Post by iainbhx on Dec 26, 2023 12:38:43 GMT
This profile combines information from myself and iang’s previous efforts and from Pete Whitehead’s masterly summary of the changes.
The Stourbridge constituency as we know it has only existed since 1997, originally it was in the North Worcestershire county division after 1885 and was granted a seat based on the Municipal Borough in 1918 it also originally included the Lye and Wollescote UDC (which became part of Stourbridge MB), the Oldbury UDC and the Halesowen RDC, this seat was mainly Conservative but elected the pacifist socialist William Wellock in a 1927 by-election and he held the seat in 1929 only to lose in 1931, the seat which had grown very large by the 1930’s and was taken by Labour in 1945.
In 1950, Stourbridge moved into Dudley BC which was a very odd seat made up of the County Borough of Dudley and the Municipal Borough of Stourbridge, the two being separated by Brierley Hill which was in Staffordshire. People in Stourbridge didn’t like that arrangement much, especially as it almost ensured a Labour MP, but they decided they did like George Wigg (aka Wilson’s Nark) who was still being spoken fondly of by older people in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Stourbridge probably provided the bulk of the Tory votes in Dudley BC during the 50s and 60’s When Wigg became a peer, the Tories won the 1968 by-election and only narrowly lost the seat to John Gilbert in 1970.
It then became Halesowen and Stourbridge BC, originally made up of the Municipal Boroughs of Halesowen and of Stourbridge. This was very marginal in both 1974 elections mainly due to a strong Liberal intervention but John Stokes won through and held the seat fairly easily after that despite being held in fairly low regard even by his own activists, he was helped in this by a selection of low quality Labour candidates.
The seat as we now know it was formed in 1997 and was won by Debra Shipley for Labour, it was a bit of a surprise but by that time the only ward in the new seat which was Conservative was Pedmore, Norton had gone LibDem and everything else was Labour. She held the seat easily in 2001 and seemed to be well regarded even by Stourbridge Tories, but the Tory fightback had begun, they regained the Norton seats from the LibDems and Amblecote from Labour. Wollaston resumed its usual marginal status and Lye, well, Asian politics meant the odd Tory victory. Linda Waltho took over in 2005 by the skin of her teeth and was not so well regarded, it was no surprise that she lost in 2010 despite the addition of Labour favourable ward - Quarry Bank and Dudley Wood. Margot James took the seat and despite her differences was generally well regarded, she increased her majority in each election until she stood down over Brexit, which was locally regarded as the right thing to do, Stourbridge people aren’t Brexit headbangers unlike say Dudley, but they voted firmly for it and would probably do so again (maybe not Norton). Suzanne Webb, despite being a Brummie, won easily by 13.6k. She’s going down OK despite that handicap.
Stourbridge is only just under quota and most of the boundary changes affecting the seat are due to the need to redraw neighbouring seats. In total just under 20,000 voters are lost to Halesowen in the wards of Cradley & Foxcote and Quarry Bank & Dudley Wood and just over 20,000 gained from Dudley South in Brierley Hill and Netherton, Woodside & St Andrews. The departing wards are the most Labour leaning within this seat and the wards to be added usually have a similar political affiliation. In 2019 the Conservative lead was greater in the incoming wards so the notional majority is increased a bit but despite the large number of voters moving in and out, these changes overall are likely to be neutral. In 2023 the seat was only just held by the Tories in the local council elections, which bodes well for them holding it at the next general election. However, the two wards coming in are slightly more BAME than the two wards leaving and have considerable more social housing neither of which are good markers for the Tories these days, but I would still expect a reasonably comfortable hold.
Like most of the Black Country Boroughs, Stourbridge is an odd place, each of them are quite distinctive but it is certainly one of the more middle class ones and always has been. It has had a Waitrose since the mid 70's, I worked there as a Saturday boy for three years whilst in the Fifth and Sixth Form. Stourbridge for a long time was a two supermarket town - Waitrose and an incredibly rancid KwikSave - which in some ways sums it up, there’s well off bits and there’s nasty and there’s not a lot in the middle. It absolutely loathed being placed in Dudley and even now 50 years on, there's a reasonable number of people who would see it returned to Worcestershire - some of which weren't born at the time.
