,774 24.4 +13.2
Labour Patrick McDonald 7,882 14.0 -5.3
Green Emily Tomalin 2,216 3.9 +2.3
C Majority 18,846 33.3 −12.2
2019 electorate 76,668
Turnout 56,492 73.7 −2.7
Conservative hold
Swing 10.0 C to LD
Boundary Changes
Maidenhead consists of
73.9% of Maidenhead
21.2% of Windsor
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_336_Maidenhead_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
There have been substantial boundary changes in the Royal County of Berkshire in the 2023 review, with an entirely new constituency of Earley & Woodley and associated knock-on effects. Some of these effect the Maidenhead division, which has lost nearly half of its acreage in its western part but gains about 20% of the Windsor seat at its own south east corner.
The area that has been lost is now to be shared between Wokingham, which has taken 17.3% of the seat as it was contested at the 2019 general election, and Earley & Woodley (8.8%). Wokingham is extended to its north to take most of the western half of Maidenhead constituency, including a second area of population, this time a cluster of villages stretching from Remenham across the Thames from Henley southwards through Wargrave, Twyford, Sonning and Charvil. The multi-stream River Loddon runs through this area, surrounded by nature reserves and, in the south-west corner of this transferred portion, Dinton Pastures Country Park. Part of the large Reading suburb of Woodley was in Maidenhead, the rest in Reading East, and logically enough all is now in the new Earley & Woodley.
The section Maidenhead has gained from Windsor is its former south-western quadrant, which really looks more to Bracknell, and indeed consists of 16,000 voters in three Bracknell Forest council wards: Binfield with Warfield, Winkfield & Cranbourne and Ascot - which is confusingly and partially inaccurately named, as it only includes parts of North Ascot. There is also an Ascot & Sunninghill ward still in Windsor which covers the town centre, the famed racecourse, and South Ascot.
Of the parts that stay in Maidenhead, it covers most of the northwards bump in the River Thames between Windsor and Reading. Over half the constituency population live in the town of Maidenhead itself, which had 67,000 inhabitants in 2021. Other than that there are various villages along the Thames such as Cookham and Bray. There is still a large, rural area in the heart of the constituency, which today is an area of relatively intact green belt agricultural land but historically was notorious for its highwaymen.
The A4 (the Bath Road) and Great Western Main Line run East to West through the centre of the constituency and still provide the main routes through the constituency as they long have done, although both are more likely to be taking people out of the constituency than within it - Reading in the West and London in the East providing the main destinations both for leisure and work purposes. The M4 runs through the central part of the redrawn constituency, but there is only one way of accessing it within the constituency (to the South of Maidenhead), and in peak hours much of the constituency can get to London faster than they can get onto the M4. Other main roads in the constituency include the A404 to Marlow and High Wycombe, and the A308 to Windsor. However the A321 to Henley (in the North) and Wokingham (in the South) now links the section ceded to the Wokingham constituency.
The area is relatively rich throughout, although there are distinct divisions between areas that are merely comfortably off and those occupied exclusively by the super-rich, often within the same village. The poorest part of the constituency is the area around and to the north of Maidenhead town centre, but even here nowhere comes in the one third most deprived areas in the country according to the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation, and most of the constituency falls within the two least deprived deciles. The least deprived MSOAs according to the 2021 census are Maidenhead East (mostly Riverside ward), where 67% of households are not deprived ‘in any dimension’, Maidenhead Highway in the west of the town (63%, Pinkneys Green ward) and in the rural areas 63% in Cookham & Waltham and 67% in Binfield & Popeswood in the newly added Bracknell Forest portion. The least deprived figures – and this is very much a relative term in this constituency – are 49% in Furze Platt, inner north Maidenhead, and 48% Boyn Hill & Norreys Drive (inner south west). These two MSOAs are also those which have the most social rented housing – 28% in Furze Platt, around Queensway, and 20% in Boyn Hill around Suffolk Road and Norreys Drive industrial estate - also only relatively high, in a constituency only 11% social rented overall. There is a substantial Asian population in the seat (Maidenhead is just 5 miles west of Slough on the A4), but the fact that as well as a concentration in Maidenhead Central (21.4%) and Furze Platt (20%), 18% of the very affluent Maidenhead East is Asian suggests this is not in general a financially stressed community. The highest status occupational class figures closely mirror the least deprived household, with Maidenhead East top for profession and managerial workers (55%), lowest Furze Platt – where it is still as much as 36%.
Not surprisingly in view of its overall very high socio-economic class numbers (Maidenhead is in the top 20 nationally for professional/managerial employment), the seat itself has been continuously Conservative since its creation in 1997 (and represented by just a single MP during that time), with much of the constituency having been represented by Conservatives continuously since 1874. The party has typically been dominant in local elections as well. The Conservatives have achieved over half the vote in each of the last 5 elections, and even won a majority of more than 50% in 2015.
