Post by Robert Waller on Feb 7, 2024 0:24:25 GMT
This combines the original profile by Penddu with my own work
The Bridgend (Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr) constituency was formed in 1983 and originally - and in recent years - comprised that part of the County Borough of Bridgend which is to the south of the M4 motorway. This was originally part of the former Ogmore (Ogwr) constituency but was split due to the rapid growth of Bridgend town in the 1970s, for example in the large eastern housing estate (mainly owner occupied) of Brackla, which has grown to a population of over 11,000. In the major 2023 boundary changes in Wales, this has been partly reversed due to the need to standardise the size of Welsh Westminster constituencies, hitherto over-represented, with the rest of the United Kingdom, and the seat now takes in a substantial chunk of the abolished Ogmore, and now again is to straddle the M4 as it did between 1997 and 2010.
17% of Bridgend constituency is lost to the new Aberafan Maesteg, including the most solidly Labour parts: this section is a compact unit of two wards, Pyle and Cornelly, south of Margam, north of Porthcawl (which remains in Bridgend). Pyle was strongly Labour in 2022 with their top candidate taking 72.5%, while Cornelly was another Labour/Independent split at local level, while Labour outpolled the Tories by three to one. In more than compensation, 32% of the abolished Ogmore arrives, essentially parts of Bridgend county borough north of the motorway, including Sarn, Aberkenfig, Tondu and Bryncethin in the Ogmore valley.
The area contained within this constituency has a long history, with the Roman Road from Cardiff to Neath passing just south of the town at ‘Golden Mile’. During the Norman invasion of Glamorgan in the 13th century the town of Bridgend was established at the initial western frontier between Norman Glamorgan and Welsh Morgannwg, which is why the area contains not one but 5 castles (Coity, Oldcastle, Newcastle, Ogmore and Merthyr Mawr). This also explains why most place names to the south of the town are in English, while most to the north are in Welsh. The Bridgend seat is not quite the ‘South Wales valleys’ and not quite the Vale of Glamorgan, but lies physically between these features and politically between the historically massive Labour strongholds of the former and the more Conservative preferences of the latter.
The town of Bridgend lies just outside the former coalfield and was never heavily reliant on coal compared to its neighbours to the north, and has been a centre for various manufacturing industries. It used to house the largest ‘factory’ ever in the UK – the Royal Ordnance Factory (known locally as ‘The Arsenal’) which made munitions during World War 2 and which employed 40,000 people at its peak. After closure the various ‘Arsenal’ sites were developed into a series of Industrial estates which employed many people (but not 40,000) and included a large Sony TV factory (now closed) and the Ford engine plant (which also made engines for Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover) but which closed in 2020. Despite these losses, Bridgend still has many smaller employers and is well connected by the M4 motorway and the South Wales mainline railway making it a popular commuter location.
As well as Bridgend town, the constituency also includes the town of Porthcawl which was briefly a small coal port but today relies on tourism with many retirees. The nearby communities of Pyle (Pil), Kenfig Hill (Mynydd Cynffig) and Cornelly (Corneli) were originally built around the local Aberbaiden mine but the main local employer today is the nearby Port Talbot steelworks – and this is the area removed in 2023 to Aberafan Maesteg.
Politically the constituency is mixed – a strong Conservative presence in Porthcawl and in parts of Bridgend town, but with widespread Labour support elsewhere. The Assembly seat was always Labour held – and indeed was represented by the former First Minister Carwyn James from 1999 until his retirement in 2021. In that most recent Senedd contest it was retained for Labour by Sarah Murphy with a comfortable majority of over 4,000 or 13.7%. Its boundaries are identical with the Westminster constituency which is currently held by Conservatives for only the second time in its history.