It has a reputation for glass, which is amusing, as there was very little glass produced in the old municipal borough of Stourbridge, some was produced in Oldswinford back in the day - hence Glasshouse Hill, but the glass that made Stourbridge's name was mainly produced in Amblecote, Audnam and Wordsley. Stourbridge made its money from hollowware and other light industry as well as being the market town for much of North Worcestershire (and parts of South Staffordshire). No mention of Stourbridge should be made without a mention of Ernest Stevens, he made a fortune out of hollowware and donated much of it in memory of his wife, three large parks, a smaller ornamental gardens, a maternity home (now a hospice), the site for the Glassboys ground, the Carlisle Hall (long since gone under the Fire Station) etc.
It was also an early commuting seat, trains took people direct to Birmingham Snow Hill in the centre of the business district of Birmingham and the houses around Oldswinford and into Norton were built for those who couldn’t afford a similar house in Edgbaston but could afford a seasons ticket. Commuting is still big business, the Junction has a very large car park and has bounced back since Covid to over a million passengers a year. of which over a quarter of a million go to use the Town Car into Stourbridge Town.
It is a fairly white seat, as perhaps reflects its position on the fringes of Dudley, distanced from the heart of the Black Country (and Dudley is the whitest Black Country borough). Overall, the seat is 86.7% white which is the whitest of the seats wholly in the Black Country Boroughs. Like virtually all the Black Country, and despite its then MP, it was another Leave constituency, if by not quite as much as many of its neighbours, the Leave vote of 63% being relatively low in comparison to several adjacent seats. The percentage of those in professional and managerial work at 29,5% is not quite as high as might be expected, although conversely the figure for those in elementary work is low at around 10%. It scores highly for skilled traders, the occupation of 12% of the constituency, reflecting like again many neighbouring constituencies, the Black Country manufacturing tradition. The percentage without educational qualifications at 21.6% is slightly higher than the average, and just 27% of the population of the seat have degree qualifications or equivalent, But it is a fairly heavily owner-occupied seat – 66% of the population own their homes, and 18.4% are in social housing. So overall, this is a more traditionally Tory seat than the likes of its neighbours, still less the likes of Walsall North or West Bromwich West.
Norton ward - There has been a lot of housing built here over the years, Norton was originally just the Norton Road and a few streets off it, the 1930s saw some council house building in High Park (which Norton people would say was in Wollaston) and some development along the Broadway, hence the very 30's council flats there and the private houses between the Broadway and the Norton Road. Then in the 1940's and 50's, the large Norton Estate was built - all very good quality council houses and most of them snapped up by their tenants in the 1980's. I lived in one until I was 4 and then we moved up the hill to the new private development off Clent View Road. The sixties saw a lot of small to medium private development in Norton - Clent View estate, The Links at the back of the Golf Course and various bits of infill. As did the 70's with the New Inns Estate, the old Mere Pool infill and around the back of Mary Stevens Park. Norton is almost entirely suburban in nature, the whole ward now contains only three pubs, two of which I wouldn't be seen dead in (I may technically still be barred from the Greyhound) and the third of which would be an in extremis move. There is one very small parade of shops and four takeaways - two of which are on the border with Pedmore. Apart from a LibDem blip in the 90’s, it has been solidly Conservative and is likely to remain so. Norton is 94% white and 83,4% owner occupied .
Pedmore is probably wealthier overall than Norton, it certainly has more expensive houses overall, but it has Pedmore Fields to drag it down, there's been a lot in infill housing there as well, especially between the Hagley Road and the Worcester Road, but old Pedmore and Oldswinford are generally far better off than old Norton. But the infill is much of a muchness and Pedmore Fields is a larger council estate with a lot of retained properties and some significant problems. Again it is very suburban in nature. When Communism comes, Pedmore will still elect a Tory to the Local Soviet. Pedmore is 87% white and 75.8% owner occupied.
