Post by YL on Dec 17, 2023 19:50:01 GMT
This constituency consists, essentially, of those parts of the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale which are not in the Halifax constituency. It is thus an obvious constituency to draw (and it has existed in more or less the same form since 1983) but at the same time this does not necessarily produce a cohesive constituency, and it includes two main parts which are not very well connected to each other and have rather different demographics and politics. The parts balance out to give a bellwether marginal, which has voted for the party which won most seats in every election going back to 1983, with Craig Whittaker representing it for the Conservatives from 2010 to 2024, when Josh Fenton-Glynn won it for Labour.
The more westerly of those main parts is probably the better known. This is the Upper Calder Valley, centred on the towns of Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd. This is a picturesque area with old mill towns situated in a Pennine valley which is so steep sided that the valley floors struggle for winter light. In Hebden Bridge the builders' reaction to the steep slopes was the "under and over house": buildings which appear to be four or five stories on the downhill side but only two or three on the uphill side, with the lower two stories being one house with its back to the hillside, and the upper stories being a separate house. Above the valley is some Pennine moorland, the south side being dominated by the prominent monument on Stoodley Pike, and some small villages, including the attractive small village of Heptonstall, where Sylvia Plath is buried, and hill farms.
Hebden Bridge suffered badly from the decline of its industry, and had become a very cheap place to move to by the 1960s. This led to its choice as a place to move to for people looking for alternative lifestyles, and this has led to the town's modern reputation as a particularly progressive place. It is no longer a cheap place to move to, and it is an attractive location for commuters both to Leeds and to Manchester, but it has maintained its alternative reputation. It has middle class demographics, with high levels of people in managerial and professional jobs and one of the highest levels of degree level education in West Yorkshire; unsurprisingly it also has high levels of people professing no religion. It is the main settlement of the Calder ward of Calderdale council, which up to 2012 was competitive between Labour and the Lib Dems, but which has now turned into a Labour fortress.
The other two towns have seen some overspill of Hebden Bridge's progressive turn, and attract some people who might like to live in Hebden Bridge but cannot afford it, but are more mixed. Todmorden spans the historic boundary between Yorkshire and that other county to the west, but it has been united on the Yorkshire side for administrative purposes for many years. It is not a wealthy place, and in particular the valley north of the town centre containing Cornholme and Portsmouth (not that one) contains many very small terraced houses and has quite high deprivation. Its ward was also competitive not so long ago, and was even capable of voting Conservative, though it is also now strongly Labour; similarly Luddendenfoot ward, which includes Mytholmroyd, voted Conservative as recently as 2015 but now looks safe Labour. Luddendenfoot ward has quite middle class demographics, though not as much so as Calder, while Todmorden is less middle class, though education levels are still above average.
As should be clear from that, if the Upper Calder Valley were the whole constituency it would not be close to having a Conservative MP even in their better years, so let's look at the rest of the constituency. The next settlement down the Calder valley from Mytholmroyd is Sowerby Bridge, which is in the Halifax constituency, but it is where the River Ryburn joins the Calder. That river gives its name to a ward, whose main settlement is the town of Ripponden. The parts of Ryburn ward closest to Sowerby Bridge have been transferred to Halifax in the only change to this constituency arising from the boundary review, but the bulk of the ward, including Ripponden, remains here. This is another generally middle class area in the South Pennines, but it does not have the alternative reputation of Hebden Bridge, and Ryburn ward has generally voted Conservative, except in 2019 when a dissident councillor stood and won as an independent and in 2024 when Labour broke through.
To the east, and back on the Calder as it flows towards Wakefield, are the towns of Elland and Brighouse, and together with their surroundings these form the other main part of the constituency. This also includes the more rural ward of Greetland & Stainland west of Elland, and the Brighouse urban area spreads both south to include the ward of Rastrick and north to include parts of the area of Lightcliffe, which shares its ward with the middle class village of Hipperholme on the main road from Halifax east to the M62. There is still a Pennine feel to the landscape here, but the hills are a bit lower here and we are east of the real Pennine moors. In both towns, the demographics are mixed, with both middle class and working class demographics, and some areas with quite high deprivation, while education levels here are below average, though not strikingly low. Greetland & Stainland and Hipperholme & Lightcliffe wards, though, have more generally middle class populations, especially the latter, which is one of the least deprived wards in Calderdale; both of these have slightly above average levels of degree level education, though not to the levels of the Upper Valley or Ryburn.
