Post by Robert Waller on Jan 30, 2024 16:18:42 GMT
This includes some elements of the previous profile by greenhert, but also develops themes from the print editions of the Almanac, plus updates on boundary changes, local election results, 2021 census details and notional 2019 results
Dorset evokes the image of wild heaths and cliffs, especially to those who have read the novels of Thomas Hardy (or of a more recent author, John Fowles). But in fact six of Dorset’s eight seats are predominantly urban or suburban; North Dorset is one of the other two, along with West. It is typified by small independent old market towns like Shaftesbury, Blandford Forum and Gillingham.
Blandford Forum (locals usually leave out the Roman connection) is the largest of these three, with just under 12,000 inhabitants in 2021. Shaftesbury once had a famous abbey founded by King Alfred the Great, but this was sadly demolished during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. It is also the town where King Cnut (Canute) died in 1035. It has grown by over a third since 2001 but still had a population in the 2021 census of only 9,162. Gillingham (unlike its larger namesake in Kent, its first letter as well as its sixth is pronounced as a hard G) was a setting of many John Constable paintings and today contains the only railway station in the constituency, with the others having been lost to the Beeching Axe, and is home to 11,000.
A smaller town than these three is Sturminster Newton (4,400), which once had the largest cattle market in Europe, but this ceased in 1997,and its most notable event is now the annual UK Boogie Woogie Festival. In the south eastern corner of the constituency is Verwood. which was once home to one of the few potteries in the West of England but is now more part of the ‘East Dorset’ Bournemouth commuting belt of expanded villages. This means that it is actually the most populous community in the whole of the North Dorset seat, with over 15,000 residents. There are also numerous rural parishes – over 80 in all. It covers the spectacular scenery of Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Blackmore Vale and the chalk downs. Like West Dorset, it is now a spacious and largely agricultural constituency of low population density.
The Liberals, in the person of Frank Byers, won North Dorset in 1945 and held it for five years; they have often secured a fairly strong second place since then, and in 1997 they came closest to victory after 1950, less than 3,000 votes behind the Conservative Robert Walter. After all, Paddy Ashdown’s Yeovil citadel in south Somerset was nearby. In 2001 North Dorset was a prime target, but Walter actually increased his share and lead slightly. Despite talk of tactical voting, there was no squeeze on the Labour vote, and in fact that of anti-European candidates went down instead, which may have helped the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats dropped to third place for the first time in 2015, and in 2017 Labour overtook them to take second place in North Dorset for the first time ever although that was easily reversed in 2019; nevertheless the Conservative majority was overwhelming at 24,301. The most notable of these Conservative MPs was Sir Nicholas Baker, a minister in the John Major government who, having announced his retirement from the Commons, died shortly before polling day in 1997, having been knighted during the final weeks of his life. The current Conservative MP is Simon Hoare, who is also the first MP for this seat not to have been privately educated.
