Post by Robert Waller on Jan 13, 2024 13:52:31 GMT
Original profile by sirbenjamin (who essayed the humorous elements), much in addition by myself
When the parliamentary representation for the county of Essex was increased from 17 to 18 seats at the boundary review which took effect in 2010, Witham was effectively the 'new girl in town', created from bits of various other seats that nobody else wanted. Indeed it's probably a minor miracle that the seat wasn't named 'Essex Mid', as it takes in wards from three different Local Authorities (Braintree, Maldon and Colchester) without much of a sense of affinity towards any of these places. It is very much a collection of ‘what’s left in Essex’, with no large towns, no sea coast, and no overwhelmingly unifying feature – apart, perhaps, from its strong and continuing loyalty to the Conservative party.
In the 2023 boundary changes, Witham gains 8.5% of the Braintree constituency’s electorate - the whole of the Colnes ward, and the Cressing part of the Silver End & Cressing ward, and also a small part of the Coggeshall ward around Stisted (both these previously divided between the two seats), will now be in Witham. In return, in another tidying up of the ward boundaries after these themselves were reviewed a few years ago, 2.8% of Witham is shifted to Braintree, mainly in the shape of Black Notley. There will be no significant partisan impact, but the electorate if Witham will be increased by about 5,000 to 75.000, having been slightly undersized previously.
Since its 2010 creation, the seat has been held by Priti Patel - not herself an Essex Girl per se, though she attended the University of Essex - with substantial absolute majorities that have given her much to smirk about. Whatever one thinks of her or her politics, it seems to have gone down very well with the voters in the Witham constituency, and her appeal seems to be fairly consistent right across its various ragbaggy components.
The town of Witham itself (pronounced with a hard 't') is on the London-Norwich railway line, though not all trains stop there, and with plenty of heavy industry and uninspiring estates of curly streets and flat-roofed pubs, is far from the idyllic image of a Tory heartland. But the town has a population of only 27,389 (2021 census), and it is indeed the only part of the seat where Labour voters still exist in reasonable numbers. The former Wetherspoons was located on Dorothy L. Sayers Drive - a nod to the author’s residence and death in the town.
There are no other clear claimants to the title of town within the Witham constituency. The next largest urban unit, and the only other where a ward boundary is tightly drawn to the built up area, is Tiptree, with its population of 9,625 in 2021 – the locals rejected town status in a referendum in 1999, despite its expansion through new private housing estates. Tiptree (in Colchester borough) is known for its fruity preserves, though the quaint, traditional image conjured up by jam jar labels maybe a little misleading in its evocativity. It is, however, monolithically Conservative in its voting habits.
Apart from a very wide scattering of truly rural villages, the population centres apart from Witham tend to run along the lines of, and usually bypassed by, the two arterial trunk roads within the seat, the A12 from London to Colchester and on to Ipswich - like Hatfield Peverel (population 4,300) and Kelvedon (4,800) - and the A120 from Bishop’s Stortford to Harwich, such as Coggeshall (3,765 residents in the 2021 census). But their wards include swathes of countryside as well as the eponymous expanded villages themselves. Even fewer mainline trains than at Witham stop at Hatfield Peverel and Kelveden, while the seat also includes much of the Braintree branch line which was lucky to survive the Beeching axe, albeit in truncated form.
The salty flatlands and flat saltlands around the Blackwater Estuary in Maldon borough are sparsely populated and relatively - though not overwhelmingly - affluent, with agriculture and eccentric light industry predominant. The Maldon district wards have all generally been very safely Conservative at a local level, with the main challenge usually coming from independents.
Generally speaking, Witham is fairly close to the national average in most of its 2021 Census demographics. It is more owner occupied in terms of housing tenure, though, nearly 73% overall, and the private rented sector is particularly under-represented. The only significant blocs of social housing are at the north end of Witham town, in the north western part of Kelvedon and the central section of Hatfield Peverel, and in the untypical village of Silver End – a rather odd creation as a ‘model village’ along the lines of those founded by Salt, Rowntree and Lever but not as well known. It was originally built from 1926 to 1932 in largely Modernist style to serve Francis Henry Crittall’s window factory (which closed in 2006). Overall the socio-economic ratings are slightly more middle class than the national average, but there are high routine and semi-routine work figures in the west and south if Witham as well as in the social rented housing areas previously listed.