These eastern wards collectively lean more towards the Conservatives, though they do not have it all their own way. Hipperholme & Lightcliffe is now their strongest ward in the whole borough though as with Ryburn a dissident independent held one seat for a time. Rastrick has usually been Conservative, though Labour won it in 2024, and Brighouse ward has also been Conservative since Labour's win in 2012, though it was close in 2023 and 2024. It was this area which was Craig Whittaker's base. Elland, on the other hand, has voted for all three parties in recent years, though the Lib Dems lost their seat to the Conservatives in 2021 and Labour now hold the other two, having won in 2022 and 2023; the Conservatives held on in 2024, probably thanks to Labour disowning their candidate. Greetland & Stainland usually votes Liberal Democrat locally, though it presumably tends towards the Conservatives nationally.
Overall the constituency's demographics do not stand out, partly because of the differences between east and west, but it does tend towards the middle class side generally, with, for example, relatively low levels of social rented housing. One feature of the western part of the constituency which does show up to some extent for the constituency as a whole is the high levels of "no religion", for which the constituency is 50th in England and Wales.
Before 1983 the main predecessor constituency was Sowerby, though that did not include the Brighouse area (nor, before 1950, Elland, which had its own constituency then) and did include Sowerby Bridge, making it better connected. That constituency was Labour for many years after the Second World War, though was very close in 1970 and in both 1974 elections, and was a Conservative gain in 1979; it would presumably be rather more Labour today than the current constituency.
2019 notional result (Rallings & Thrasher)
Con 28991 (51.4%)
Lab 23884 (42.3%)
Lib Dem 2858 (5.1%)
Other 721 (1.3%)
Con majority 5107 (9.0%)
2024 result:
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Lab) 22046 (44.4%)
Vanessa Lee (Con) 13055 (26.3%)
Donald Walmsley (Reform UK) 7644 (15.4%)
Kieran Turner (Green) 3701 (7.5%)
Donal O'Hanlon (Lib Dem) 2587 (5.2%)
James Vasey (Yorkshire Party) 404 (0.8%)
Jim McNeill (SDP) 171 (0.3%)
The more westerly of those main parts is probably the better known. This is the Upper Calder Valley, centred on the towns of Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd. This is a picturesque area with old mill towns situated in a Pennine valley which is so steep sided that the valley floors struggle for winter light. In Hebden Bridge the builders' reaction to the steep slopes was the "under and over house": buildings which appear to be four or five stories on the downhill side but only two or three on the uphill side, with the lower two stories being one house with its back to the hillside, and the upper stories being a separate house. Above the valley is some Pennine moorland, the south side being dominated by the prominent monument on Stoodley Pike, and some small villages, including the attractive small village of Heptonstall, where Sylvia Plath is buried, and hill farms.
Hebden Bridge suffered badly from the decline of its industry, and had become a very cheap place to move to by the 1960s. This led to its choice as a place to move to for people looking for alternative lifestyles, and this has led to the town's modern reputation as a particularly progressive place. It is no longer a cheap place to move to, and it is an attractive location for commuters both to Leeds and to Manchester, but it has maintained its alternative reputation. It has middle class demographics, with high levels of people in managerial and professional jobs and one of the highest levels of degree level education in West Yorkshire; unsurprisingly it also has high levels of people professing no religion. It is the main settlement of the Calder ward of Calderdale council, which up to 2012 was competitive between Labour and the Lib Dems, but which has now turned into a Labour fortress.
The other two towns have seen some overspill of Hebden Bridge's progressive turn, and attract some people who might like to live in Hebden Bridge but cannot afford it, but are more mixed. Todmorden spans the historic boundary between Yorkshire and that other county to the west, but it has been united on the Yorkshire side for administrative purposes for many years. It is not a wealthy place, and in particular the valley north of the town centre containing Cornholme and Portsmouth (not that one) contains many very small terraced houses and has quite high deprivation. Its ward was also competitive not so long ago, and was even capable of voting Conservative, though it is also now strongly Labour; similarly Luddendenfoot ward, which includes Mytholmroyd, voted Conservative as recently as 2015 but now looks safe Labour. Luddendenfoot ward has quite middle class demographics, though not as much so as Calder, while Todmorden is less middle class, though education levels are still above average.