The North Dorset constituency was created in 1885 and it has existed ever since, despite its boundaries having changed several times since then. It lost Corfe Mullen and the Lytchetts in 1997 to the new Mid Dorset & North Poole constituency, and gained Verwood in 2010 but lost Wimborne Minster. In the boundary changes enacted in 2023 in time for a 2024 general election, North Dorset has lost 7.5% of its electorate (around 6,000 voters), mainly to Mid Dorset and North Poole, with very small transfers to Christchurch and West Dorset. In return it has picked up a few hundred from West Dorset. These most minor changes in each direction are merely the tidying up of ward boundaries. However the main loss to Mid Dorset and North Poole is of about 4,000 voters in the Stour Vale to the north of Wimborne Minster including the villages of Sturminster Marshall, Shapwick, Mannington and Holt in the Stour and Allen Vale ward of Dorset unitary authority, which is broad in acreage so looks like a more major change in the map, taking out a substantial chunk of North Dorset’s south eastern corner. However, the political impact will be minimal, reducing the notional Conservative majority in 2019 by just over a thousand – to a mere 23,000 plus – but not having any effect on the percentage lead and hence swing needed for it to fall to the Liberal Democrats
Unusually, there have been no local council elections here since May 2019. There were not any rescheduled because of the Covid interregnum either. This is because Dorset was formed into a unitary authority by a statutory instrument in 2018, and council elections will only take place every five years until 2029, when it will switch to a more conventional (and more democratic) four year term. Therefore there will be elections in May 2024. By tradition the former North Dorset council area and the northern part of what was East Dorset near Verwood have been safely Conservative, with Shaftesbury being best for the Liberal Democrats. Labour support is almost non-existent at local level; they finished last in almost every division of Dorset Council lying within the boundaries of this constituency in May 2019. Of those 13 divisions the Tories won all but two: Shaftesbury and an LD gain in Cranborne & Alderholt (the latter not to be confused with Cranborne Chase, which the Conservatives held with a two thirds share of the total vote). Most of the others were very safe, also with over 60% Tory shares, such as at Blackmore Vale, or very divided opposition, as at Blandford and Verwood, but the Lib Dems were only 11% behind in Gillingham and Sturminster Newton was a tight three way split with the Conservatives just ahead of an Independent and the Lib Dem.
As expected of a rural constituency, North Dorset has high owner-occupation levels but relatively average qualification levels. One of the main reasons for the latter is the age profile of the constituency. Not only is the proportion of those aged 65+ just outside the national top 30 seats, but it has expanded more rapidly than in most places over the decade between the last two censuses. The age structure is youngest – or rather least elderly – in Blandford Forum Outer & Tarrants MSOA, with only 21.9% over 65, but that is because if the presence of Blandford army camp, the home of the Royal Signals, two miles north east of the town. In Sturminster Newton & Stalbridge, for example, 33% are over 65. This was also the MSOA with the highest percentage without educational qualifications (18.4%). The highest concentration of professional and managerial occupations to be found within North Dorset, not surprisingly, is at Verwood in the orbit of the Bournemouth/Poole conurbation – East Verwood MSOA is the only one reporting over 40% (it also has over 86% owner occupiers). The highest for working class (routine / semi-routine) jobs is in the market towns: Gillingham (exactly 30%), Shaftesbury (26.4%) and Blandford Forum (28.8%). North Dorset is over 97% White, in the top decile of seats in England and Wales.
The ethnic makeup, the high owner occupation, the low proportion of graduates and professional workers; all these are indicators of a strong Conservative preference nowadays. It might be expected that the majority will be cut at the next general election, but the Liberal Democrats do not have a strong municipal base to act as a springboard as they do in so many council areas, so it seems highly unlikely that there will be another MP in the tradition of Frank Byers in the immediate future.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 27.2% 32/575 one of the highest increases since 2011
Owner occupied 71.9% 129/575
Private rented 16.3% 371/575
Social rented 11.8% 440/575
White 97.2% 56/575
Black 0.3% 517/575
Asian 1.2% 497/575
Managerial & professional 35.1% 220/575
Routine & Semi-routine 22.3% 330/575
Degree level 30.9% 312/575 one of 10 lowest increases since 2011
No qualifications 15.4% 408/575
Students 4.6% 473/575
General Election 2019: North Dorset
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Simon Hoare 35,705 63.6 -1.3
Liberal Democrats David Chadwick 11,404 20.3 +6.7
Labour Pat Osborne 6,737 12.0 -6.6
Green Ken Huggins 2,261 4.0 +1.1
C Majority 24,301 43.3 -3.0
2019 electorate 75,956
Turnout 56,107 73.9 -0.1
Conservative hold
Swing 3.9 C to LD
Boundary Changes
North Dorset consists of
92.5% of North Dorset
2.0% of West Dorset
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-west/South%20West_404_North%20Dorset_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
Dorset evokes the image of wild heaths and cliffs, especially to those who have read the novels of Thomas Hardy (or of a more recent author, John Fowles). But in fact six of Dorset’s eight seats are predominantly urban or suburban; North Dorset is one of the other two, along with West. It is typified by small independent old market towns like Shaftesbury, Blandford Forum and Gillingham.