Wollaston & Stourbridge Town is a very mixed ward - it's gradually moved to being residential over the years, but there used to be a substantial number of industrial jobs in the ward and there are still a few in the last remaining industrial estate off Lowdnes Road. My dad started work at the rolling mills on Bowling Green Road, which are now standard issue new build cheaper private housing. It includes the town centre based inside the concrete collar with contains a very mixed set of retail opportunities, my recent walks through have noted some brave attempts at independent shops, but its getting very charity shop outside of the Ryemarket, The other supposed focal point, the Crown Centre remains a home for a large Tesco and not a lot else. The area immediately to the west of it is regarded as Stourbridge Town as well, the bits off Worcester Street are very nice and very Tory, the bits off Enville Street are close packed terraces. There are pockets of social housing, two high rises by the ring road, some flats off Mamble Road and a couple of small inter-war council estates which are mainly bought out. The rest of the ward is Wollaston, which has its own small but fairly thriving shopping centre, there's a mix of old private housing, the large Wollaston Farm council estate and newer infill replacing things like the old Judge hollowware factory. There's a distinct lack of green space, it should be a Labour ward really, but a mix of Black Country Toryism, Dudley Hate and that the Farm has been hard to drag to the polls for the last 50 years have kept the Tories competitive here. It currently has 2 Labour and 1 Conservative councillor. Wollaston in 94.9% White and 68% Owner occupied.
Amblecote is a bit of an odd ward, at its core is about 60% of the old Amblecote UDC, which I think was the smallest UDC in the country and used to not have a council house but held its meetings in the Fish public house - which is now a chinese resto after being closed after yet another outburst of biker violence which ended in an involuntary amputation. I spent a while in the Dudley Archives tracking down the UDC election results to find that in the inter-war period and through into the fifties it was a dynastic council with only two actual opposed elections - it wasn't warded and elected en bloc. There again, it was very small, probably 85% of the housing hadn't been built then. Because this is New Build Land par excellence - the original core was along the high street and the Collis Street / Brettell Lane triangle, the immediate post war added a small council estate off Church Avenue. But since then *boom* massive amounts of building, nearly all of it private. You've had what I still call Pennfields but has now been called Withymoor Village - a massive estate (about 3,500 houses) built over old open-cast mine workings some of which had been drift-mined before that. The "Shed disappears down mineshaft" was a staple headline of the local rag which my late mother worked for. It includes a huge Sainsers - which they used to use for training and was open at odd hours. There's lots of green space and a very deep lake near the railway line. Whilst there is some light industry remaining, down by the canal, there has been more recent infill on various former industrial sites which have grown the ward and also on part of the site of the former Corbett Hospital which was much beloved by Stourbridge residents, part of the site is now a mental health unit, part is an outpatient hospital and the rest is, yes, more new houses. It has been solidly Tory since its separation from Wollaston in 1982, Blair had it in his pomp for Labour for a brief period, but since then the only time it was lost was when there was a Kipper victory and when the Tories made the mistake of running an Asian Candidate who was also "proudly from Dudley”. Amblecote may well be the canary in the mine for Stourbridge Tories, if it falls, either you’ve fucked the selection up or Labour will win the seat. Amblecote is 92.9% White and 78.7% Owner Occupied.
The old Lye and Wollescote ward fitted together every well, Lye and Stourbridge North rather less so.It contains The Lye which has many fine pubs as well as the curry houses with Wollescote which is a mix of council estate and the cheaper end of the private market. It also includes some of the roughest bits of the 'bridge, mainly the joy that is Hungary Hill and its appurtenances - which has been dodgy since the 50's. There's a lot of proper jobs in this ward, although rather less than there used to be and The Lye has a busy commercial centre which includes a number of Asian shops as well as the restaurants. Unlike the other Stourbridge wards, it has a significant BAME population mainly made up of Bangladeshis who are well organised politically. Given the pretty appalling turnout generally, the substantial Asian vote can make the difference here and in its replacement. It usually stays Labour but watch the candidates carefully, the Tories know how to play the game as well. It currently has 2 Labour and 1 Conservative councillor. It is 77.7% White and 61.7% owner occupied.
