An interesting seat,
perhaps the council estates and the
university
offer different long term political trends.

Quite sensible in a way.
Although I think sometime candidates, particularly well known ones, or ones uncertain of the result, deliberately arrive later.

It must be a bell weather marginal. Labour in 1997, 2001 and 2005 and Tory in 1992 and 2010.

I would call it Nottingham Trent Bridge.

It’s probably displayed like that because amazingly on 5th May the Labour Party won the vote in Clifton North, one of their candidates, being a local resident topped the poll! Even in the Tories second safest ward in Nottingham Labour came top. It is such an amazing victory for Labour, they beat both opposition leaders, all the Lib Dems and came top of the poll in every single ward except Wollaton West! A stunning victory.

Prior to the boundary changes which came into effect in 2003, Dunkirk was part of Abbey Ward which had been Conservative for years, although it did fall to Labour in 1995. Even in 2000 Abbey Ward returned 2 Conservative councillors.

Abbey Ward covered not only (1) Dunkirk, but also (2) the part of Lenton lying between the University campus and the railway line and (3) Wollaton Park Estate. Wollaton Park Estate was was one of the more Conservative areas and was moved into Wollaton East & Lenton Abbey, which was initially a Conservative/LD marginal, but was shockingly won by Labour this time round. Meanwhile, other parts of Lenton were added to the ward, and Dunkirk became even more studentised, with the homes of many former Conservative voters being sold and converted into student homes. Together with an increase in accommodation for NHS workers, this has led to the erosion of the Conservative votes in the ward. Turnout is in this ward is always low because very few students vote in local elections (although they came out in much greater numbers in last night’s general election).

Overall, the 2003 boundary changes were very unfavourable to the Conservatives. In 2000, the Conservatives won 11 seats on the council, which comprised entirely of much smaller 2-seat wards. The boundary changes meant that many wards which were previously winnable for the Conservative wards were swallowed up by surrounding Labour-voting areas – in particular, Mapperley, Sherwood, Dales and Radford and Park. All these wards are very diverse, with two completely different areas located side by side. Clifton North was the only ward where the Conservatives benefited as a result of the boundary changes – the solidly Conservative Wilford ward was expanded to cover parts of Labour-voting Clifton, leading to there being 3 Conservative councillors being elected. But even now, the ward is mixed with the Conservatives winning 2 seats and Labour 1.

If Nottingham South returns to being a cross border seat (as it was prior to 1974 when it included West Bridgeford, it could be Tory). It may not include West Bridgeford and Wollaton (latter may go into Nottingham North).

A cross border re-creation of the pre-1974 Nottingham South may be renamed ‘Trent Bridge’.

What happened to Dunkirk? It is now a solid Labour ward and was Tory in the early 90′s. Is this ward boundary or demographic change?