Post by Robert Waller on Feb 21, 2024 18:33:38 GMT
This profile retains elements of the original by greenhert, plus the second paragraph on boundaries by Pete Whitehead in the earlier thread, but it has been heavily expanded and developed myself, including following a tour of the constituency today (including a pit stop in Pratt's Bottom)
The Orpington constituency was created in 1945 from parts of the Chislehurst seat, and was technically in Kent until its unwilling incorporation into Greater London in 1965. Its boundaries have changed often during that period but it has always been the eastern constituency of the London Borough of Bromley. The most crucial boundary changes came in 1997 when Biggin Hill and Darwin were added from the abolished Ravensbourne constituency. This has now been partially reversed.
Orpington was just under quota on the previous boundaries. The proposals by the Boundary Commission moved Chislehurst and Mottingham from Bromley & Chislehurst to a cross borough seat with Eltham forcing the removal of Cray Valley West from that seat and into this one, uniting the Crays again as they were before 2010. However this would now have put Orpington over quota and the initial proposals remedied this by removing the Petts Wood & Knoll ward. This ward goes right into the centre of Orpington and the proposal caused a flurry of objections. The more logical solution would have been to remove Biggin Hill but Darwin ward is in the way and removing both would have again lead to Orpington being undersized. Essentially there was no satisfactory solution which did not involve splitting a ward. Fortunately the Boundary Commission have been prepared to do this where necessary, and in the revised plans Darwin was split to create a corridor allowing Biggin Hill to be linked with Bromley while most of the area and electorate of that ward remain in Orpington. The upshot was effectively to swap Biggin Hill for St Paul's Cray - a working class area which voted Labour (two out of the three available seats, both gains) in May 2022. This did not trouble the Conservatives decisively here, and the removal of that area together with Mottingham from the Bromley based seat means that they could be happy with at least this element of the boundary changes affecting Bromley.
Orpington is one of the least urbanised constituencies in the Greater London area. As well as the eponymous town on the border with Kent of which it was once part, it contains suburbs like Farnborough (not to be confused with the one in Hampshire), Locksbottom, Petts Wood and Crofton. It also encompasses substantial swathes of countryside as in most of Darwin ward (including villages such as Downe, site of the home of Charles Darwin himself (as well as of Nigel Farage in much more recent times), Berry Green, Horn Green, South Street and the delightfully named Pratt’s Bottom), Chelsfield, and Kevingtown in the rural part of St Mary Cray ward. In Darwin ward in particular (the large majority of which is still in the Orpington seat), this constituency does not at all feel like part of ‘the metropolis’. Darwin is the physically largest and least densely populated ward in the whole of Greater London.
Orpington and the other urban territory mainly consist of stereotypical Outer London suburbia – generally desirable detached and semi-detached houses. Psephologically, Orpington is most famous for the 1962 by-election won by Eric Lubbock, which started an important revival for the Liberals. Eric Lubbock held the seat for the next 8 years until his defeat in 1970 by the Conservatives' Ivor Stanbrook; he quoted that "in 1962, the wise, far-seeking people of Orpington elected me as their Member; in 1970 the fools threw me out". The following year, upon the death of his cousin Mr Lubbock (as he was then) became the 4th Baron Avebury, and thus Lord Avebury from that point on until his death in 2016.
In February 1974 Orpington was unsurprisingly a top Liberal target but in the end it was one of only two seats where the Liberal vote actually fell. Lord Avebury's wife fared no better in trying to capture the seat in October that year. Mr Stanbrook retired in 1992 and was succeeded by John Horam, who unusually had been a Labour then SDP MP for Gateshead West from 1970-83. Liberal Democrat attempts to unseat him throughout the Blair years were valiant but ultimately unsuccessful; the closest they came was in 2001 when Chris Maines missed out by only 269 votes. In 2010, Jo Johnson, brother of then Mayor of London and later Prime Minister Boris Johnson was elected and managed a 12.2% swing against the Liberal Democrats; that year Mr Maines, a well-known councillor in the area, did not contest the seat. The Liberal Democrats subsequently lost all their council seats in this constituency and endured a collapse to a humiliating 4th place in 2015. They made some recovery in 2019 when this constituency's current MP, Gareth Bacon, first stood but they still finished third behind Labour. In December 2019 Orpington was the safest Conservative seat in Greater London.
