Post by John Chanin on Jan 26, 2024 21:08:37 GMT
This is an expanded version of the original profile by Yaffles .
Lichfield constituency includes the city along with the town of Burntwood to the west and a swath of rural wards to the north. The city itself accounts for a third of the seat, and has a mostly pleasant old centre as befits a place of such historical importance. One of the amusing things about Wikipedia is that almost every town has a paragraph about its Anglo-Saxon origin, but in this case it is justified. King Offa of the Mercians in the 700s, not happy at being under the ecclesiastical dominion of Canterbury in hostile Kent, arranged for Lichfield (an early Christian centre) to become a separate archbishopric. But this failed to hold as Mercia’s importance declined, and by the time the Danes had overrun the area, the town lost importance. It does however still have a cathedral dating from around 1200. Its later claim to fame is as the original home of Dr Johnson of dictionary fame. The rest of the city is a bit of a hotchpotch of 20th century development, ranging from some fairly standard council estates in the north of the town, to some larger genteel homes dating from the 50s, 60s and 70s closer to the centre, and brand new development along the southern edge, particularly in Boley Park which is entirely private and 87% owner-occupied. There remains a strong north/south divide with the north featuring fewer higher educated professionals and being generally heavily working class, while the sprawling new estates of the south are 55% managerial. Politically this is reflected at local elections, although the Liberal Democrats generally win the Chadsmead ward in the north-west, and are competitive in the centre. The close links via both rail and road to Birmingham mean that Lichfield has increasing appeal to commuters. The city even has direct rail services to London and has the nearby M6 Toll so you can always escape the traffic of Birmingham for a price. House prices are high in comparison to other nearby Staffordshire towns like Burton and Rugeley.
Burntwood is a former mining town with close connections and historical similarities to the towns in Cannock Chase constituency, and Brownhills in Walsall. It is a little smaller than Lichfield with around 20,000 electors, and decidedly rundown and working class, with more routine workers than managerial and very low levels of qualifications. Social housing tenants are concentrated in the west of the town next to the giant Chasewater reservoir, but owner-occupation is high in the rest of the town. Burntwood has always provided the majority of Labour votes in the seat, and has remained more faithful than the other Cannock towns, with all 10 councillors elected in 2023 being Labour, although there is a large Conservative minority.
If the seat just consisted of these two towns it would be marginal. However a third of the seat is rural. 5000 voters come from the area between Lichfield and Burntwood. A further 10,000 come from the north of Lichfield District where the district wards of Alrewas & Fradley and Whittingdon & Streethay have seen large scale development of modern warehouse complexes along the main A38 linking Derby and Birmingham, which somewhat dwarf the earlier industrial transport infrastructure of the Trent and Mersey Canal. The canal runs through Handsacre, the largest village here, on its way to Rugeley. A further 9000 voters come from the rural south of East Staffordshire District, encompassed in the huge sprawling Bagots & Needwood ward which includes parts of the National Forest. The village of Abbots Bromley is famed for its horn dance and has a number of rather good public houses should you be passing through, and there are no other villages of any size. The whole area is strongly Conservative and close to 50% managerial, and ensures that the constituency is safely Conservative. Overall the constituency is 96% white, high in owner-occupation, and modestly middle-class as the census information below shows.
Historically this area was part of a Lichfield & Tamworth seat that voted Labour all the way up to 1970. But there was major expansion of both towns in the 1970s, with much housing built for commuters moving out of Birmingham, and the electorate had exceeded 100,000 by 1979. Tamworth was then split off, and Lichfield became part of a curious Mid Staffordshire seat linked with Rugeley and Stone, Conservative at General Elections, but famously won by Sylvia Heal of Labour in a 1990 byelection. Meanwhile Burntwood was linked with Cannock. This short lived rearrangement ended in 1997 when the seat essentially took on its modern shape, and the former Conservative MP who won back Mid Staffordshire in 1992, Michael Fabricant, scraped home by just 238 votes. Fabricant, originally an economist from Brighton, is still the MP, famous mainly for his blond locks, and with continuing development the seat has now become safe for the Conservatives. Despite (or possibly as a result of) his buffoonish personality he has built up a significant degree of local popularity. The boundary changes here are extremely minor just splitting the urban from the rural part of Whittington & Streethay ward. Whilst the Keir Starmer led Labour Party may turn some of Lichfield’s voters, especially in the city, it is hard to envisage this seat going red anytime soon.
Census data: Owner-occupied 75% (64/575 in England & Wales), private rented 13% (542nd), social rented 13% (400th).
