Post by Robert Waller on Feb 15, 2024 21:47:45 GMT
This is based on the original profile by sirbenjamin, with the first paragraph on boundary changes essentially contributed by Pete Whitehead. I have updated to take the 2024 result into account
Bexleyheath & Crayford was both below quota and had passed through significant ward boundary changes, necessitating what amounts to some minor tinkering here. The Boundary Commission's reports here (initial, revised and final) shifted the boundaries north and east a little, gaining the Northumberland Heath ward and part of West Heath from Erith & Thamesmead and losing parts of the East Wickham and Falconwood & Welling wards to Old Bexley & Sidcup. This more or less restored the status quo ante here. Both the new areas and the departing areas are very similar demographically and electorally and the partisan impact was minor, notionally just adding a couple of thousand to the Conservative majority and increasing the swing required for a Labour gain by one per cent or so to around 16%.
Bexleyheath & Crayford still takes in a fairly compact chunk of the London Borough of Bexley. Essentially 'Bexley Mid', it borders just the other two Bexley-based seats, plus the constituency of Dartford, across the border in Kent. And there are many in this part of the world for whom this is Kent rather than South East London.
The main centre is Bexleyheath, covered by a ward of the same name and the more esoteric 'Crook Log', which actually takes its name from an 18th century ale house. The modern day Crook Log pub is, sadly, a Toby Carvery, but it isn't all bad news: as in neighbouring Old Bexley & Sidcup, the Bexleyheath area has seen its high streets rejuvenated - at least as far as beer lovers are concerned - by the arrival of several micropubs. These include BV London Pub of the Year, the Kentish Belle, whose landlord stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate (in Crayford ward) in the 2022 locals, and where the first post-Lockdown pints were served at one second past midnight on April 12, 2021. Crook Log ward also includes the highly untypical Red House, the Arts and Crafts home of William and Jane Morris and centre of the pre Raphaelite circle, built in 1859-60 long before it was surrounded by frankly dreary suburbia.
Bexleyheath was the birthplace of Sheila Hancock and Kate Bush, while Roger Moore - a rare recent example of an 'out' Tory celebrity - also lived in the area until becoming a tax exile. Along its unspectacular Broadway, with a Wetherspoons at either end of it, Bexleyheath merges imperceptibly into Barnehurst, one of those destinations seen on train departure boards that isn't the end of the line, but simply the furthermost point on a 'round the loop' service that heads back to London; a loophole (literally) exploitable by those in the know.
East of Bexleyheath and south east of Barnehurst - and arguably the superfluous part of the seat name - is Crayford, named after the River Cray, itself a tributary of the Darent. Historically very much part of Kent, these areas still look to Dartford as their main local centre and cross-county transport connections are unusually good. This is classic middle-class suburbia in all its mock-Tudor glory, particularly south of Crayford station, but there are still signs that it was once a little Kentish village, with plenty of green spaces and a Georgian Manor house.
North of Crayford, Slade Creek & North End ward marks the most easterly part of London south of the river. Often regarded as part of Erith, with light industry and river plains, it is bordered by the river Thames to the north, while the east the Darent marks the border between London and Kent, specifically Dartford. This is the only part of the seat that reliably votes Labour at local level - every other ward in the pre-boundary change Bexleyheath & Crayford is still Conservative after the most recent London borough elections in May 2022, though in some cases by a narrow margin; in Crayford ward, for example, the third Tory beat the top Labour candidate by only 89 votes, and in both Crook Log and Bexleyheath wards that gap was just under a 10% share of the vote.
The safest Tory ward entirely within Bexleyheath & Crayford in 2022 was Barnehurst, where the split was 58% Conservative to 42% Labour in a straight fight. In the area gained in the boundary changes from Erith & Thamesmead, Northumberland Heath was narrowly won by Labour, with one of the two council seats there being a 2022 gain, while West Heath was a 58%-42% Conservative hold. Almost all the wards involved in this constituency are therefore now reasonably competitive, which indicates its middle of the road and fairly homogeneous socio-economic, ethnic and housing character.
For example, Bexleyheath & Crayford has one of the highest rates of owner occupation in the whole of the Greater London area, 72% in the new boundaries with few pockets of social rented housing - the main one being in the Northumberland Heath MSOA of Lesney Farm & Colyers East (37%) adjoining Slade Green & Crayford Marshes (34%) in Slade Creek & North End ward. Even more striking is the scarcity of the private rented housing sector, on which the constituency now ranks only 507th out if the 575 constituencies in England and Wales, at just 13.5% in the 2021 census. The highest proportion is in Bexleyheath Broadway MSOA, but even there it is only just over 20%.
