Post by andrewp on Jan 28, 2024 21:24:46 GMT
With credit to Penddu for the original profile and LDCaerdydd for information supplied for this profile.
Cardiff North ( Gogledd Caerdydd) has existed in its broad current shape since 1983, is the most affluent of the four constituencies in the capital of Wales and also usually the closest of the four to a marginal constituency. Until 2017, it had been held by the party that won nationally- the Conservatives from 1983-97, Labour from 1997-2010 and then Conservative again in 2010 and 2015. Up until 2024 it has been entirely within the City and County of Cardiff (Caerdydd). It stretches across the north and north west of the city to the east of the River Taff and north of the A48 and consists mostly of commuter suburbs.
In the north-west of the constituency lies the fairy-tale castle of Castell Coch – built into the wooded hillside overlooking the village of Tongwynlais and amongst the most picturesque of Wales’s many castles. The adjoining suburb of Whitchurch has a High School which has produced such sporting greats as Sam Warburton, Gareth Bale and Geraint Thomas - but is otherwise fairly non-descript as are the 1950s/60s commuter suburbs of Colyton, Rhiwbina and Llanishen. All of these are comfortable middle class suburbia. Lisvane to the east is a village that has been subsumed into Cardiff and has some of the most expensive homes in Wales and a definite ‘countryside’ feel. A 4 bedroom detached house will set you back £750,000 in Lisvane.
The northern end of this seat is currently Pentyrch on the border of which is Taff’s Well railway station which upon completion of the South Wales Metro in 2025 will see 12 trains per hour direct to the City Centre of Cardiff so whilst on the border between Cardiff and Rhondda Cynon Taff the whole area is becoming very much an overspill for Cardiff with the population increasingly looking south towards Cardiff for both employment and leisure.
To the east lies the more modern commuter suburb of Pontprennau, with further large housing developments planned nearby.
To the south, heading towards the city centre are two different areas - the grittier suburbs of Llandaff North and Gabalfa, with Gabalfa actually being within the inner city ring road and containing the University Hospital of Wales, locally known as the Heath. This is the largest hospital in Wales with 1,000 beds, and when built in the 1960s was the largest hospital in Europe. Around about 4000 students, mostly from Cardiff University and Cardiff Metropolitan university live in Gabalfa.
This is overall a very middle class constituency with high owner-occupancy rates, and contains 10 commuter railway stations. It is 74.2% owner occupied ( 71st highest in England and Wales) which is at least 10% higher than the other three Cardiff constituencies with a peak of 88% owner occupation in Rhiwbina and 82% in Lisvane and Thornhill. 18.8% of people here are aged over 65, not far off the national average for England and Wales but higher than the other three Cardiff constituencies, and 87.8% of people are White, about 10% higher than Cardiff East or Cardiff South and Penarth .
Fully 43.1% of people work in jobs categorised as higher or lower professional, the two top categories of employment, which is 10% higher than the other 3 Cardiff constituencies, and this figure reaches over 50% in Lisvane and Rhiwbina. 44.4% of people have been educated to degree level, and only 12.8% of people have no formal qualifications. This can best be categorised as a professional skilled area. This constituency is particularly home to a lot of public sector workers. As well as the University Hospital Wales, and for the moment Companies House and it’s 1,000 odd workforce (the building and site is currently up for sale with no new permanent home identified for them), until 2020 the seat also included a large HMRC office housing around 1,500 tax office workers including a small dedicated team (three phonelines) for Parliamentarians with tax
In the local elections in 2022, Labour won 13 councillors here to the Conservatives 8 and 2 Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives had won 14 to Labour’s 4 in 2017. In the 2 wards closest to the city, Labour won Llandaff North easily with 58% of the vote to the Conservatives 10% and studenty Gabalfa was won by the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives only getting 4% of the vote. Further north, the rest of wards are quite competitive, Labour won Heath comfortably, and Llanishen and gained all 4 seats in Whitchurch & Tongwynlais narrowly from the Conservatives. The Conservatives held Rhiwbina, Pontprennau & St Mellons and the newly configured Lisvane & Thornhill ward. When Lisvane formed is own ward it was strongly Conservative -it was the only ward that the Conservatives won in Cardiff in 1995 and they got 80% of the vote there in 2008.
Like most of Cardiff’s seats Cardiff North is a little undersized for the parameters of the current boundary review although is not as small as many in Wales. This is solved by adding the division of Taffs Well and its 2855 electors. Taffs Well is immediately north of Tongwynlais in Cardiff, on the road to Pontypridd. It is a strong Labour area, although is part of the area at the south of the Rhondda Cynon Taff council area where the Conservatives have been starting to do a bit better. The addition of this division adds about 500 to the notional Labour majority here, taking it to 7579 or about 13.8%
Whilst the first three contests in Cardiff North in its current format were won by the Conservatives, who reached their peak in 1983 with 47.1% of the vote, the seat was never truly safe and it was no big surprise when Julie Morgan, wife of Rhodri and who still represents this constituency in the Senedd, won it for Labour in 1997. What was a surprise was Labour holding onto it in 2005 by just over 1,100 votes. Before 1997 Cardiff North voted to the right of the nation as a whole, since 1997 it has voted to the left. The seat returned to the Conservatives like many others in 2010 and remained blue in 2015 before being unexpectedly lost in 2017. In 2019 Labour increased its majority here from 4174 to 6982. This constituency was one of number of Labour gains in southern cities in 2017 that swung further to them against the trend in 2019. The increase in Labour majority here was primarily due to the 6% drop in the Conservative vote, one of their worst 25 performances at that election, rather than an increase in the Labour vote, but is a sign that this seat may just have trended out of the Conservatives reach. The Labour majority in Cardiff North in 2019 was similar to that achieved in previous strongholds like Neath and Pontypridd.