The Lib Dems have challenged at times, however, and on a local level have occasionally dominated - the 2003 local results, in which the Lib Dems won 24 of the 30 seats RBWM part of the constituency, as well as both Twyford and Coronation in the Wokingham part, led to this being designated a Lib Dem target seat for the 2005 election as part of their "decapitation" strategy, but like most such seats this one refused to change colour and actually swung slightly in the other direction. After that it was continuously downhill for the Lib Dems both on both local and national level to 2015, when they were beaten by Labour for the first time ever, while on a local level they were reduced to just two councillors in the constituency, only one of whom had been up that year.
Since then the party has recovered considerably, winning 8 of the 11 wards in the borough within the new Maidenhead lines in May 2023 outright, sharing the representation of the rural Hurley & Walthams with a rare Tory, while the only wards the LDs missed out on completely were Oldfield, was taken by Independents, and the super-wealthy culinary centre of Bray, where a Conservative and an Independent won. In the Bracknell Forest council area taken from Windsor there have been ward boundary changes since the Commission’s deliberations (which means that two wards are now shared with Bracknell constituency). The Conservatives won Winkfield & Warfield East (which includes North Ascot) and the new housing of Whitegrove on the edge if Bracknell, shared the elected seats in Binfield North & Warfield West with the Greens, but lost in both those that now cross the seat boundaries, to Labour in Binfield South & Jennetts Park (60% of which is now in Maidenhead) and to the Liberal Democrats in Swinley Forest (36% now here around Martin’s Heron). Overall in May 2023 across the new lines of the constituency the votes added up to 45.1% Liberal Democrat compared with 31.6% for the Conservatives
Labour are notable mainly by their absence - they last won a ward within the previous boundaries of this constituency in 1995 (in Oldfield ward in southern Maidenhead), and have never attained over a fifth of the vote in a general election. In 2015 and both elections since Labour has ran a campaign primarily aimed at people who usually vote Lib Dem, enabling them to take second place in 2015 and extend it in 2017 when they got an all-time high vote share of 19.3%, but fell apart in 2019, when the Lib Dems took back a clear second place in the constituency, following successful local elections earlier in the year for the Lib Dems in both local councils.
By 2019 this was now back to being a comfortable Conservative seat, with the Lib Dems in a clear but distant second - which is probably the default state of a constituency like this. It is unlikely that the Liberal Democrats will actually win it - rumour has it that this may have been the seat of the Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019 – but with the Conservatives languishing in the opinion polls, they will entertain hopes that they might, or at least get as close as they did in 2001 (majority only 3,284) or 2005 (6,231). These were the closest shaves that Theresa May has had since her initial election in 1997 – in 2015 her lead was over 29,000 and in 2017 over 26,000, despite the poor overall outcome for her party of her decision to hold an election then. The local election situation may be thought to give the Lib Dems even more encouragement: they gained control of Windsor and Maidenhead borough in 2023 increasing their number of seats by 15 and, as noted above, led in this seat by 14.5% within the new boundaries of Maidenhead in May 2023. But they have been in a similar municipal situation before, winning an overall majority of councillors in 1995 and 2003. Theresa May has been selected to attempt an eighth term here, and it really would be a feather in the LD cap if they could go further and actually win Maidenhead for the first time ever - and oust a former PM in the process.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 17.3% 269/650
Owner occupied 71.3% 145/573
Private rented 18.0% 286/573
Social rented 10.8% 487/573
White 81.1%
Black 1.4%
Asian 12.7%
Managerial & professional 47.5% 17/573
Routine & Semi-routine 14.2% 541/573
Degree level 46.0% 55/573
No qualifications 12.3% 535/573
Students 5.8% 515/650
General Election 2019: Maidenhead
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Theresa May 32,620 57.7 -6.9
Liberal Democrats Joshua Reynolds 13,774 24.4 +13.2
Labour Patrick McDonald 7,882 14.0 -5.3
Green Emily Tomalin 2,216 3.9 +2.3
C Majority 18,846 33.3 −12.2
2019 electorate 76,668
Turnout 56,492 73.7 −2.7
Conservative hold
Swing 10.0 C to LD
Boundary Changes
Maidenhead consists of
73.9% of Maidenhead
21.2% of Windsor
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-east/South%20East_336_Maidenhead_Portrait.pdf
2019 Notional Results on New Boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Con | 29233 | 57.4% |
| LD | 12122 | 23.8% |
| Lab | 7652 | 10.6% |
| Green | 1917 | 4.3% |
| | ||
| Majority | 17101 | 33.6% |