As should be clear from that, if the Upper Calder Valley were the whole constituency it would not be close to having a Conservative MP even in their better years, so let's look at the rest of the constituency. The next settlement down the Calder valley from Mytholmroyd is Sowerby Bridge, which is in the Halifax constituency, but it is where the River Ryburn joins the Calder. That river gives its name to a ward, whose main settlement is the town of Ripponden. The parts of Ryburn ward closest to Sowerby Bridge have been transferred to Halifax in the only change to this constituency arising from the boundary review, but the bulk of the ward, including Ripponden, remains here. This is another generally middle class area in the South Pennines, but it does not have the alternative reputation of Hebden Bridge, and Ryburn ward has generally voted Conservative, except in 2019 when a dissident councillor stood and won as an independent and in 2024 when Labour broke through.
To the east, and back on the Calder as it flows towards Wakefield, are the towns of Elland and Brighouse, and together with their surroundings these form the other main part of the constituency. This also includes the more rural ward of Greetland & Stainland west of Elland, and the Brighouse urban area spreads both south to include the ward of Rastrick and north to include parts of the area of Lightcliffe, which shares its ward with the middle class village of Hipperholme on the main road from Halifax east to the M62. There is still a Pennine feel to the landscape here, but the hills are a bit lower here and we are east of the real Pennine moors. In both towns, the demographics are mixed, with both middle class and working class demographics, and some areas with quite high deprivation, while education levels here are below average, though not strikingly low. Greetland & Stainland and Hipperholme & Lightcliffe wards, though, have more generally middle class populations, especially the latter, which is one of the least deprived wards in Calderdale; both of these have slightly above average levels of degree level education, though not to the levels of the Upper Valley or Ryburn.
These eastern wards collectively lean more towards the Conservatives, though they do not have it all their own way. Hipperholme & Lightcliffe is now their strongest ward in the whole borough though as with Ryburn a dissident independent held one seat for a time. Rastrick has usually been Conservative, though Labour won it in 2024, and Brighouse ward has also been Conservative since Labour's win in 2012, though it was close in 2023 and 2024. It was this area which was Craig Whittaker's base. Elland, on the other hand, has voted for all three parties in recent years, though the Lib Dems lost their seat to the Conservatives in 2021 and Labour now hold the other two, having won in 2022 and 2023; the Conservatives held on in 2024, probably thanks to Labour disowning their candidate. Greetland & Stainland usually votes Liberal Democrat locally, though it presumably tends towards the Conservatives nationally.
Overall the constituency's demographics do not stand out, partly because of the differences between east and west, but it does tend towards the middle class side generally, with, for example, relatively low levels of social rented housing. One feature of the western part of the constituency which does show up to some extent for the constituency as a whole is the high levels of "no religion", for which the constituency is 50th in England and Wales.
Before 1983 the main predecessor constituency was Sowerby, though that did not include the Brighouse area (nor, before 1950, Elland, which had its own constituency then) and did include Sowerby Bridge, making it better connected. That constituency was Labour for many years after the Second World War, though was very close in 1970 and in both 1974 elections, and was a Conservative gain in 1979; it would presumably be rather more Labour today than the current constituency.
2019 notional result (Rallings & Thrasher)
Con 28991 (51.4%)
Lab 23884 (42.3%)
Lib Dem 2858 (5.1%)
Other 721 (1.3%)
Con majority 5107 (9.0%)
2024 result:
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Lab) 22046 (44.4%)
Vanessa Lee (Con) 13055 (26.3%)
Donald Walmsley (Reform UK) 7644 (15.4%)
Kieran Turner (Green) 3701 (7.5%)
Donal O'Hanlon (Lib Dem) 2587 (5.2%)
James Vasey (Yorkshire Party) 404 (0.8%)
Jim McNeill (SDP) 171 (0.3%)