When created as a separate Bridgend seat in 1983, it was the nearest thing to a marginal, let alone a Conservative, seat, in the county of Mid Glamorgan in Labour’s South Wales. This gave the Conservatives some hope in this most forbidding of areas. It was won by the Tories when the seat was first contested. They are competitive in the market and commercial centre of Bridgend itself, which has never been a coal-mining town but relates to an extent to the more fertile Vale of Glamorgan. There are Tory votes within the town in neighbourhoods like Newcastle and Brackla and nearby in attractive residential communities such as Coity and Coychurch. Pencoed and Laleston do not have ‘valley’ type voting patterns either, but a significant Conservative minority. The seat also passes through prosperous Vale farmland, and Conservative villages, to the coast. The Tories also hoped to build up a lead in the seaside resorts like Porthcawl, the home base of the first Conservative MP for Bridgend, Peter Hubbard-Miles.
All so far described is more than a little reminiscent of the neighbouring seat to the east, Vale of Glamorgan, which was won by Labour in a by-election in 1989 and between 1997 and 2005 but often held by the Conservatives in General Elections including since 2010. However, Win Griffiths gained Bridgend fairly easily in 1987, by over 4,000, and increased his margin subsequently, for example to 11,000 in 2001. The balance was shifted by the industrial areas that exist within the constituency. It does not stretch right up into the valleys, but it has included two patches of very heavy Labour support. One is the Cornelly/Pyle/Kenfig area over towards Margam, Port Talbot and their steelworks. The other is north of Bridgend, at the foot of the valleys: Tondu, Aberkenfig, Bryncethin and Sarn.
In the most recent local elections, for Bridgend county borough council in May 2022, Labour won all three electoral divisions in Brackla, one of the seats in Bridgend Central (though this was lost to the Independents in a byelection in August 2022) and Bridgend’s north western Cefn Glas division (the other Bridgend seats were all taken by Independents). They also took two of the three in Pencoed & Penprysg, both in Porthcawl East Central and one of the two in St Bride’s Minor & Ynysawdre division, which actually covers the communities of Sarn, Bryncethin, Tondu and Brynmenyn. Overall within the Bridgend constituency they did not win as many council seats as Independents did in 2022, but the good news for them was that no more than one division was won by any of the other main parties: the Conservatives in Newton, just east of Porthcawl, and Plaid Cymru in Aberkenfig.
The detailed demographics from the 2021 Census support the political makeup of the Bridgend seat. For example Bridgend has a higher proportion of professional and managerial workers than any of the valley seats and a little less than Vale of Glamorgan, not as many routine and semi-routine jobs as the former but more than the latter. Internally too it has a moderate pattern: nowhere very middle class, nothing very working class. The highest white collar percentages are to be found in western Porthcawl (15% managers, 25% professionals) and the Broadlands MSOA of south western Bridgend including Laleston (13% and 25% respectively). The highest areas for routine and semi routine workers are Central Bridgend (33%), north west Bridgend including Cefn Glas (33%) and the Sarn, Bryncoch & Bryncethin MSOA in the section north of the M4 taken from Ogmore (also 33%). The most working class of all – Pyle/Kenfig Hill/Cefncridwr at 36% routine/semi-routine is in the territory moved to Aberafan Maesteg.
Similarly nowhere has more than 43% with university degrees (Pen-y-fai, Laleston, Merthyr Mawr on the western and southern edges of Bridgend) followed by 40% in Broadlands and 39% in Porthcawl West; as Pyle and Cornelly have departed, the lowest on this count is in Cefn Glas, but even there it is nearly 26%. Nowhere has more than 24% of social rented housing (Central Bridgend); Cornelly did have a little more but is now in Aberafan Maesteg. The highest owner occupied parts are 80% in west Porthcawl and 82% in the Coity area of northern Bridgend, another late 20th century expansion like Brackla, which has more mixed terms of tenure. Bridgend constituency is somewhat older and has fewer ethnic minorities than the UK average, though not than that for Wales outside its large urban units. The percentage who cannot speak Welsh is consistently around 90% in all parts of this seat, and Plaid Cymru has not reached the 5% deposit threshold in the last two general elections.
