Sunderland Central
2010 Results:
Conservative: 12770 (30.07%)
Labour: 19495 (45.91%)
Liberal Democrat: 7191 (16.93%)
BNP: 1913 (4.51%)
UKIP: 1094 (2.58%)
Majority: 6725 (15.84%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 18039 (51%)
Conservative: 8999 (25.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 5403 (15.3%)
Other: 2928 (8.3%)
Majority: 9040 (25.6%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 5724 (19.8%)
Labour: 15719 (54.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 4277 (14.8%)
BNP: 1136 (3.9%)
Other: 2057 (7.1%)
Majority: 9995 (34.6%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 5331 (17.9%)
Labour: 18685 (62.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 3599 (12.1%)
BNP: 687 (2.3%)
Other: 1518 (5.1%)
Majority: 13354 (44.8%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 6370 (16.7%)
Labour: 26067 (68.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 3973 (10.4%)
Referendum: 1394 (3.6%)
Other: 409 (1.1%)
Majority: 19697 (51.5%)
Boundary changes: There are major readjustments to the seats in Tyne and Wear to take account of the reduction in the total number of seats allocated. Sunderland Central takes in the majority of the former Sunderland North seat, save for Castle and Redhill wards which move to Washington and Sunderland West, and the most Easterly part of the old Sunderland South constituency, the rest of which joins the new Houghton and Sunderland South. It also gains Ryhope ward from the old Houghton and Washington East seat.
Profile: Sunderland Central takes in the centre of the City of Sunderland itself and the coastal village of Ryhope to the South. To the north it takes is Roker (the site of Sunderland AFC`s former stadium) and Monkwearmouth (home to the new Stadium of Light) and the affluent Conservative stronghold of Fulwell. Sunderland itself is a former shipbuilding and coal mining town, both industries which have all but disappeared. Sunderand however is enjoying large scale inward investment and regeneration.
Both of the old Sunderland constituencies had been held by Labour since the 1960s. However, there are Conservative voters here – four of the nine wards in the constituency return Conservative councillors and unusually, despite the lower turnouts at local elections, the Conservatives managed to get more votes in the 2004 local elections in Sunderland than they did at the subsequent general election. The seat is not about to become a tight marginal, but the notional figures probably underestimate the strength the Tories could field if they were able to convert their local election support into national support.
Current MP: Julie Elliott (Labour) Trade union officer.
Lee Martin (Conservative) Sunderland councillor. Leader of the Conservative group.Julie Elliott (Labour) Trade union officer.
Paul Dixon (Liberal Democrat) Works for a property company. Sunderland councillor since 2006.Pauline Featonby-Warren (UKIP)John McCaffrey (BNP) 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 99971
Male: 49%
Female: 51%
Under 18: 21.4%
Over 60: 22.3%
Born outside UK: 3.8%
White: 96.9%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 1.8%
Mixed: 0.6%
Other: 0.6%
Christian: 79.3%
Muslim: 1.5%
Full time students: 8.3%
Graduates 16-74: 14.5%
No Qualifications 16-74: 35.2%
Owner-Occupied: 62.7%
Social Housing: 27% (Council: 17.1%, Housing Ass.: 9.8%)
Privately Rented: 8.3%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 5.3%
Lee Martin did rather well in this seat, he should try and get selected for a safer tory seat next time. It’s more than likely that Sunderland will be reduced back to 2 seats after the next boundary review, which will be bad news for the tories if the new boundaries are anything like the old ones.
“it’s more than likely that Sunderland will be reduced back to 2 seats ”
If we’re going for around 76,000 electorate constituencies, It will probably be 2 seats fully contained into Sunderland council boundary + a third cross borough constituency
The May 2010 Sunderland electorate was 212,124. Central was already almost 75,000.
On the Sunderland Central result, I think the result looked less promising in the aftermath because all the hype it went on it before the vote.