In the most recent Bromley council elections, in May 2022, apart from the split St Paul’s Cray mentioned above in the paragraph on the parliamentary boundary changes, the Conservatives took all six wards within the Orpington constituency, returning 14 councillors. The closest result was at St Mary Cray where their bottom candidate (with a 46.0% share) was 171 votes ahead of Labour’s top candidate (41.7%). Labour won St Mary Cray regularly up to 2002 but since then have only returned one councillor out of three in 2006 and none since, though UKIP did win two representatives in this more working class ward in 2014. The next closest ward is Orpington, though the Liberal Democrats are the main challengers in that eponymous area. Some slight reminiscence of the great 1962 byelection surprise may possibly be seen in the 2022 borough result, as there was a 14% swing from the Tories, but the LDs were still around 600 votes and 18% short of any success.
None of the other four wards was close. In Chelsfield and in Petts Wood & Knoll the Conservatives beat the Lib Dems by just under two to one and just over two to one respectively. Farnborough & Crofton was more like a ratio of 2.5 to 1, and in Darwin, which only has one councillor for all its extensive acreage, the Tory candidate took 57%, and Independent was second with 20% and Labour (10%), the Liberal Democrats (8%) and Greens (6%) trailed badly. The Conservatives have declined in the opinion polls and in national byelection results since May 2022, but there is still no sign in local Orpington elections of a major threat.
Can the Tory dominance in Orpington constituency in recent decades be explained by the demographic figures in the 2021 census? Taking occupational class first, the seat is fairly high up the national list for professional and managerial workers, at 91st out of 575 in England and Wales, though this is not unusually high for Greater London or for Bromley borough. In fact the arrival of St Paul’s Cray and the departure of Biggin Hill slightly reduce the overall figure to 41.1%. The prof/man figures for the census areas covering St Paul’s Cray record only 27% to 29% in that category, and 23% - 24% in routine and semi-routine jobs, well above the Orpington seat’s 16% average. There are no extremely high professional and managerial percentages in any of the seat’s middle level census areas (MSOAs), the highest being Crofton (49%) followed by Orpington South (48%) and Orpington West (47%).
However, it may be relevant to the seat’s Conservatism that apart from the Crays, especially St Paul’s Cray and St Mary Cray East, and a smaller pocket (which nevertheless includes a couple of 11 story tower blocks) in the Ramsden neighbourhood of east Orpington, there is very little social rented housing in the Orpington constituency – and even less in the private rented sector, for which the seat ranks 564th out of 575 in England and Wales. By contrast 89% in Crofton is owner occupied, 87% in Orpington South, 90% in Petts Wood. What is more, a majority in each case is owned outright, without needing a mortgage. This is a clue to neither element that favour the Conservatives. The age profile is older than average for Greater London. More than 24% are over 65 years of age in Farnborough, 23% in Crofton, 22.5% in Petts Wood. Linked partly to age are the results of the 2016 referendum, when most of these areas voted to Leave, unlike almost the whole of Inner London:
cds.bromley.gov.uk/documents/s50041914/GPL%20140916%20Elections%20APPENDIX%204%20Results%20Ward.pdf
It might be noted that the Crays, not so elderly but more working class, were the strongest Leave areas within the new boundaries of this seat, which may well also have carried into the 2019 general election result, though not necessarily into the 2020s.
It will also be noted that the Orpington seat has a much lower percentage of residents with academic degrees (37%) than most of London. No part exceeded the 45.5% in Orpington East, while in St Mary Cray North MSOA (actually in the St Paul’s Cray ward) that figure was as low as 27%. High terminal educational age has also become associated with anti-Tory voting in recent years, so this is another explanation of why this constituency has become so much of a Conservative stronghold.
In one way, Orpington is more typical of London than, say, the county of Kent. It is ethnically mixed, with a White percentage of only 78%. The Asian population, 10% overall, is at its most concentrated in Orpington South (17%) and Orpington West (16%), both among the most owner occupied and middle class parts of the constituency. The Black proportion, 6% across the division, is more likely to be resident in the social housing areas, such as St Mary Cray East (16%) and St Mary Cray North (12%), both of which are partially at least in the St Paul’s Cray ward transferred into the Orpington seat in the boundary changes. There is a very noticeable change of tone as one drives east from Petts Wood down into the Cray Valley. For example, in St Paul’s Cray, west if the valley, centred on the winding Chipperfield Road, there is a substantial estate of 1950s council housing intended as overspill for inner London, where there is still a clear – and including elderly - Afro-Caribbean presence. There are also more modern blocks of flats east of the Cray spine, down Sandway Road in St Mary Cray ward, a neighbourhood which is around 20% Black in the small output areas if the 2021 census.