Blandford Forum (locals usually leave out the Roman connection) is the largest of these three, with just under 12,000 inhabitants in 2021. Shaftesbury once had a famous abbey founded by King Alfred the Great, but this was sadly demolished during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. It is also the town where King Cnut (Canute) died in 1035. It has grown by over a third since 2001 but still had a population in the 2021 census of only 9,162. Gillingham (unlike its larger namesake in Kent, its first letter as well as its sixth is pronounced as a hard G) was a setting of many John Constable paintings and today contains the only railway station in the constituency, with the others having been lost to the Beeching Axe, and is home to 11,000.
A smaller town than these three is Sturminster Newton (4,400), which once had the largest cattle market in Europe, but this ceased in 1997,and its most notable event is now the annual UK Boogie Woogie Festival. In the south eastern corner of the constituency is Verwood. which was once home to one of the few potteries in the West of England but is now more part of the ‘East Dorset’ Bournemouth commuting belt of expanded villages. This means that it is actually the most populous community in the whole of the North Dorset seat, with over 15,000 residents. There are also numerous rural parishes – over 80 in all. It covers the spectacular scenery of Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Blackmore Vale and the chalk downs. Like West Dorset, it is now a spacious and largely agricultural constituency of low population density.
The Liberals, in the person of Frank Byers, won North Dorset in 1945 and held it for five years; they have often secured a fairly strong second place since then, and in 1997 they came closest to victory after 1950, less than 3,000 votes behind the Conservative Robert Walter. After all, Paddy Ashdown’s Yeovil citadel in south Somerset was nearby. In 2001 North Dorset was a prime target, but Walter actually increased his share and lead slightly. Despite talk of tactical voting, there was no squeeze on the Labour vote, and in fact that of anti-European candidates went down instead, which may have helped the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats dropped to third place for the first time in 2015, and in 2017 Labour overtook them to take second place in North Dorset for the first time ever although that was easily reversed in 2019; nevertheless the Conservative majority was overwhelming at 24,301. The most notable of these Conservative MPs was Sir Nicholas Baker, a minister in the John Major government who, having announced his retirement from the Commons, died shortly before polling day in 1997, having been knighted during the final weeks of his life. The current Conservative MP is Simon Hoare, who is also the first MP for this seat not to have been privately educated.
The North Dorset constituency was created in 1885 and it has existed ever since, despite its boundaries having changed several times since then. It lost Corfe Mullen and the Lytchetts in 1997 to the new Mid Dorset & North Poole constituency, and gained Verwood in 2010 but lost Wimborne Minster. In the boundary changes enacted in 2023 in time for a 2024 general election, North Dorset has lost 7.5% of its electorate (around 6,000 voters), mainly to Mid Dorset and North Poole, with very small transfers to Christchurch and West Dorset. In return it has picked up a few hundred from West Dorset. These most minor changes in each direction are merely the tidying up of ward boundaries. However the main loss to Mid Dorset and North Poole is of about 4,000 voters in the Stour Vale to the north of Wimborne Minster including the villages of Sturminster Marshall, Shapwick, Mannington and Holt in the Stour and Allen Vale ward of Dorset unitary authority, which is broad in acreage so looks like a more major change in the map, taking out a substantial chunk of North Dorset’s south eastern corner. However, the political impact will be minimal, reducing the notional Conservative majority in 2019 by just over a thousand – to a mere 23,000 plus – but not having any effect on the percentage lead and hence swing needed for it to fall to the Liberal Democrats
Unusually, there have been no local council elections here since May 2019. There were not any rescheduled because of the Covid interregnum either. This is because Dorset was formed into a unitary authority by a statutory instrument in 2018, and council elections will only take place every five years until 2029, when it will switch to a more conventional (and more democratic) four year term. Therefore there will be elections in May 2024. By tradition the former North Dorset council area and the northern part of what was East Dorset near Verwood have been safely Conservative, with Shaftesbury being best for the Liberal Democrats. Labour support is almost non-existent at local level; they finished last in almost every division of Dorset Council lying within the boundaries of this constituency in May 2019. Of those 13 divisions the Tories won all but two: Shaftesbury and an LD gain in Cranborne & Alderholt (the latter not to be confused with Cranborne Chase, which the Conservatives held with a two thirds share of the total vote). Most of the others were very safe, also with over 60% Tory shares, such as at Blackmore Vale, or very divided opposition, as at Blandford and Verwood, but the Lib Dems were only 11% behind in Gillingham and Sturminster Newton was a tight three way split with the Conservatives just ahead of an Independent and the Lib Dem.