Brierley Hill- Brierley Hill was, of course, the centre of its own UDC within Staffordshire until 1973 and its handsome former town hall lies on the High Street. It was a steel town based around the Round Oak Steel works with a thriving number of local businesses that fed off Round Oak and a busy High Street. There was a lot of social housing in the ward, the large Hawbush estate and the high-rise 1960’s Chapel Street Estate which can best be described as troubled from the get go and by the time I last visited it in the late 90’s was a massive slum in the sky.. Brierley Hill started to decline fast in the early 1980’s and the closure of Round Oak was a disaster for the area. The result was Merry Hill, known as Merry Hell to the locals, a large enterprise zone which initially was mainly used for retail which got the town out of what looked like a death spiral but at the cost of killing both Brierley Hill and Dudley High Streets to anything but tat shops. Brierley Hill used to be solid Labour often seeing Labour voteshares in the sixties or seventies and during the 1993-5 period even into the eighties, but the area has improved since the dire days of the 1980’s and its is very Brexity and had a significant UKIP vote and hence the Conservative vote has picked up. I also suspect the inhabitants are a bit fed up of having Labour push poor quality Asian candidates on the ward from Dudley who aren’t very good (Tories have tried this too). It’s is 86.9% White but only 47.5% owner occupied. Includes the Batham’s brewery and brewery tap which to be honest now some friends have moved is the only possible reason to visit for me. It currently has 2 Conservative and 1 Labour councillor and if you told 30 year old me that I’d have asked if you had escaped from Barnsley Hall.
Netherton, St Andrews and Woodside - look, this doesn’t belong here, Netherton is a separate Black Country village but its connection to Stourbridge is very weak and back in the day Peartree Lane was an awful road to get along. Much of the area between Woodside and Netherton is a large, grimy industrial estate which still contains a fair bit of manufacturing, the number of Process, plant and machine operatives is double the national average here. Netherton does have Ma Pardoes though which absolves it of many sins. Woodside is absolutely part of hated Dudley although it is just a bit further up the A461 than Brierley Hill. St Andrews doesn’t really exist as an area most people could identify, the Darby End area at the back of Warrens Hall is quite attractive and is probably quite Tory. Netherton used to be reliably Labour, but hasn’t been totally so for about 15 years now, it went mysteriously Green in 2012 and went Tory again in 2021. It is 75.5% White and 55.3% owner occupied. It has 2 Labour and 1 Conservative councillor.
The Stourbridge constituency as we know it has only existed since 1997, originally it was in the North Worcestershire county division after 1885 and was granted a seat based on the Municipal Borough in 1918 it also originally included the Lye and Wollescote UDC (which became part of Stourbridge MB), the Oldbury UDC and the Halesowen RDC, this seat was mainly Conservative but elected the pacifist socialist William Wellock in a 1927 by-election and he held the seat in 1929 only to lose in 1931, the seat which had grown very large by the 1930’s and was taken by Labour in 1945.
In 1950, Stourbridge moved into Dudley BC which was a very odd seat made up of the County Borough of Dudley and the Municipal Borough of Stourbridge, the two being separated by Brierley Hill which was in Staffordshire. People in Stourbridge didn’t like that arrangement much, especially as it almost ensured a Labour MP, but they decided they did like George Wigg (aka Wilson’s Nark) who was still being spoken fondly of by older people in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Stourbridge probably provided the bulk of the Tory votes in Dudley BC during the 50s and 60’s When Wigg became a peer, the Tories won the 1968 by-election and only narrowly lost the seat to John Gilbert in 1970.
It then became Halesowen and Stourbridge BC, originally made up of the Municipal Boroughs of Halesowen and of Stourbridge. This was very marginal in both 1974 elections mainly due to a strong Liberal intervention but John Stokes won through and held the seat fairly easily after that despite being held in fairly low regard even by his own activists, he was helped in this by a selection of low quality Labour candidates.