With Bridgend’s very average demographics, it could be argued that if a seat were of this profile in England, it would be regarded as very marginal; even in English speaking Wales, however, it has only been won by the Tories twice, in 1983 and 2019. Some are inclined to argue with the notional figures of Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher that suggest it would have been Tory on the new boundaries in that latter year, and they may have a point. Rallings & Thrasher will almost certainly not have made a mistake according to the application of their rules, but these are not always able to deal with situations where there is a strong pattern of local election Independent candidature and victory as here. I can however see why they may have come to their conclusions. The 18% of Bridgend that is removed is the strongest for Labour in local elections by some way, and the 32% of Ogmore that comes in is not their strongest in that former seat. R & T are not in the business of guessing how Independents may split in national elections, so that may distort the notionals.
However whether Bridgend is notionally Labour or not is in practice irrelevant, as on all recent and current polls they would clearly be miles ahead. If it is even close in the general election, whether a notional gain or not, Labour aren't forming a government.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 21.2% 194/575
Owner occupied 72.9% 100/575
Private rented 14.4% 469/575
Social rented 12.7% 398/575
White 96.1% 127/575
Black 0.4% 480/575
Asian 1.8% 408/575
Managerial & professional 34.0% 257/575
Routine & Semi-routine 25.4% 222/575
Degree level 33.7% 241/575
No qualifications 18.5% 241/575
Students 5.2% 358/575
General Election 2019: Bridgend
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Jamie Wallis 18,193 43.1 +3.3
Labour Madeleine Moon 17,036 40.3 –10.4
Liberal Democrats Jonathan Pratt 2,368 5.6 +3.5
Plaid Cymru Leanne Lewis 2,013 4.8 +0.7
Brexit Party Robert Morgan 1,811 4.3
Green Alex Harris 815 1.9
C Majority 1,157 2.8
Turnout 42,236 66.7 –2.9
Registered electors 63,303
Conservative gain from Labour
Swing 6.9 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Bridgend consists of
82.8% of Bridgend
31.8% of Ogmore
Map
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/reviews/06-23/2023-parliamentary-review-final-recommendations
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
The Bridgend (Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr) constituency was formed in 1983 and originally - and in recent years - comprised that part of the County Borough of Bridgend which is to the south of the M4 motorway. This was originally part of the former Ogmore (Ogwr) constituency but was split due to the rapid growth of Bridgend town in the 1970s, for example in the large eastern housing estate (mainly owner occupied) of Brackla, which has grown to a population of over 11,000. In the major 2023 boundary changes in Wales, this has been partly reversed due to the need to standardise the size of Welsh Westminster constituencies, hitherto over-represented, with the rest of the United Kingdom, and the seat now takes in a substantial chunk of the abolished Ogmore, and now again is to straddle the M4 as it did between 1997 and 2010.
17% of Bridgend constituency is lost to the new Aberafan Maesteg, including the most solidly Labour parts: this section is a compact unit of two wards, Pyle and Cornelly, south of Margam, north of Porthcawl (which remains in Bridgend). Pyle was strongly Labour in 2022 with their top candidate taking 72.5%, while Cornelly was another Labour/Independent split at local level, while Labour outpolled the Tories by three to one. In more than compensation, 32% of the abolished Ogmore arrives, essentially parts of Bridgend county borough north of the motorway, including Sarn, Aberkenfig, Tondu and Bryncethin in the Ogmore valley.
The area contained within this constituency has a long history, with the Roman Road from Cardiff to Neath passing just south of the town at ‘Golden Mile’. During the Norman invasion of Glamorgan in the 13th century the town of Bridgend was established at the initial western frontier between Norman Glamorgan and Welsh Morgannwg, which is why the area contains not one but 5 castles (Coity, Oldcastle, Newcastle, Ogmore and Merthyr Mawr). This also explains why most place names to the south of the town are in English, while most to the north are in Welsh. The Bridgend seat is not quite the ‘South Wales valleys’ and not quite the Vale of Glamorgan, but lies physically between these features and politically between the historically massive Labour strongholds of the former and the more Conservative preferences of the latter.
