High Peak
2010 Results:
Conservative: 20587 (40.9%)
Labour: 15910 (31.61%)
Liberal Democrat: 10993 (21.84%)
UKIP: 1690 (3.36%)
Green: 922 (1.83%)
Independent: 161 (0.32%)
Others: 74 (0.15%)
Majority: 4677 (9.29%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 19104 (41.4%)
Conservative: 16772 (36.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 9288 (20.1%)
Other: 1029 (2.2%)
Majority: 2332 (5%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 19074 (38.2%)
Labour: 19809 (39.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 10000 (20%)
UKIP: 1106 (2.2%)
Majority: 735 (1.5%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 17941 (37.3%)
Labour: 22430 (46.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 7743 (16.1%)
Majority: 4489 (9.3%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 20261 (35.5%)
Labour: 29052 (50.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 6420 (11.2%)
Referendum: 1420 (2.5%)
Majority: 8791 (15.4%)
Boundary changes: becomes co-terminous with High Peak district council, losing the wards in the old seat that fell under Derbyshire Dales Council to the new Derbyshire Dales seat – Bradwell, Hathersage & Eyam, Litton & Longstone and Tideswell. These wards are all made up of rural villages and their loss is likely to benefit Labour.
Profile: As the name might suggest High Peak largely consists of the Peak District at the northern end of Derbyshire. By area is mostly consists of the higher, wilder parts of the Peak District, mostly uninhabited moorland. Hills and moors have no votes though, and the majority of the electorate live in the towns to the west of the seat that look towards Greater Manchester, places like Glossop, Hadfield, Tintwistle and New Mills.
To the south is the spa town of Buxton and to the east of the constituency there are still a few villages of the Hope valley that haven`t been removed by the boundary changes, including Hope itself, Castleton and Bamford. Despite being a large rural seat, the Tory voting villages are balanced out by Labour support in the towns, particularly the council estate of Gamesley in Glossop.
Tourism is of major importance to the area but there is also industry in the towns to the west. Notably the sweet manufacturer Swizzels Matlow are based in New Mills and Chapel-en-le-Frith, the administrative HQ of High Peak District Council, is also the site of a brake lining manufacturing factory owned by Ferodo, a subsidiary of Turner and Newall, now owned by Federal Mogul. The collapse of the T&N pension fund is a major local concern.
Between 1992 and 1997 the seat was represented by Charles Hendry, now Conservative MP for Wealden.
Current MP: Andrew Bingham (Conservative) born 1962, Buxton. High Peak councillor since 1999. Contested High Peak in 2005.
Andrew Bingham (Conservative) born 1962, Buxton. High Peak councillor since 1999. Contested High Peak in 2005.
Caitlin Bisknell (Labour) High Peak councillor since 1999.
Alistair Stevens (Liberal Democrat) Cricket coach and former professional cricketer.
Peter Allen (Green)Sylvia Hall (UKIP) Tony Alves (Independent)Lance Dowson (Independent)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 89433
Male: 49.4%
Female: 50.6%
Under 18: 23.2%
Over 60: 20.5%
Born outside UK: 2.9%
White: 98.7%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 0.2%
Mixed: 0.6%
Other: 0.3%
Christian: 76.5%
Full time students: 2.2%
Graduates 16-74: 21.9%
No Qualifications 16-74: 27.1%
Owner-Occupied: 77.1%
Social Housing: 13.4% (Council: 11%, Housing Ass.: 2.4%)
Privately Rented: 6.4%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 6.6%
The 7.15% swing is the highester swing to the Tories, ever right? In 1950 there was a swing to Labour, and in 1979 there was a paltry swing of just 2.7% to the Conservatives.
I’ve been having a look at what could possibly happen to Derbyshire in the forthcoming boundary review to create large seats. In his most recent article on the subject Anthony stated that Derbyshire would probably suffer a one seat reduction to ten seats. That may well be the case, but Derbyshire is only just large enough (by about 10,000 voters) to merit ten seats with electorates of 76,000; just above the absolute minimum under the new rules. Assuming no crossing of the county boundary any ten seat solution would have to involve a lot of splitting of local government wards to create the level of flexibility necessary to work within such a tight margin. A nine seat solution creating constituencies just over the 80,000 quota is far more doable under current ward boundaries.
This seat is pretty straightforward. Under a ten seat plan for the county its southern boundary could simply be moved south to take in Bradwell and Hathersage & Eyam wards from the current Derbyshire Dales. A nine seat plan would probably mean the boundary moving further south to include Bakewell and surrounding wards to create a High Peak and North West Derbyshire seat. Under either scenario the Tory position in this seat would be strengthened. A High Peak and NW Derbys would probably be safe Tory.
“Under a ten seat plan for the county its southern boundary could simply be moved south to take in Bradwell and Hathersage & Eyam wards from the current Derbyshire Dales”
This would be a restoration of the status quo ante in this seat, which might add a couple of thousand to the Conservative majority. Presumably across Derbyshire the recent boundary changes would be more or less reversed with Derbyshire Mid disappearing and the constituency parts being sent back whence they came which loses the Conservatives a safe seat but makes them safer in Amber Valley and Erewash and puts Derby North in the Tory column.
That would be bad news for Pauline Latham.
Presumably her only option would be to stand in Derby North.
Who is deciding these new boundaries?