The seat as we now know it was formed in 1997 and was won by Debra Shipley for Labour, it was a bit of a surprise but by that time the only ward in the new seat which was Conservative was Pedmore, Norton had gone LibDem and everything else was Labour. She held the seat easily in 2001 and seemed to be well regarded even by Stourbridge Tories, but the Tory fightback had begun, they regained the Norton seats from the LibDems and Amblecote from Labour. Wollaston resumed its usual marginal status and Lye, well, Asian politics meant the odd Tory victory. Linda Waltho took over in 2005 by the skin of her teeth and was not so well regarded, it was no surprise that she lost in 2010 despite the addition of Labour favourable ward - Quarry Bank and Dudley Wood. Margot James took the seat and despite her differences was generally well regarded, she increased her majority in each election until she stood down over Brexit, which was locally regarded as the right thing to do, Stourbridge people aren’t Brexit headbangers unlike say Dudley, but they voted firmly for it and would probably do so again (maybe not Norton). Suzanne Webb, despite being a Brummie, won easily by 13.6k. She’s going down OK despite that handicap.
Stourbridge is only just under quota and most of the boundary changes affecting the seat are due to the need to redraw neighbouring seats. In total just under 20,000 voters are lost to Halesowen in the wards of Cradley & Foxcote and Quarry Bank & Dudley Wood and just over 20,000 gained from Dudley South in Brierley Hill and Netherton, Woodside & St Andrews. The departing wards are the most Labour leaning within this seat and the wards to be added usually have a similar political affiliation. In 2019 the Conservative lead was greater in the incoming wards so the notional majority is increased a bit but despite the large number of voters moving in and out, these changes overall are likely to be neutral. In 2023 the seat was only just held by the Tories in the local council elections, which bodes well for them holding it at the next general election. However, the two wards coming in are slightly more BAME than the two wards leaving and have considerable more social housing neither of which are good markers for the Tories these days, but I would still expect a reasonably comfortable hold.
Like most of the Black Country Boroughs, Stourbridge is an odd place, each of them are quite distinctive but it is certainly one of the more middle class ones and always has been. It has had a Waitrose since the mid 70's, I worked there as a Saturday boy for three years whilst in the Fifth and Sixth Form. Stourbridge for a long time was a two supermarket town - Waitrose and an incredibly rancid KwikSave - which in some ways sums it up, there’s well off bits and there’s nasty and there’s not a lot in the middle. It absolutely loathed being placed in Dudley and even now 50 years on, there's a reasonable number of people who would see it returned to Worcestershire - some of which weren't born at the time.
It has a reputation for glass, which is amusing, as there was very little glass produced in the old municipal borough of Stourbridge, some was produced in Oldswinford back in the day - hence Glasshouse Hill, but the glass that made Stourbridge's name was mainly produced in Amblecote, Audnam and Wordsley. Stourbridge made its money from hollowware and other light industry as well as being the market town for much of North Worcestershire (and parts of South Staffordshire). No mention of Stourbridge should be made without a mention of Ernest Stevens, he made a fortune out of hollowware and donated much of it in memory of his wife, three large parks, a smaller ornamental gardens, a maternity home (now a hospice), the site for the Glassboys ground, the Carlisle Hall (long since gone under the Fire Station) etc.
It was also an early commuting seat, trains took people direct to Birmingham Snow Hill in the centre of the business district of Birmingham and the houses around Oldswinford and into Norton were built for those who couldn’t afford a similar house in Edgbaston but could afford a seasons ticket. Commuting is still big business, the Junction has a very large car park and has bounced back since Covid to over a million passengers a year. of which over a quarter of a million go to use the Town Car into Stourbridge Town.
It is a fairly white seat, as perhaps reflects its position on the fringes of Dudley, distanced from the heart of the Black Country (and Dudley is the whitest Black Country borough). Overall, the seat is 86.7% white which is the whitest of the seats wholly in the Black Country Boroughs. Like virtually all the Black Country, and despite its then MP, it was another Leave constituency, if by not quite as much as many of its neighbours, the Leave vote of 63% being relatively low in comparison to several adjacent seats. The percentage of those in professional and managerial work at 29,5% is not quite as high as might be expected, although conversely the figure for those in elementary work is low at around 10%. It scores highly for skilled traders, the occupation of 12% of the constituency, reflecting like again many neighbouring constituencies, the Black Country manufacturing tradition. The percentage without educational qualifications at 21.6% is slightly higher than the average, and just 27% of the population of the seat have degree qualifications or equivalent, But it is a fairly heavily owner-occupied seat – 66% of the population own their homes, and 18.4% are in social housing. So overall, this is a more traditionally Tory seat than the likes of its neighbours, still less the likes of Walsall North or West Bromwich West.