In terms of socio-economic class, as a whole Bexleyheath & Crayford’s proportion of professional and managerial workers is low for Greater London, though average for England and Wales as a whole, at 33%. Nowhere within the seat is there a high concentration of such middle class occupations, though the MSOAs with the most are t be found within Bexleyheath (Bursted Wood and Bostall 36% each, Bexleyheath Broadway 38%) and Barnehurst (North 26%, South 35%). The highest routine and semi-routine figures are to be found in the same areas as those with a lot of social housing, in the north eastern corner of the constituency near the river in the Northumberland Park and Slade Green neighbourhoods. These are also the parts of the constituency with the highest levels of household deprivation in at least one dimension, just over 60% in Lesney Farm & Colyers East (which is partly in this constituency: Colyers Lane is, most of the Lesney Farm estate is not) and just under 60% in Slade Green & Crayford Marshes.
However Bexleyheath & Crayford is notable for having the 4th highest proportion of intermediate workers (clerical, sales, service, small employers and own account workers, lower supervisory and technical occupations) anywhere in England and Wales – over 15%. This figure is fairly consistent across the seat, but reached a peak of over 17% in the Bexleyheath MSOAs of Bostall and Bursted Wood.
As far as ethnicity is concerned, as in much of South East London, there is a fair sized Black population (10.9% in the constituency as a whole in the 2021 census), in fact slightly larger than the Asian groups (10.1%). The Black communities - predominantly of African origin – are most to be found in the Slade Green & Crayford Marshes MSOA nearest the river and the border with Kent (31.5%), then Lesney Farm & Colyers East (17.9%) - noted before as the two middle layer output areas with the highest incidences of household deprivation and the social housing sector. By contrast there are fewer Asians in these two MSOAs than average in the seat, and the highest concentration is in Bostall in western Bexleyheath at 15.7%.
B&C was long represented by Sir David Evennett, who became something of a veteran parliamentarian, having served as MP for the predecessor seat of Erith & Crayford until its abolition in 1997. He stood twice unsuccessfully for the revised seat before returning to the green benches in 2005 (quite possibly a unique feat?) and by 2019 had built up his majority to a healthy 13,103. Evennett was well into his 70s. He was nevertheless selected yet again as the Conservative candidate for a 2024 general election - then suddenly joined the flock announcing their retirement after Rishi Sunak called an election for 4 July.
His decision was prescient, in the sense that his selected replacement candidate Mark Brooks could not hold off the challenge of Labour's Daniel Francis, a long-serving Bexley borough councillor for Belvedere ward. Technically there was an 18.4% swing from Conservative to Labour, but as the Labour share went up by 7% compared with 2019 while the Reform party in third place increased by nearly 22% compared with the Brexit party in 2019, it could be argued that more significant was the two-party swing of over 25% from Tory to Reform. All swing figures are crude and conceal much churning between general elections, but it is true that Labour needed some help to overturn such a large Conservative majority, in one of their weaker boroughs in Greater London.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 16.9% 381/575
Owner occupied 72.2% 118/575
Private rented 13.5% 507/575
Social rented 14.3% 318/575
White 73.2% 449/575
Black 10.9% 53/575
Asian 10.1% 159/575
Managerial & professional 33.4% 268/575
Intermediate 15.3% 4/575
Routine & Semi-routine 21.2% 380/575
Degree level 30.5% 328/57
No qualifications 18.6% 239/575
Students 6.4% 209/575
General Election 2024: Bexleyheath and Crayford
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Daniel Francis 15,717 36.2 +7.2
Conservative Mark Brooks 13,603 31.3 –29.5
Reform UK Tom Bright 9,861 22.7 +21.8
Liberal Democrats David McBride 2,204 5.1 —0.9
Green George Edgar 2,076 4.8 +2.5
Lab Majority 2,114 4.9 N/A
Turnout 43,461 62.6 –5.0
Registered electors 69,470
Labour gain from Conservative
Swing 18.4 C to Lab
General Election 2019: Bexleyheath and Crayford
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative David Evennett 25,856 59.8 +4.2
Labour Anna Day 12,753 29.5 -6.0
Liberal Democrats David McBride 2,819 6.5 +3.8
Green Tony Ball 1,298 3.0 +1.7
English Democrat Graham Moore 520 1.2 New
C Majority 13,103 30.3 +10.3
Turnout 43,246 66.1 -3.1
Registered electors 65,466
Conservative hold
Swing 5.1 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Bexleyheath and Crayford consists of
86.6% of Bexleyheath and Crayford
18.6% of Erith & Thamesmead
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/london/London_114_Bexleyheath%20and%20Crayford_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
Bexleyheath & Crayford was both below quota and had passed through significant ward boundary changes, necessitating what amounts to some minor tinkering here. The Boundary Commission's reports here (initial, revised and final) shifted the boundaries north and east a little, gaining the Northumberland Heath ward and part of West Heath from Erith & Thamesmead and losing parts of the East Wickham and Falconwood & Welling wards to Old Bexley & Sidcup. This more or less restored the status quo ante here. Both the new areas and the departing areas are very similar demographically and electorally and the partisan impact was minor, notionally just adding a couple of thousand to the Conservative majority and increasing the swing required for a Labour gain by one per cent or so to around 16%.