The educational qualification figures follow those for occupation closely. The places with a high proportion without qualifications are the same as those with many in low status jobs; and the few places with an above average number of graduates are parts of Coggeshall and Kelvedon, which are suitable bases for commuting as they are just of the A12, north eastern Witham along the Colchester Road as it leaves town, and a few of the more affluent villages like Wickham Bishops and White Colne. The seat is still over 94% white and there are no concentrations of minority groups. Indeed in the rural parts there are plenty of small census output areas (OAs) with no Asian or black residents at all.
Taking the latest boundary changes into account, the largest section of the Witham constituency is that in Braintree District council, which contributes 9 of its 16 wards. These cover the southern tapering triangle of that authority (which is shaped a little like India), and includes the four wards of Witham town itself. In the most recent municipal contests, in May 2023, the Conservatives held three of the four Witham wards and also the more rural Hatfield Peverel & Terling. Labour gained Witham South, which they had last won completely in 2033 and partially in 2007. In the northern half of the Braintree district section, the Green party held two wards they had first won in 2019: Silver End & Cressing and Kelvedon & Feering. Meanwhile in Coggeshall, Independents strengthened their grip. Finally, in the new extension to the most northerly part the constituency, the Conservatives held The Colnes ward, though with less than a 50% share, as a lone Green took 35%.
Only three wards from the south western quadrant of the city of Colchester are in the Witham seat, though it might be pointed out that their electorates are about twice the size of those from the other two authorities, so these account for over 17,000 potential voters. In May 2023 the Tories held the most urban and compact of these, Tiptree, as well as the more rural Marks Tey & Layer. Both of these were easily held even in 2023, not nationally a good year for the blue team, with 54% in each and divided opposition. But the Liberal Democrats won Stanway, the one closest to the sprawl of Colchester itself – as they have in most years since the mid 1980s.
The smallest contribution to Witham, although there are four wards, is from Maldon District, covering the north and north east if that authority, plus a western salient in the form of Wickham Bishops & Woodham ward, which approached Witham town from the east. That ward was held by the Conservatives in May 2023 as was Tolleshunt D’Arcy, but Tollesbury and Great Totham were both Independent gains that year. Overall, summing the votes across the Witham seat (new boundaries) in 2023, the Conservatives retained a fairly comfortable advantage, with a share of 41%, well ahead of Green (20%), Labour (19%), Liberal Democrat (13%) and 6% for Independents. This continued lead, combined with the even split of the opposition, suggests that Witham is one of the relatively few Tory constituencies that can genuinely be described as not even remotely in play in a 2024 general election.
Overall it is a more safely Conservative seat than it probably should be - the Brexitiness of Essex more generally likely has something to do with that, though Patel has likely built up a personal vote over the past decade by taking positions that chime with the voters and has generated a high profile within and outside government. Witham should provide a Priti comfortable base for its somewhat controversial MP for as long as she wants it, and remains the official Conservative party candidate. In July 2024, among the carnage that accounted for so many of her colleagues, she held on by a relatively comfortable margin of over 5,000, although there was a pro-Labour swing of 19.5% - and Reform achieved a 19.5% share from a standing start.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 22.0% 167/575
Owner occupied 72.8% 107/575
Private rented 13.2% 521/575
Social rented 14.0% 339/575
White 94.5% 206/575
Black 1.3% 294/575
Asian 1.8% 412/575
Managerial & professional 35.9% 203/575
Routine & Semi-routine 22.2% 334/575
Degree level 27.6% 406/575
No qualifications 17.7% 289/575
Students 4.6% 469/575
General Election 2024: Witham
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Priti Patel 18,827 37.2 –29.5
Labour Rumi Chowdhury 13,682 27.0 +9.5
Reform UK Timothy Blaxill 9,870 19.5 N/A
Green James Abbott 3,539 7.0 +1.2
Liberal Democrats Ashley Thompson 3,439 6.8 –3.2
Independent Chelsey Jay 1,246 2.5 N/A
C Majority 5,145 10.2 –38.6
Turnout 50,603 64.0 –5.4
Registered electors 79,072
Conservative hold
Swing –19.5 C to Lab
General Election 2019: Witham
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Priti Patel 32,876 66.6 +2.3
Labour Martin Edobor 8,794 17.8 –8.6
Liberal Democrats Sam North 4,584 9.3 +3.8
Green James Abbott 3,090 6.3 +2.6
C Majority 24,082 48.8 +10.9
2019 electorate 70,402
Turnout 49,344 70.1 –1.4
Conservative hold
Swing 5.5 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Witham consists of
97.2% of Witham
8.5% of Braintree
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/eastern/Eastern_108_Witham_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
[/b]
When the parliamentary representation for the county of Essex was increased from 17 to 18 seats at the boundary review which took effect in 2010, Witham was effectively the 'new girl in town', created from bits of various other seats that nobody else wanted. Indeed it's probably a minor miracle that the seat wasn't named 'Essex Mid', as it takes in wards from three different Local Authorities (Braintree, Maldon and Colchester) without much of a sense of affinity towards any of these places. It is very much a collection of ‘what’s left in Essex’, with no large towns, no sea coast, and no overwhelmingly unifying feature – apart, perhaps, from its strong and continuing loyalty to the Conservative party.