Norton ward - There has been a lot of housing built here over the years, Norton was originally just the Norton Road and a few streets off it, the 1930s saw some council house building in High Park (which Norton people would say was in Wollaston) and some development along the Broadway, hence the very 30's council flats there and the private houses between the Broadway and the Norton Road. Then in the 1940's and 50's, the large Norton Estate was built - all very good quality council houses and most of them snapped up by their tenants in the 1980's. I lived in one until I was 4 and then we moved up the hill to the new private development off Clent View Road. The sixties saw a lot of small to medium private development in Norton - Clent View estate, The Links at the back of the Golf Course and various bits of infill. As did the 70's with the New Inns Estate, the old Mere Pool infill and around the back of Mary Stevens Park. Norton is almost entirely suburban in nature, the whole ward now contains only three pubs, two of which I wouldn't be seen dead in (I may technically still be barred from the Greyhound) and the third of which would be an in extremis move. There is one very small parade of shops and four takeaways - two of which are on the border with Pedmore. Apart from a LibDem blip in the 90’s, it has been solidly Conservative and is likely to remain so. Norton is 94% white and 83,4% owner occupied .
Pedmore is probably wealthier overall than Norton, it certainly has more expensive houses overall, but it has Pedmore Fields to drag it down, there's been a lot in infill housing there as well, especially between the Hagley Road and the Worcester Road, but old Pedmore and Oldswinford are generally far better off than old Norton. But the infill is much of a muchness and Pedmore Fields is a larger council estate with a lot of retained properties and some significant problems. Again it is very suburban in nature. When Communism comes, Pedmore will still elect a Tory to the Local Soviet. Pedmore is 87% white and 75.8% owner occupied.
Wollaston & Stourbridge Town is a very mixed ward - it's gradually moved to being residential over the years, but there used to be a substantial number of industrial jobs in the ward and there are still a few in the last remaining industrial estate off Lowdnes Road. My dad started work at the rolling mills on Bowling Green Road, which are now standard issue new build cheaper private housing. It includes the town centre based inside the concrete collar with contains a very mixed set of retail opportunities, my recent walks through have noted some brave attempts at independent shops, but its getting very charity shop outside of the Ryemarket, The other supposed focal point, the Crown Centre remains a home for a large Tesco and not a lot else. The area immediately to the west of it is regarded as Stourbridge Town as well, the bits off Worcester Street are very nice and very Tory, the bits off Enville Street are close packed terraces. There are pockets of social housing, two high rises by the ring road, some flats off Mamble Road and a couple of small inter-war council estates which are mainly bought out. The rest of the ward is Wollaston, which has its own small but fairly thriving shopping centre, there's a mix of old private housing, the large Wollaston Farm council estate and newer infill replacing things like the old Judge hollowware factory. There's a distinct lack of green space, it should be a Labour ward really, but a mix of Black Country Toryism, Dudley Hate and that the Farm has been hard to drag to the polls for the last 50 years have kept the Tories competitive here. It currently has 2 Labour and 1 Conservative councillor. Wollaston in 94.9% White and 68% Owner occupied.
Amblecote is a bit of an odd ward, at its core is about 60% of the old Amblecote UDC, which I think was the smallest UDC in the country and used to not have a council house but held its meetings in the Fish public house - which is now a chinese resto after being closed after yet another outburst of biker violence which ended in an involuntary amputation. I spent a while in the Dudley Archives tracking down the UDC election results to find that in the inter-war period and through into the fifties it was a dynastic council with only two actual opposed elections - it wasn't warded and elected en bloc. There again, it was very small, probably 85% of the housing hadn't been built then. Because this is New Build Land par excellence - the original core was along the high street and the Collis Street / Brettell Lane triangle, the immediate post war added a small council estate off Church Avenue. But since then *boom* massive amounts of building, nearly all of it private. You've had what I still call Pennfields but has now been called Withymoor Village - a massive estate (about 3,500 houses) built over old open-cast mine workings some of which had been drift-mined before that. The "Shed disappears down mineshaft" was a staple headline of the local rag which my late mother worked for. It includes a huge Sainsers - which they used to use for training and was open at odd hours. There's lots of green space and a very deep lake near the railway line. Whilst there is some light industry remaining, down by the canal, there has been more recent infill on various former industrial sites which have grown the ward and also on part of the site of the former Corbett Hospital which was much beloved by Stourbridge residents, part of the site is now a mental health unit, part is an outpatient hospital and the rest is, yes, more new houses. It has been solidly Tory since its separation from Wollaston in 1982, Blair had it in his pomp for Labour for a brief period, but since then the only time it was lost was when there was a Kipper victory and when the Tories made the mistake of running an Asian Candidate who was also "proudly from Dudley”. Amblecote may well be the canary in the mine for Stourbridge Tories, if it falls, either you’ve fucked the selection up or Labour will win the seat. Amblecote is 92.9% White and 78.7% Owner Occupied.