Bexleyheath & Crayford still takes in a fairly compact chunk of the London Borough of Bexley. Essentially 'Bexley Mid', it borders just the other two Bexley-based seats, plus the constituency of Dartford, across the border in Kent. And there are many in this part of the world for whom this is Kent rather than South East London.
The main centre is Bexleyheath, covered by a ward of the same name and the more esoteric 'Crook Log', which actually takes its name from an 18th century ale house. The modern day Crook Log pub is, sadly, a Toby Carvery, but it isn't all bad news: as in neighbouring Old Bexley & Sidcup, the Bexleyheath area has seen its high streets rejuvenated - at least as far as beer lovers are concerned - by the arrival of several micropubs. These include BV London Pub of the Year, the Kentish Belle, whose landlord stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate (in Crayford ward) in the 2022 locals, and where the first post-Lockdown pints were served at one second past midnight on April 12, 2021. Crook Log ward also includes the highly untypical Red House, the Arts and Crafts home of William and Jane Morris and centre of the pre Raphaelite circle, built in 1859-60 long before it was surrounded by frankly dreary suburbia.
Bexleyheath was the birthplace of Sheila Hancock and Kate Bush, while Roger Moore - a rare recent example of an 'out' Tory celebrity - also lived in the area until becoming a tax exile. Along its unspectacular Broadway, with a Wetherspoons at either end of it, Bexleyheath merges imperceptibly into Barnehurst, one of those destinations seen on train departure boards that isn't the end of the line, but simply the furthermost point on a 'round the loop' service that heads back to London; a loophole (literally) exploitable by those in the know.
East of Bexleyheath and south east of Barnehurst - and arguably the superfluous part of the seat name - is Crayford, named after the River Cray, itself a tributary of the Darent. Historically very much part of Kent, these areas still look to Dartford as their main local centre and cross-county transport connections are unusually good. This is classic middle-class suburbia in all its mock-Tudor glory, particularly south of Crayford station, but there are still signs that it was once a little Kentish village, with plenty of green spaces and a Georgian Manor house.
North of Crayford, Slade Creek & North End ward marks the most easterly part of London south of the river. Often regarded as part of Erith, with light industry and river plains, it is bordered by the river Thames to the north, while the east the Darent marks the border between London and Kent, specifically Dartford. This is the only part of the seat that reliably votes Labour at local level - every other ward in the pre-boundary change Bexleyheath & Crayford is still Conservative after the most recent London borough elections in May 2022, though in some cases by a narrow margin; in Crayford ward, for example, the third Tory beat the top Labour candidate by only 89 votes, and in both Crook Log and Bexleyheath wards that gap was just under a 10% share of the vote.
The safest Tory ward entirely within Bexleyheath & Crayford in 2022 was Barnehurst, where the split was 58% Conservative to 42% Labour in a straight fight. In the area gained in the boundary changes from Erith & Thamesmead, Northumberland Heath was narrowly won by Labour, with one of the two council seats there being a 2022 gain, while West Heath was a 58%-42% Conservative hold. Almost all the wards involved in this constituency are therefore now reasonably competitive, which indicates its middle of the road and fairly homogeneous socio-economic, ethnic and housing character.
For example, Bexleyheath & Crayford has one of the highest rates of owner occupation in the whole of the Greater London area, 72% in the new boundaries with few pockets of social rented housing - the main one being in the Northumberland Heath MSOA of Lesney Farm & Colyers East (37%) adjoining Slade Green & Crayford Marshes (34%) in Slade Creek & North End ward. Even more striking is the scarcity of the private rented housing sector, on which the constituency now ranks only 507th out if the 575 constituencies in England and Wales, at just 13.5% in the 2021 census. The highest proportion is in Bexleyheath Broadway MSOA, but even there it is only just over 20%.