Nevertheless, despite a slight boost to Labour in the 2023 review due to the arrival of St Paul’s Cray and the departure of Biggin Hill (92% white, 2% Black, 2% Asian), Orpington retains a number of key features that should shore up its loyalty to the Tories even as it looked like their series of national governments are coming to an end: age, housing tenure, education levels, and perhaps above all a sense of being the outermost of outer Greater London – there are ULEZ signs in some of the most unlikely of environments within this constituency. 1962 feels a very long time ago, and in July 2024 the Lib Dems finished fourth, as Reform took 19% of the vote, while despite a 24 point drop the Conservatives still won by over 5,000.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Aged 65+ 19.4% 281/575
Owner occupied 74.0% 74/575
Private rented 11.4% 564/575
Social rented 14.6% 307/575
White 78.4% 419/575
Black 6.1% 118/575
Asian 10.1% 158/575
Managerial & professional 41.1% 95/575
Routine & Semi-routine 16.5% 496/575
Degree level 37.3% 161/575
No qualifications 16.0% 376/575
Students 5.7% 273/575
General Election 2024: Orpington
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Gareth Bacon 17,504 38.0 −23.9
Labour Ju Owens 12,386 26.9 +7.1
Reform UK Mark James 8,896 19.3 N/A
Liberal Democrats Graeme Casey 4,728 10.3 −4.3
Green Seamus McCauley 2,319 5.0 +1.3
SDP John Bright 240 0.5 N/A
C Majority 5,118 11.1 −34.8
Turnout 46,073 64.7 –3.7
Registered electors 71,203
Conservative hold
Swing 15.5 C to Lab
General Election 2019: Orpington
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Gareth Bacon 30,882 63.4 +0.5
Labour Simon Jeal 8,504 17.5 -6.9
Liberal Democrats Allan Tweddle 7,552 15.5 +8.9
Green Karen Wheller 1,783 3.7 +1.6
C Majority 22,378 45.9 +7.4
Turnout 48,721 70.7 -3.6
Registered electors 68,884
Conservative hold
Swing 3.7 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Orpington consists of
86.2% of Orpington
18.0% of Bromley & Chislehurst
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/london/London_164_Orpington_Portrait.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
The Orpington constituency was created in 1945 from parts of the Chislehurst seat, and was technically in Kent until its unwilling incorporation into Greater London in 1965. Its boundaries have changed often during that period but it has always been the eastern constituency of the London Borough of Bromley. The most crucial boundary changes came in 1997 when Biggin Hill and Darwin were added from the abolished Ravensbourne constituency. This has now been partially reversed.
Orpington was just under quota on the previous boundaries. The proposals by the Boundary Commission moved Chislehurst and Mottingham from Bromley & Chislehurst to a cross borough seat with Eltham forcing the removal of Cray Valley West from that seat and into this one, uniting the Crays again as they were before 2010. However this would now have put Orpington over quota and the initial proposals remedied this by removing the Petts Wood & Knoll ward. This ward goes right into the centre of Orpington and the proposal caused a flurry of objections. The more logical solution would have been to remove Biggin Hill but Darwin ward is in the way and removing both would have again lead to Orpington being undersized. Essentially there was no satisfactory solution which did not involve splitting a ward. Fortunately the Boundary Commission have been prepared to do this where necessary, and in the revised plans Darwin was split to create a corridor allowing Biggin Hill to be linked with Bromley while most of the area and electorate of that ward remain in Orpington. The upshot was effectively to swap Biggin Hill for St Paul's Cray - a working class area which voted Labour (two out of the three available seats, both gains) in May 2022. This did not trouble the Conservatives decisively here, and the removal of that area together with Mottingham from the Bromley based seat means that they could be happy with at least this element of the boundary changes affecting Bromley.
Orpington is one of the least urbanised constituencies in the Greater London area. As well as the eponymous town on the border with Kent of which it was once part, it contains suburbs like Farnborough (not to be confused with the one in Hampshire), Locksbottom, Petts Wood and Crofton. It also encompasses substantial swathes of countryside as in most of Darwin ward (including villages such as Downe, site of the home of Charles Darwin himself (as well as of Nigel Farage in much more recent times), Berry Green, Horn Green, South Street and the delightfully named Pratt’s Bottom), Chelsfield, and Kevingtown in the rural part of St Mary Cray ward. In Darwin ward in particular (the large majority of which is still in the Orpington seat), this constituency does not at all feel like part of ‘the metropolis’. Darwin is the physically largest and least densely populated ward in the whole of Greater London.