In the 2023 boundary changes, Witham gains 8.5% of the Braintree constituency’s electorate - the whole of the Colnes ward, and the Cressing part of the Silver End & Cressing ward, and also a small part of the Coggeshall ward around Stisted (both these previously divided between the two seats), will now be in Witham. In return, in another tidying up of the ward boundaries after these themselves were reviewed a few years ago, 2.8% of Witham is shifted to Braintree, mainly in the shape of Black Notley. There will be no significant partisan impact, but the electorate if Witham will be increased by about 5,000 to 75.000, having been slightly undersized previously.
Since its 2010 creation, the seat has been held by Priti Patel - not herself an Essex Girl per se, though she attended the University of Essex - with substantial absolute majorities that have given her much to smirk about. Whatever one thinks of her or her politics, it seems to have gone down very well with the voters in the Witham constituency, and her appeal seems to be fairly consistent right across its various ragbaggy components.
The town of Witham itself (pronounced with a hard 't') is on the London-Norwich railway line, though not all trains stop there, and with plenty of heavy industry and uninspiring estates of curly streets and flat-roofed pubs, is far from the idyllic image of a Tory heartland. But the town has a population of only 27,389 (2021 census), and it is indeed the only part of the seat where Labour voters still exist in reasonable numbers. The former Wetherspoons was located on Dorothy L. Sayers Drive - a nod to the author’s residence and death in the town.
There are no other clear claimants to the title of town within the Witham constituency. The next largest urban unit, and the only other where a ward boundary is tightly drawn to the built up area, is Tiptree, with its population of 9,625 in 2021 – the locals rejected town status in a referendum in 1999, despite its expansion through new private housing estates. Tiptree (in Colchester borough) is known for its fruity preserves, though the quaint, traditional image conjured up by jam jar labels maybe a little misleading in its evocativity. It is, however, monolithically Conservative in its voting habits.
Apart from a very wide scattering of truly rural villages, the population centres apart from Witham tend to run along the lines of, and usually bypassed by, the two arterial trunk roads within the seat, the A12 from London to Colchester and on to Ipswich - like Hatfield Peverel (population 4,300) and Kelvedon (4,800) - and the A120 from Bishop’s Stortford to Harwich, such as Coggeshall (3,765 residents in the 2021 census). But their wards include swathes of countryside as well as the eponymous expanded villages themselves. Even fewer mainline trains than at Witham stop at Hatfield Peverel and Kelveden, while the seat also includes much of the Braintree branch line which was lucky to survive the Beeching axe, albeit in truncated form.
The salty flatlands and flat saltlands around the Blackwater Estuary in Maldon borough are sparsely populated and relatively - though not overwhelmingly - affluent, with agriculture and eccentric light industry predominant. The Maldon district wards have all generally been very safely Conservative at a local level, with the main challenge usually coming from independents.
Generally speaking, Witham is fairly close to the national average in most of its 2021 Census demographics. It is more owner occupied in terms of housing tenure, though, nearly 73% overall, and the private rented sector is particularly under-represented. The only significant blocs of social housing are at the north end of Witham town, in the north western part of Kelvedon and the central section of Hatfield Peverel, and in the untypical village of Silver End – a rather odd creation as a ‘model village’ along the lines of those founded by Salt, Rowntree and Lever but not as well known. It was originally built from 1926 to 1932 in largely Modernist style to serve Francis Henry Crittall’s window factory (which closed in 2006). Overall the socio-economic ratings are slightly more middle class than the national average, but there are high routine and semi-routine work figures in the west and south if Witham as well as in the social rented housing areas previously listed.
The educational qualification figures follow those for occupation closely. The places with a high proportion without qualifications are the same as those with many in low status jobs; and the few places with an above average number of graduates are parts of Coggeshall and Kelvedon, which are suitable bases for commuting as they are just of the A12, north eastern Witham along the Colchester Road as it leaves town, and a few of the more affluent villages like Wickham Bishops and White Colne. The seat is still over 94% white and there are no concentrations of minority groups. Indeed in the rural parts there are plenty of small census output areas (OAs) with no Asian or black residents at all.