In terms of socio-economic class, as a whole Bexleyheath & Crayford’s proportion of professional and managerial workers is low for Greater London, though average for England and Wales as a whole, at 33%. Nowhere within the seat is there a high concentration of such middle class occupations, though the MSOAs with the most are t be found within Bexleyheath (Bursted Wood and Bostall 36% each, Bexleyheath Broadway 38%) and Barnehurst (North 26%, South 35%). The highest routine and semi-routine figures are to be found in the same areas as those with a lot of social housing, in the north eastern corner of the constituency near the river in the Northumberland Park and Slade Green neighbourhoods. These are also the parts of the constituency with the highest levels of household deprivation in at least one dimension, just over 60% in Lesney Farm & Colyers East (which is partly in this constituency: Colyers Lane is, most of the Lesney Farm estate is not) and just under 60% in Slade Green & Crayford Marshes.
However Bexleyheath & Crayford is notable for having the 4th highest proportion of intermediate workers (clerical, sales, service, small employers and own account workers, lower supervisory and technical occupations) anywhere in England and Wales – over 15%. This figure is fairly consistent across the seat, but reached a peak of over 17% in the Bexleyheath MSOAs of Bostall and Bursted Wood.
As far as ethnicity is concerned, as in much of South East London, there is a fair sized Black population (10.9% in the constituency as a whole in the 2021 census), in fact slightly larger than the Asian groups (10.1%). The Black communities - predominantly of African origin – are most to be found in the Slade Green & Crayford Marshes MSOA nearest the river and the border with Kent (31.5%), then Lesney Farm & Colyers East (17.9%) - noted before as the two middle layer output areas with the highest incidences of household deprivation and the social housing sector. By contrast there are fewer Asians in these two MSOAs than average in the seat, and the highest concentration is in Bostall in western Bexleyheath at 15.7%.
B&C was long represented by Sir David Evennett, who became something of a veteran parliamentarian, having served as MP for the predecessor seat of Erith & Crayford until its abolition in 1997. He stood twice unsuccessfully for the revised seat before returning to the green benches in 2005 (quite possibly a unique feat?) and by 2019 had built up his majority to a healthy 13,103. Evennett was well into his 70s. He was nevertheless selected yet again as the Conservative candidate for a 2024 general election - then suddenly joined the flock announcing their retirement after Rishi Sunak called an election for 4 July.
His decision was prescient, in the sense that his selected replacement candidate Mark Brooks could not hold off the challenge of Labour's Daniel Francis, a long-serving Bexley borough councillor for Belvedere ward. Technically there was an 18.4% swing from Conservative to Labour, but as the Labour share went up by 7% compared with 2019 while the Reform party in third place increased by nearly 22% compared with the Brexit party in 2019, it could be argued that more significant was the two-party swing of over 25% from Tory to Reform. All swing figures are crude and conceal much churning between general elections, but it is true that Labour needed some help to overturn such a large Conservative majority, in one of their weaker boroughs in Greater London.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 16.9% 381/575
Owner occupied 72.2% 118/575
Private rented 13.5% 507/575
Social rented 14.3% 318/575
White 73.2% 449/575
Black 10.9% 53/575
Asian 10.1% 159/575
Managerial & professional 33.4% 268/575
Intermediate 15.3% 4/575
Routine & Semi-routine 21.2% 380/575
Degree level 30.5% 328/57
No qualifications 18.6% 239/575
Students 6.4% 209/575
General Election 2024: Bexleyheath and Crayford
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Daniel Francis 15,717 36.2 +7.2
Conservative Mark Brooks 13,603 31.3 –29.5
Reform UK Tom Bright 9,861 22.7 +21.8
Liberal Democrats David McBride 2,204 5.1 —0.9
Green George Edgar 2,076 4.8 +2.5
Lab Majority 2,114 4.9 N/A
Turnout 43,461 62.6 –5.0
Registered electors 69,470
Labour gain from Conservative
Swing 18.4 C to Lab
General Election 2019: Bexleyheath and Crayford
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative David Evennett 25,856 59.8 +4.2
Labour Anna Day 12,753 29.5 -6.0
Liberal Democrats David McBride 2,819 6.5 +3.8
Green Tony Ball 1,298 3.0 +1.7
English Democrat Graham Moore 520 1.2 New
C Majority 13,103 30.3 +10.3
Turnout 43,246 66.1 -3.1
Registered electors 65,466
Conservative hold
Swing 5.1 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Bexleyheath and Crayford consists of
86.6% of Bexleyheath and Crayford
18.6% of Erith & Thamesmead
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/london/London_114_Bexleyheath%20and%20Crayford_Landscape.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Con | 28750 | 60.8% |
| Lab | 13712 | 29.0% |
| LD | 2832 | 6.0% |
| Grn | 1070 | 2.3% |
| Brexit | 416 | 0.9% |
| Oth | 520 | 1.1% |
| Majority | 15038 | 31.8% |