The town of Bridgend lies just outside the former coalfield and was never heavily reliant on coal compared to its neighbours to the north, and has been a centre for various manufacturing industries. It used to house the largest ‘factory’ ever in the UK – the Royal Ordnance Factory (known locally as ‘The Arsenal’) which made munitions during World War 2 and which employed 40,000 people at its peak. After closure the various ‘Arsenal’ sites were developed into a series of Industrial estates which employed many people (but not 40,000) and included a large Sony TV factory (now closed) and the Ford engine plant (which also made engines for Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover) but which closed in 2020. Despite these losses, Bridgend still has many smaller employers and is well connected by the M4 motorway and the South Wales mainline railway making it a popular commuter location.
As well as Bridgend town, the constituency also includes the town of Porthcawl which was briefly a small coal port but today relies on tourism with many retirees. The nearby communities of Pyle (Pil), Kenfig Hill (Mynydd Cynffig) and Cornelly (Corneli) were originally built around the local Aberbaiden mine but the main local employer today is the nearby Port Talbot steelworks – and this is the area removed in 2023 to Aberafan Maesteg.
Politically the constituency is mixed – a strong Conservative presence in Porthcawl and in parts of Bridgend town, but with widespread Labour support elsewhere. The Assembly seat was always Labour held – and indeed was represented by the former First Minister Carwyn James from 1999 until his retirement in 2021. In that most recent Senedd contest it was retained for Labour by Sarah Murphy with a comfortable majority of over 4,000 or 13.7%. Its boundaries are identical with the Westminster constituency which is currently held by Conservatives for only the second time in its history.
When created as a separate Bridgend seat in 1983, it was the nearest thing to a marginal, let alone a Conservative, seat, in the county of Mid Glamorgan in Labour’s South Wales. This gave the Conservatives some hope in this most forbidding of areas. It was won by the Tories when the seat was first contested. They are competitive in the market and commercial centre of Bridgend itself, which has never been a coal-mining town but relates to an extent to the more fertile Vale of Glamorgan. There are Tory votes within the town in neighbourhoods like Newcastle and Brackla and nearby in attractive residential communities such as Coity and Coychurch. Pencoed and Laleston do not have ‘valley’ type voting patterns either, but a significant Conservative minority. The seat also passes through prosperous Vale farmland, and Conservative villages, to the coast. The Tories also hoped to build up a lead in the seaside resorts like Porthcawl, the home base of the first Conservative MP for Bridgend, Peter Hubbard-Miles.
All so far described is more than a little reminiscent of the neighbouring seat to the east, Vale of Glamorgan, which was won by Labour in a by-election in 1989 and between 1997 and 2005 but often held by the Conservatives in General Elections including since 2010. However, Win Griffiths gained Bridgend fairly easily in 1987, by over 4,000, and increased his margin subsequently, for example to 11,000 in 2001. The balance was shifted by the industrial areas that exist within the constituency. It does not stretch right up into the valleys, but it has included two patches of very heavy Labour support. One is the Cornelly/Pyle/Kenfig area over towards Margam, Port Talbot and their steelworks. The other is north of Bridgend, at the foot of the valleys: Tondu, Aberkenfig, Bryncethin and Sarn.
In the most recent local elections, for Bridgend county borough council in May 2022, Labour won all three electoral divisions in Brackla, one of the seats in Bridgend Central (though this was lost to the Independents in a byelection in August 2022) and Bridgend’s north western Cefn Glas division (the other Bridgend seats were all taken by Independents). They also took two of the three in Pencoed & Penprysg, both in Porthcawl East Central and one of the two in St Bride’s Minor & Ynysawdre division, which actually covers the communities of Sarn, Bryncethin, Tondu and Brynmenyn. Overall within the Bridgend constituency they did not win as many council seats as Independents did in 2022, but the good news for them was that no more than one division was won by any of the other main parties: the Conservatives in Newton, just east of Porthcawl, and Plaid Cymru in Aberkenfig.