Cardiff North ( Gogledd Caerdydd) has existed in its broad current shape since 1983, is the most affluent of the four constituencies in the capital of Wales and also usually the closest of the four to a marginal constituency. Until 2017, it had been held by the party that won nationally- the Conservatives from 1983-97, Labour from 1997-2010 and then Conservative again in 2010 and 2015. Up until 2024 it has been entirely within the City and County of Cardiff (Caerdydd). It stretches across the north and north west of the city to the east of the River Taff and north of the A48 and consists mostly of commuter suburbs.
In the north-west of the constituency lies the fairy-tale castle of Castell Coch – built into the wooded hillside overlooking the village of Tongwynlais and amongst the most picturesque of Wales’s many castles. The adjoining suburb of Whitchurch has a High School which has produced such sporting greats as Sam Warburton, Gareth Bale and Geraint Thomas - but is otherwise fairly non-descript as are the 1950s/60s commuter suburbs of Colyton, Rhiwbina and Llanishen. All of these are comfortable middle class suburbia. Lisvane to the east is a village that has been subsumed into Cardiff and has some of the most expensive homes in Wales and a definite ‘countryside’ feel. A 4 bedroom detached house will set you back £750,000 in Lisvane.
The northern end of this seat is currently Pentyrch on the border of which is Taff’s Well railway station which upon completion of the South Wales Metro in 2025 will see 12 trains per hour direct to the City Centre of Cardiff so whilst on the border between Cardiff and Rhondda Cynon Taff the whole area is becoming very much an overspill for Cardiff with the population increasingly looking south towards Cardiff for both employment and leisure.
To the east lies the more modern commuter suburb of Pontprennau, with further large housing developments planned nearby.
To the south, heading towards the city centre are two different areas - the grittier suburbs of Llandaff North and Gabalfa, with Gabalfa actually being within the inner city ring road and containing the University Hospital of Wales, locally known as the Heath. This is the largest hospital in Wales with 1,000 beds, and when built in the 1960s was the largest hospital in Europe. Around about 4000 students, mostly from Cardiff University and Cardiff Metropolitan university live in Gabalfa.
This is overall a very middle class constituency with high owner-occupancy rates, and contains 10 commuter railway stations. It is 74.2% owner occupied ( 71st highest in England and Wales) which is at least 10% higher than the other three Cardiff constituencies with a peak of 88% owner occupation in Rhiwbina and 82% in Lisvane and Thornhill. 18.8% of people here are aged over 65, not far off the national average for England and Wales but higher than the other three Cardiff constituencies, and 87.8% of people are White, about 10% higher than Cardiff East or Cardiff South and Penarth .
Fully 43.1% of people work in jobs categorised as higher or lower professional, the two top categories of employment, which is 10% higher than the other 3 Cardiff constituencies, and this figure reaches over 50% in Lisvane and Rhiwbina. 44.4% of people have been educated to degree level, and only 12.8% of people have no formal qualifications. This can best be categorised as a professional skilled area. This constituency is particularly home to a lot of public sector workers. As well as the University Hospital Wales, and for the moment Companies House and it’s 1,000 odd workforce (the building and site is currently up for sale with no new permanent home identified for them), until 2020 the seat also included a large HMRC office housing around 1,500 tax office workers including a small dedicated team (three phonelines) for Parliamentarians with tax
In the local elections in 2022, Labour won 13 councillors here to the Conservatives 8 and 2 Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives had won 14 to Labour’s 4 in 2017. In the 2 wards closest to the city, Labour won Llandaff North easily with 58% of the vote to the Conservatives 10% and studenty Gabalfa was won by the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives only getting 4% of the vote. Further north, the rest of wards are quite competitive, Labour won Heath comfortably, and Llanishen and gained all 4 seats in Whitchurch & Tongwynlais narrowly from the Conservatives. The Conservatives held Rhiwbina, Pontprennau & St Mellons and the newly configured Lisvane & Thornhill ward. When Lisvane formed is own ward it was strongly Conservative -it was the only ward that the Conservatives won in Cardiff in 1995 and they got 80% of the vote there in 2008.
Like most of Cardiff’s seats Cardiff North is a little undersized for the parameters of the current boundary review although is not as small as many in Wales. This is solved by adding the division of Taffs Well and its 2855 electors. Taffs Well is immediately north of Tongwynlais in Cardiff, on the road to Pontypridd. It is a strong Labour area, although is part of the area at the south of the Rhondda Cynon Taff council area where the Conservatives have been starting to do a bit better. The addition of this division adds about 500 to the notional Labour majority here, taking it to 7579 or about 13.8%
Whilst the first three contests in Cardiff North in its current format were won by the Conservatives, who reached their peak in 1983 with 47.1% of the vote, the seat was never truly safe and it was no big surprise when Julie Morgan, wife of Rhodri and who still represents this constituency in the Senedd, won it for Labour in 1997. What was a surprise was Labour holding onto it in 2005 by just over 1,100 votes. Before 1997 Cardiff North voted to the right of the nation as a whole, since 1997 it has voted to the left. The seat returned to the Conservatives like many others in 2010 and remained blue in 2015 before being unexpectedly lost in 2017. In 2019 Labour increased its majority here from 4174 to 6982. This constituency was one of number of Labour gains in southern cities in 2017 that swung further to them against the trend in 2019. The increase in Labour majority here was primarily due to the 6% drop in the Conservative vote, one of their worst 25 performances at that election, rather than an increase in the Labour vote, but is a sign that this seat may just have trended out of the Conservatives reach. The Labour majority in Cardiff North in 2019 was similar to that achieved in previous strongholds like Neath and Pontypridd.