: White 96%(133rd), Black 0%(465th), South Asian 1%(388th), Mixed 2%(314th), Other 1%(536th)
: Managerial & professional 43% (166th), Routine & Semi-routine 25% (370th)
: Degree level 34%(230th), Minimal qualifications 27%(327th)
: Students 5% (450th), Over 65: 24% (104th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 99% from Lichfield and 1% from Tamworth
97% of the old seat is in the new one, with 3% going to Tamworth
Lichfield constituency includes the city along with the town of Burntwood to the west and a swath of rural wards to the north. The city itself accounts for a third of the seat, and has a mostly pleasant old centre as befits a place of such historical importance. One of the amusing things about Wikipedia is that almost every town has a paragraph about its Anglo-Saxon origin, but in this case it is justified. King Offa of the Mercians in the 700s, not happy at being under the ecclesiastical dominion of Canterbury in hostile Kent, arranged for Lichfield (an early Christian centre) to become a separate archbishopric. But this failed to hold as Mercia’s importance declined, and by the time the Danes had overrun the area, the town lost importance. It does however still have a cathedral dating from around 1200. Its later claim to fame is as the original home of Dr Johnson of dictionary fame. The rest of the city is a bit of a hotchpotch of 20th century development, ranging from some fairly standard council estates in the north of the town, to some larger genteel homes dating from the 50s, 60s and 70s closer to the centre, and brand new development along the southern edge, particularly in Boley Park which is entirely private and 87% owner-occupied. There remains a strong north/south divide with the north featuring fewer higher educated professionals and being generally heavily working class, while the sprawling new estates of the south are 55% managerial. Politically this is reflected at local elections, although the Liberal Democrats generally win the Chadsmead ward in the north-west, and are competitive in the centre. The close links via both rail and road to Birmingham mean that Lichfield has increasing appeal to commuters. The city even has direct rail services to London and has the nearby M6 Toll so you can always escape the traffic of Birmingham for a price. House prices are high in comparison to other nearby Staffordshire towns like Burton and Rugeley.
Burntwood is a former mining town with close connections and historical similarities to the towns in Cannock Chase constituency, and Brownhills in Walsall. It is a little smaller than Lichfield with around 20,000 electors, and decidedly rundown and working class, with more routine workers than managerial and very low levels of qualifications. Social housing tenants are concentrated in the west of the town next to the giant Chasewater reservoir, but owner-occupation is high in the rest of the town. Burntwood has always provided the majority of Labour votes in the seat, and has remained more faithful than the other Cannock towns, with all 10 councillors elected in 2023 being Labour, although there is a large Conservative minority.
If the seat just consisted of these two towns it would be marginal. However a third of the seat is rural. 5000 voters come from the area between Lichfield and Burntwood. A further 10,000 come from the north of Lichfield District where the district wards of Alrewas & Fradley and Whittingdon & Streethay have seen large scale development of modern warehouse complexes along the main A38 linking Derby and Birmingham, which somewhat dwarf the earlier industrial transport infrastructure of the Trent and Mersey Canal. The canal runs through Handsacre, the largest village here, on its way to Rugeley. A further 9000 voters come from the rural south of East Staffordshire District, encompassed in the huge sprawling Bagots & Needwood ward which includes parts of the National Forest. The village of Abbots Bromley is famed for its horn dance and has a number of rather good public houses should you be passing through, and there are no other villages of any size. The whole area is strongly Conservative and close to 50% managerial, and ensures that the constituency is safely Conservative. Overall the constituency is 96% white, high in owner-occupation, and modestly middle-class as the census information below shows.
Historically this area was part of a Lichfield & Tamworth seat that voted Labour all the way up to 1970. But there was major expansion of both towns in the 1970s, with much housing built for commuters moving out of Birmingham, and the electorate had exceeded 100,000 by 1979. Tamworth was then split off, and Lichfield became part of a curious Mid Staffordshire seat linked with Rugeley and Stone, Conservative at General Elections, but famously won by Sylvia Heal of Labour in a 1990 byelection. Meanwhile Burntwood was linked with Cannock. This short lived rearrangement ended in 1997 when the seat essentially took on its modern shape, and the former Conservative MP who won back Mid Staffordshire in 1992, Michael Fabricant, scraped home by just 238 votes. Fabricant, originally an economist from Brighton, is still the MP, famous mainly for his blond locks, and with continuing development the seat has now become safe for the Conservatives. Despite (or possibly as a result of) his buffoonish personality he has built up a significant degree of local popularity. The boundary changes here are extremely minor just splitting the urban from the rural part of Whittington & Streethay ward. Whilst the Keir Starmer led Labour Party may turn some of Lichfield’s voters, especially in the city, it is hard to envisage this seat going red anytime soon.
Census data: Owner-occupied 75% (64/575 in England & Wales), private rented 13% (542nd), social rented 13% (400th).
: White 96%(133rd), Black 0%(465th), South Asian 1%(388th), Mixed 2%(314th), Other 1%(536th)
: Managerial & professional 43% (166th), Routine & Semi-routine 25% (370th)
: Degree level 34%(230th), Minimal qualifications 27%(327th)
: Students 5% (450th), Over 65: 24% (104th)
Boundaries : The new seat is made up of 99% from Lichfield and 1% from Tamworth
97% of the old seat is in the new one, with 3% going to Tamworth
2017 | % | 2019 | % | Notional | % | |
Conservative | 34,018 | 63.6 | 34,844 | 64.5 | 33,638 | 64.1 |
Labour | 15,437 | 28.8 | 11,206 | 20.8 | 11,029 | 21.0 |
Liberal Democrat | 2,653 | 5.0 | 5,632 | 10.4 | 5,528 | 10.5 |
Green | 1,416 | 2.6 | 1,743 | 3.2 | 1,702 | 3.2 |
Other | 568 | 1.1 | 568 | 1.1 | ||
| Majority | 18,581 | 34.7 | 23,638 | 43.8 | 22,609 | 43.1 |