As expected of a rural constituency, North Dorset has high owner-occupation levels but relatively average qualification levels. One of the main reasons for the latter is the age profile of the constituency. Not only is the proportion of those aged 65+ just outside the national top 30 seats, but it has expanded more rapidly than in most places over the decade between the last two censuses. The age structure is youngest – or rather least elderly – in Blandford Forum Outer & Tarrants MSOA, with only 21.9% over 65, but that is because if the presence of Blandford army camp, the home of the Royal Signals, two miles north east of the town. In Sturminster Newton & Stalbridge, for example, 33% are over 65. This was also the MSOA with the highest percentage without educational qualifications (18.4%). The highest concentration of professional and managerial occupations to be found within North Dorset, not surprisingly, is at Verwood in the orbit of the Bournemouth/Poole conurbation – East Verwood MSOA is the only one reporting over 40% (it also has over 86% owner occupiers). The highest for working class (routine / semi-routine) jobs is in the market towns: Gillingham (exactly 30%), Shaftesbury (26.4%) and Blandford Forum (28.8%). North Dorset is over 97% White, in the top decile of seats in England and Wales.
The ethnic makeup, the high owner occupation, the low proportion of graduates and professional workers; all these are indicators of a strong Conservative preference nowadays. It might be expected that the majority will be cut at the next general election, but the Liberal Democrats do not have a strong municipal base to act as a springboard as they do in so many council areas, so it seems highly unlikely that there will be another MP in the tradition of Frank Byers in the immediate future.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 27.2% 32/575 one of the highest increases since 2011
Owner occupied 71.9% 129/575
Private rented 16.3% 371/575
Social rented 11.8% 440/575
White 97.2% 56/575
Black 0.3% 517/575
Asian 1.2% 497/575
Managerial & professional 35.1% 220/575
Routine & Semi-routine 22.3% 330/575
Degree level 30.9% 312/575 one of 10 lowest increases since 2011
No qualifications 15.4% 408/575
Students 4.6% 473/575
General Election 2019: North Dorset
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Simon Hoare 35,705 63.6 -1.3
Liberal Democrats David Chadwick 11,404 20.3 +6.7
Labour Pat Osborne 6,737 12.0 -6.6
Green Ken Huggins 2,261 4.0 +1.1
C Majority 24,301 43.3 -3.0
2019 electorate 75,956
Turnout 56,107 73.9 -0.1
Conservative hold
Swing 3.9 C to LD
Boundary Changes
North Dorset consists of
92.5% of North Dorset
2.0% of West Dorset
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/south-west/South%20West_404_North%20Dorset_Landscape.pdf
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Con | 34085 | 63.8% |
| LD | 10890 | 20.4% |
| Lab | 6379 | 11.9% |
| Green | 2110 | 4.0% |
| | ||
| Oths | ||
| Majority | 23195 | 43.4% |