Orpington and the other urban territory mainly consist of stereotypical Outer London suburbia – generally desirable detached and semi-detached houses. Psephologically, Orpington is most famous for the 1962 by-election won by Eric Lubbock, which started an important revival for the Liberals. Eric Lubbock held the seat for the next 8 years until his defeat in 1970 by the Conservatives' Ivor Stanbrook; he quoted that "in 1962, the wise, far-seeking people of Orpington elected me as their Member; in 1970 the fools threw me out". The following year, upon the death of his cousin Mr Lubbock (as he was then) became the 4th Baron Avebury, and thus Lord Avebury from that point on until his death in 2016.
In February 1974 Orpington was unsurprisingly a top Liberal target but in the end it was one of only two seats where the Liberal vote actually fell. Lord Avebury's wife fared no better in trying to capture the seat in October that year. Mr Stanbrook retired in 1992 and was succeeded by John Horam, who unusually had been a Labour then SDP MP for Gateshead West from 1970-83. Liberal Democrat attempts to unseat him throughout the Blair years were valiant but ultimately unsuccessful; the closest they came was in 2001 when Chris Maines missed out by only 269 votes. In 2010, Jo Johnson, brother of then Mayor of London and later Prime Minister Boris Johnson was elected and managed a 12.2% swing against the Liberal Democrats; that year Mr Maines, a well-known councillor in the area, did not contest the seat. The Liberal Democrats subsequently lost all their council seats in this constituency and endured a collapse to a humiliating 4th place in 2015. They made some recovery in 2019 when this constituency's current MP, Gareth Bacon, first stood but they still finished third behind Labour. In December 2019 Orpington was the safest Conservative seat in Greater London.
In the most recent Bromley council elections, in May 2022, apart from the split St Paul’s Cray mentioned above in the paragraph on the parliamentary boundary changes, the Conservatives took all six wards within the Orpington constituency, returning 14 councillors. The closest result was at St Mary Cray where their bottom candidate (with a 46.0% share) was 171 votes ahead of Labour’s top candidate (41.7%). Labour won St Mary Cray regularly up to 2002 but since then have only returned one councillor out of three in 2006 and none since, though UKIP did win two representatives in this more working class ward in 2014. The next closest ward is Orpington, though the Liberal Democrats are the main challengers in that eponymous area. Some slight reminiscence of the great 1962 byelection surprise may possibly be seen in the 2022 borough result, as there was a 14% swing from the Tories, but the LDs were still around 600 votes and 18% short of any success.
None of the other four wards was close. In Chelsfield and in Petts Wood & Knoll the Conservatives beat the Lib Dems by just under two to one and just over two to one respectively. Farnborough & Crofton was more like a ratio of 2.5 to 1, and in Darwin, which only has one councillor for all its extensive acreage, the Tory candidate took 57%, and Independent was second with 20% and Labour (10%), the Liberal Democrats (8%) and Greens (6%) trailed badly. The Conservatives have declined in the opinion polls and in national byelection results since May 2022, but there is still no sign in local Orpington elections of a major threat.
Can the Tory dominance in Orpington constituency in recent decades be explained by the demographic figures in the 2021 census? Taking occupational class first, the seat is fairly high up the national list for professional and managerial workers, at 91st out of 575 in England and Wales, though this is not unusually high for Greater London or for Bromley borough. In fact the arrival of St Paul’s Cray and the departure of Biggin Hill slightly reduce the overall figure to 41.1%. The prof/man figures for the census areas covering St Paul’s Cray record only 27% to 29% in that category, and 23% - 24% in routine and semi-routine jobs, well above the Orpington seat’s 16% average. There are no extremely high professional and managerial percentages in any of the seat’s middle level census areas (MSOAs), the highest being Crofton (49%) followed by Orpington South (48%) and Orpington West (47%).
However, it may be relevant to the seat’s Conservatism that apart from the Crays, especially St Paul’s Cray and St Mary Cray East, and a smaller pocket (which nevertheless includes a couple of 11 story tower blocks) in the Ramsden neighbourhood of east Orpington, there is very little social rented housing in the Orpington constituency – and even less in the private rented sector, for which the seat ranks 564th out of 575 in England and Wales. By contrast 89% in Crofton is owner occupied, 87% in Orpington South, 90% in Petts Wood. What is more, a majority in each case is owned outright, without needing a mortgage. This is a clue to neither element that favour the Conservatives. The age profile is older than average for Greater London. More than 24% are over 65 years of age in Farnborough, 23% in Crofton, 22.5% in Petts Wood. Linked partly to age are the results of the 2016 referendum, when most of these areas voted to Leave, unlike almost the whole of Inner London:
cds.bromley.gov.uk/documents/s50041914/GPL%20140916%20Elections%20APPENDIX%204%20Results%20Ward.pdf
It might be noted that the Crays, not so elderly but more working class, were the strongest Leave areas within the new boundaries of this seat, which may well also have carried into the 2019 general election result, though not necessarily into the 2020s.