Nick Clegg.
Anyway, the dilution of LD seats will probably lead to even more clean sweeps of red and blue.
A useful counter-weights against AV.
If we don’t have AV, and their support drops sharply – even better.
Certainly Joe I can’t see the boundary review in Derbyshire being anything other the damaging to the Lib Dems chances of winning a seat. Going into the last election they will have had high hopes of holding Chesterfield and gaining Derby North. Both those seats will have to expand to include territory not favourable to the Lib Dems in order that they meet the 76,000 minimum quota.
That’s not necessarily true of Chesterfield – it could potentially expand to include Dronfield, which is generally good for the Lib Dems and Tories, and poor for Labour.
Why do the boundary commissioners seem to deem it essential that all constituencies must be contained within the post-1974 counties?
And if AV went ahead, I would have thought that Chesterfield would be one of the places that it might benefit theb LDs. Big If there, of course.
One would presume that a Derby North redrawn as described would still be winnable for Labour in the event of a modest swing?
The low swing in 1979 could have been because the Tories held the seat in 1974, and swings across that period look quite low.
An earlier post –
JOE JAMES B
High Peak was unchanged in February 1974,
so comparisons across it are possible.
It was retained by the Conservatives in both 1974 elections with a slightly larger majority than in 1970. It’s actually had fairly low swings across the four elections below.
1979
C 22,532 46.5%
Lab 17,777 36.7%
Lib 8,200 16.9%
October 1974
C 19,043 41.4%
Lab 17,041 37.1
Lib 9,875 21.5
February 1974
C 19,231 39.8%
Lab 16,956 35.1%
Lib 12,117 25.1%
1970
C 19,558 43.7%
Lab 18,054 40.4%
Lib 7,119 15.9%
“Who is deciding these new boundaries?
Nick Clegg”
HAHAHAHAH
How many people have never heard of the Boundary Commission for England? Honestly?
The amount of ignorance and stupidty spouted over the reduction in MPs – almost entirely from Labour supporters – is hilarious. My Twitter feed is stuffed full of Labour supporters calling it “gerrymandering” without understanding what that term means.
It’s brilliant and hilarious to hear so much stupidity from Labour on this issue. As with so much else, they haven’t got a clue.
Warofdreams: I don’t think there is any prospect, assuming the boundary commission go for Derbyshire having ten seat with 76-77,000 electorates, of Chesterfield being extended to include Dronfield. Assuming Dronfield was not split in any way (which would be stupid) such a move would shift too many voters from NE Derbys to Chesterfield, making Chesterfield over sized and NE Derbys undersized in the context of a target electorate of 76-77,000.
However, having looked at the situation in more detail I find that I was incorrect in saying that boundary changes for Chesterfield would inevitably hurt the Lib Dems, just not for the reason cited by Warofdreams. Probably the simplest (not necessarily the best way though) of increasing Chesterfield’s electorate to reach a 76,000 quota would be to shift Barrow Hill & New Whittington ward from NE Derbys to Chesterfield. As this is currently a Lib Dem held ward such a move would probably prove to be marginally of benefit to them.
Barnaby, I certainly don’t see any changes effecting Derby North being of any benefit to Labour there. As Pete has said above any plan for Derbyshire will probably centre around the abolition of Mid Derbyshire. Assuming that would involve the Derby City wards currently in Mid Derbyshire of Allestree and/or Oakwood being transfered to Derby N this would be be to the benefit of the Conservatives. Had either of those wards been included in Derby N at the last election the seat would have elected a Tory MP. Allestree in particular is a large ward that as far as I know has always elected Tory councillors.
On a general point, I wonder if it will be the case that the target of 80,000 voters per constituency will become in practice pretty meaningless as all areas of the country strive to ensure the creation of constituencies that just reach the bare minimum of 76,000 in an attempt to ensure the maximum level of representation in parliament for their locality. If this is the case then there is surely a chance that in the end the total number of MPs might not be reduced as to as few as 600.
To be fair to Barnaby, what he said that sucha Derby North (effectively returned to the 1983-2010) boundaries, though it would surely have been Conservative at this election, would still be a winnable Labour seat, which of course it would be since they did win it easily from 1997 to 2005. I don’t know how it will have voted in detail but at a rough guess the Conservatives would have had a majority of 2-3,000 in the old Derby North in 2010 which probably does equate to a swing of around 3% being needed for Labour to regain it
Yes Pete I’ve just re-read Barnaby’s comment and now realise what he meant, and that there is some truth in what he says. Derby North would probably still be winnable for Labour, but how difficult a task that would be would depend on whether all of both Allestree and Oakwood (and even possibly Spondon) were moved into the seat, and which territory Derby North had to lose to the south in order to compensate for taking in so much of the former Mid Derbys and for the purposes of bringing Derby South up to size.
My preference would be to bring South Derbyshire up to size by adding in most of Chellaston ward from Derby South. The knock on effect of that would be a need to expand Derby South into the area now covered by Derby North, probably taking in the likes of Abbey, Littleover, Mickleover and Makworth; parts of the current Derby North less favourable to the Tories.
In short, it would be possible to construct a Derby North that took in territory to the north and east and shed territory to the south and south west that was pretty difficult (but certainly not impossible) for Labour to win. I am sure that is a prospect that has not gone unnoticed among Derby City Conservatives.