The detailed demographics from the 2021 Census support the political makeup of the Bridgend seat. For example Bridgend has a higher proportion of professional and managerial workers than any of the valley seats and a little less than Vale of Glamorgan, not as many routine and semi-routine jobs as the former but more than the latter. Internally too it has a moderate pattern: nowhere very middle class, nothing very working class. The highest white collar percentages are to be found in western Porthcawl (15% managers, 25% professionals) and the Broadlands MSOA of south western Bridgend including Laleston (13% and 25% respectively). The highest areas for routine and semi routine workers are Central Bridgend (33%), north west Bridgend including Cefn Glas (33%) and the Sarn, Bryncoch & Bryncethin MSOA in the section north of the M4 taken from Ogmore (also 33%). The most working class of all – Pyle/Kenfig Hill/Cefncridwr at 36% routine/semi-routine is in the territory moved to Aberafan Maesteg.
Similarly nowhere has more than 43% with university degrees (Pen-y-fai, Laleston, Merthyr Mawr on the western and southern edges of Bridgend) followed by 40% in Broadlands and 39% in Porthcawl West; as Pyle and Cornelly have departed, the lowest on this count is in Cefn Glas, but even there it is nearly 26%. Nowhere has more than 24% of social rented housing (Central Bridgend); Cornelly did have a little more but is now in Aberafan Maesteg. The highest owner occupied parts are 80% in west Porthcawl and 82% in the Coity area of northern Bridgend, another late 20th century expansion like Brackla, which has more mixed terms of tenure. Bridgend constituency is somewhat older and has fewer ethnic minorities than the UK average, though not than that for Wales outside its large urban units. The percentage who cannot speak Welsh is consistently around 90% in all parts of this seat, and Plaid Cymru has not reached the 5% deposit threshold in the last two general elections.
With Bridgend’s very average demographics, it could be argued that if a seat were of this profile in England, it would be regarded as very marginal; even in English speaking Wales, however, it has only been won by the Tories twice, in 1983 and 2019. Some are inclined to argue with the notional figures of Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher that suggest it would have been Tory on the new boundaries in that latter year, and they may have a point. Rallings & Thrasher will almost certainly not have made a mistake according to the application of their rules, but these are not always able to deal with situations where there is a strong pattern of local election Independent candidature and victory as here. I can however see why they may have come to their conclusions. The 18% of Bridgend that is removed is the strongest for Labour in local elections by some way, and the 32% of Ogmore that comes in is not their strongest in that former seat. R & T are not in the business of guessing how Independents may split in national elections, so that may distort the notionals.
However whether Bridgend is notionally Labour or not is in practice irrelevant, as on all recent and current polls they would clearly be miles ahead. If it is even close in the general election, whether a notional gain or not, Labour aren't forming a government.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 21.2% 194/575
Owner occupied 72.9% 100/575
Private rented 14.4% 469/575
Social rented 12.7% 398/575
White 96.1% 127/575
Black 0.4% 480/575
Asian 1.8% 408/575
Managerial & professional 34.0% 257/575
Routine & Semi-routine 25.4% 222/575
Degree level 33.7% 241/575
No qualifications 18.5% 241/575
Students 5.2% 358/575
General Election 2019: Bridgend
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Jamie Wallis 18,193 43.1 +3.3
Labour Madeleine Moon 17,036 40.3 –10.4
Liberal Democrats Jonathan Pratt 2,368 5.6 +3.5
Plaid Cymru Leanne Lewis 2,013 4.8 +0.7
Brexit Party Robert Morgan 1,811 4.3
Green Alex Harris 815 1.9
C Majority 1,157 2.8
Turnout 42,236 66.7 –2.9
Registered electors 63,303
Conservative gain from Labour
Swing 6.9 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Bridgend consists of
82.8% of Bridgend
31.8% of Ogmore
Map
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/reviews/06-23/2023-parliamentary-review-final-recommendations
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Con | 20531 | 44.0% |
| Lab | 17978 | 38.5% |
| LD | 2453 | 5.3% |
| Plaid Cymru | 2441 | 5.2% |
| Brexit | 2437 | 5.2% |
| Green | 868 | 1.9% |
| Majority | 2553 | 5.5% |