The old Lye and Wollescote ward fitted together every well, Lye and Stourbridge North rather less so.It contains The Lye which has many fine pubs as well as the curry houses with Wollescote which is a mix of council estate and the cheaper end of the private market. It also includes some of the roughest bits of the 'bridge, mainly the joy that is Hungary Hill and its appurtenances - which has been dodgy since the 50's. There's a lot of proper jobs in this ward, although rather less than there used to be and The Lye has a busy commercial centre which includes a number of Asian shops as well as the restaurants. Unlike the other Stourbridge wards, it has a significant BAME population mainly made up of Bangladeshis who are well organised politically. Given the pretty appalling turnout generally, the substantial Asian vote can make the difference here and in its replacement. It usually stays Labour but watch the candidates carefully, the Tories know how to play the game as well. It currently has 2 Labour and 1 Conservative councillor. It is 77.7% White and 61.7% owner occupied.
Brierley Hill- Brierley Hill was, of course, the centre of its own UDC within Staffordshire until 1973 and its handsome former town hall lies on the High Street. It was a steel town based around the Round Oak Steel works with a thriving number of local businesses that fed off Round Oak and a busy High Street. There was a lot of social housing in the ward, the large Hawbush estate and the high-rise 1960’s Chapel Street Estate which can best be described as troubled from the get go and by the time I last visited it in the late 90’s was a massive slum in the sky.. Brierley Hill started to decline fast in the early 1980’s and the closure of Round Oak was a disaster for the area. The result was Merry Hill, known as Merry Hell to the locals, a large enterprise zone which initially was mainly used for retail which got the town out of what looked like a death spiral but at the cost of killing both Brierley Hill and Dudley High Streets to anything but tat shops. Brierley Hill used to be solid Labour often seeing Labour voteshares in the sixties or seventies and during the 1993-5 period even into the eighties, but the area has improved since the dire days of the 1980’s and its is very Brexity and had a significant UKIP vote and hence the Conservative vote has picked up. I also suspect the inhabitants are a bit fed up of having Labour push poor quality Asian candidates on the ward from Dudley who aren’t very good (Tories have tried this too). It’s is 86.9% White but only 47.5% owner occupied. Includes the Batham’s brewery and brewery tap which to be honest now some friends have moved is the only possible reason to visit for me. It currently has 2 Conservative and 1 Labour councillor and if you told 30 year old me that I’d have asked if you had escaped from Barnsley Hall.
Netherton, St Andrews and Woodside - look, this doesn’t belong here, Netherton is a separate Black Country village but its connection to Stourbridge is very weak and back in the day Peartree Lane was an awful road to get along. Much of the area between Woodside and Netherton is a large, grimy industrial estate which still contains a fair bit of manufacturing, the number of Process, plant and machine operatives is double the national average here. Netherton does have Ma Pardoes though which absolves it of many sins. Woodside is absolutely part of hated Dudley although it is just a bit further up the A461 than Brierley Hill. St Andrews doesn’t really exist as an area most people could identify, the Darby End area at the back of Warrens Hall is quite attractive and is probably quite Tory. Netherton used to be reliably Labour, but hasn’t been totally so for about 15 years now, it went mysteriously Green in 2012 and went Tory again in 2021. It is 75.5% White and 55.3% owner occupied. It has 2 Labour and 1 Conservative councillor.