It will also be noted that the Orpington seat has a much lower percentage of residents with academic degrees (37%) than most of London. No part exceeded the 45.5% in Orpington East, while in St Mary Cray North MSOA (actually in the St Paul’s Cray ward) that figure was as low as 27%. High terminal educational age has also become associated with anti-Tory voting in recent years, so this is another explanation of why this constituency has become so much of a Conservative stronghold.
In one way, Orpington is more typical of London than, say, the county of Kent. It is ethnically mixed, with a White percentage of only 78%. The Asian population, 10% overall, is at its most concentrated in Orpington South (17%) and Orpington West (16%), both among the most owner occupied and middle class parts of the constituency. The Black proportion, 6% across the division, is more likely to be resident in the social housing areas, such as St Mary Cray East (16%) and St Mary Cray North (12%), both of which are partially at least in the St Paul’s Cray ward transferred into the Orpington seat in the boundary changes. There is a very noticeable change of tone as one drives east from Petts Wood down into the Cray Valley. For example, in St Paul’s Cray, west if the valley, centred on the winding Chipperfield Road, there is a substantial estate of 1950s council housing intended as overspill for inner London, where there is still a clear – and including elderly - Afro-Caribbean presence. There are also more modern blocks of flats east of the Cray spine, down Sandway Road in St Mary Cray ward, a neighbourhood which is around 20% Black in the small output areas if the 2021 census.
Nevertheless, despite a slight boost to Labour in the 2023 review due to the arrival of St Paul’s Cray and the departure of Biggin Hill (92% white, 2% Black, 2% Asian), Orpington retains a number of key features that should shore up its loyalty to the Tories even as it looked like their series of national governments are coming to an end: age, housing tenure, education levels, and perhaps above all a sense of being the outermost of outer Greater London – there are ULEZ signs in some of the most unlikely of environments within this constituency. 1962 feels a very long time ago, and in July 2024 the Lib Dems finished fourth, as Reform took 19% of the vote, while despite a 24 point drop the Conservatives still won by over 5,000.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Aged 65+ 19.4% 281/575
Owner occupied 74.0% 74/575
Private rented 11.4% 564/575
Social rented 14.6% 307/575
White 78.4% 419/575
Black 6.1% 118/575
Asian 10.1% 158/575
Managerial & professional 41.1% 95/575
Routine & Semi-routine 16.5% 496/575
Degree level 37.3% 161/575
No qualifications 16.0% 376/575
Students 5.7% 273/575
General Election 2024: Orpington
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Gareth Bacon 17,504 38.0 −23.9
Labour Ju Owens 12,386 26.9 +7.1
Reform UK Mark James 8,896 19.3 N/A
Liberal Democrats Graeme Casey 4,728 10.3 −4.3
Green Seamus McCauley 2,319 5.0 +1.3
SDP John Bright 240 0.5 N/A
C Majority 5,118 11.1 −34.8
Turnout 46,073 64.7 –3.7
Registered electors 71,203
Conservative hold
Swing 15.5 C to Lab
General Election 2019: Orpington
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Gareth Bacon 30,882 63.4 +0.5
Labour Simon Jeal 8,504 17.5 -6.9
Liberal Democrats Allan Tweddle 7,552 15.5 +8.9
Green Karen Wheller 1,783 3.7 +1.6
C Majority 22,378 45.9 +7.4
Turnout 48,721 70.7 -3.6
Registered electors 68,884
Conservative hold
Swing 3.7 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
Orpington consists of
86.2% of Orpington
18.0% of Bromley & Chislehurst
Map
boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/review2023/9bc0b2ea-7915-4997-9d4a-3e313c0ceb51/london/London_164_Orpington_Portrait.pdf
Notional result 2019 on the new boundaries (Rallings & Thrasher)
| Con | 30308 | 61.9% |
| Lab | 9861 | 19.8% |
| LD | 7145 | 14.6% |
| Grn | 1824 | 3.7% |
| Majority | 20627 | 42.1% |