Taking the latest boundary changes into account, the largest section of the Witham constituency is that in Braintree District council, which contributes 9 of its 16 wards. These cover the southern tapering triangle of that authority (which is shaped a little like India), and includes the four wards of Witham town itself. In the most recent municipal contests, in May 2023, the Conservatives held three of the four Witham wards and also the more rural Hatfield Peverel & Terling. Labour gained Witham South, which they had last won completely in 2033 and partially in 2007. In the northern half of the Braintree district section, the Green party held two wards they had first won in 2019: Silver End & Cressing and Kelvedon & Feering. Meanwhile in Coggeshall, Independents strengthened their grip. Finally, in the new extension to the most northerly part the constituency, the Conservatives held The Colnes ward, though with less than a 50% share, as a lone Green took 35%.
Only three wards from the south western quadrant of the city of Colchester are in the Witham seat, though it might be pointed out that their electorates are about twice the size of those from the other two authorities, so these account for over 17,000 potential voters. In May 2023 the Tories held the most urban and compact of these, Tiptree, as well as the more rural Marks Tey & Layer. Both of these were easily held even in 2023, not nationally a good year for the blue team, with 54% in each and divided opposition. But the Liberal Democrats won Stanway, the one closest to the sprawl of Colchester itself – as they have in most years since the mid 1980s.
The smallest contribution to Witham, although there are four wards, is from Maldon District, covering the north and north east if that authority, plus a western salient in the form of Wickham Bishops & Woodham ward, which approached Witham town from the east. That ward was held by the Conservatives in May 2023 as was Tolleshunt D’Arcy, but Tollesbury and Great Totham were both Independent gains that year. Overall, summing the votes across the Witham seat (new boundaries) in 2023, the Conservatives retained a fairly comfortable advantage, with a share of 41%, well ahead of Green (20%), Labour (19%), Liberal Democrat (13%) and 6% for Independents. This continued lead, combined with the even split of the opposition, suggests that Witham is one of the relatively few Tory constituencies that can genuinely be described as not even remotely in play in a 2024 general election.
Overall it is a more safely Conservative seat than it probably should be - the Brexitiness of Essex more generally likely has something to do with that, though Patel has likely built up a personal vote over the past decade by taking positions that chime with the voters and has generated a high profile within and outside government. Witham should provide a Priti comfortable base for its somewhat controversial MP for as long as she wants it, and remains the official Conservative party candidate. In July 2024, among the carnage that accounted for so many of her colleagues, she held on by a relatively comfortable margin of over 5,000, although there was a pro-Labour swing of 19.5% - and Reform achieved a 19.5% share from a standing start.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 22.0% 167/575
Owner occupied 72.8% 107/575
Private rented 13.2% 521/575
Social rented 14.0% 339/575
White 94.5% 206/575
Black 1.3% 294/575
Asian 1.8% 412/575
Managerial & professional 35.9% 203/575
Routine & Semi-routine 22.2% 334/575
Degree level 27.6% 406/575
No qualifications 17.7% 289/575
Students 4.6% 469/575
General Election 2024: Witham
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Priti Patel 18,827 37.2 –29.5
Labour Rumi Chowdhury 13,682 27.0 +9.5
Reform UK Timothy Blaxill 9,870 19.5 N/A
Green James Abbott 3,539 7.0 +1.2
Liberal Democrats Ashley Thompson 3,439 6.8 –3.2
Independent Chelsey Jay 1,246 2.5 N/A
C Majority 5,145 10.2 –38.6
Turnout 50,603 64.0 –5.4
Registered electors 79,072
Conservative hold
Swing –19.5 C to Lab
General Election 2019: Witham
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Priti Patel 32,876 66.6 +2.3
Labour Martin Edobor 8,794 17.8 –8.6
Liberal Democrats Sam North 4,584 9.3 +3.8
Green James Abbott 3,090 6.3 +2.6
C Majority 24,082 48.8 +10.9
2019 electorate 70,402
Turnout 49,344 70.1 –1.4
Conservative hold
Swing 5.5 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Witham consists of
97.2% of Witham
8.5% of Braintree
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/eastern/Eastern_108_Witham_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
[/b]
| Con | 34777 | 66.7% |
| Lab | 9108 | 17.5% |
| LD | 5214 | 10.0% |
| Grn | 3006 | 5.8% |
| Majority | 25669 | 49.3% |
