Vale of Clwyd
2010 Results:
Conservative: 12508 (35.2%)
Labour: 15017 (42.26%)
Liberal Democrat: 4472 (12.59%)
Plaid Cymru: 2068 (5.82%)
BNP: 827 (2.33%)
UKIP: 515 (1.45%)
Others: 127 (0.36%)
Majority: 2509 (7.06%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 15005 (46.1%)
Conservative: 10279 (31.6%)
Liberal Democrat: 3846 (11.8%)
Plaid Cymru: 2328 (7.1%)
Other: 1116 (3.4%)
Majority: 4726 (14.5%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 10206 (31.6%)
Labour: 14875 (46%)
Liberal Democrat: 3820 (11.8%)
Plaid Cymru: 2309 (7.1%)
UKIP: 375 (1.2%)
Other: 728 (2.3%)
Majority: 4669 (14.4%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 10418 (32.2%)
Labour: 16179 (50%)
Liberal Democrat: 3058 (9.5%)
Plaid Cymru: 2300 (7.1%)
UKIP: 391 (1.2%)
Majority: 5761 (17.8%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 11662 (29.8%)
Labour: 20617 (52.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 3425 (8.8%)
Plaid Cymru: 2301 (5.9%)
Referendum: 834 (2.1%)
Other: 293 (0.7%)
Majority: 8955 (22.9%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Chris Ruane(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Matt Wright (Conservative) Contested Vale of Clwyd in 2007 Welsh Assembly elections.Chris Ruane(Labour) (more information at They work for you)Paul Penlington (Liberal Democrat)Caryl Wyn Jones (Plaid Cymru) Tom Turner (UKIP)Ian Si`Ree (BNP) Mike Butler (Alliance for Green Socialism) 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 70884
Male: 47.5%
Female: 52.5%
Under 18: 22.6%
Over 60: 26%
Born outside UK: 2.8%
White: 98.8%
Black: 0.2%
Asian: 0.4%
Mixed: 0.5%
Other: 0.2%
Christian: 77.6%
Full time students: 2.5%
Graduates 16-74: 15.5%
No Qualifications 16-74: 33%
Owner-Occupied: 72.4%
Social Housing: 13.3% (Council: 9.4%, Housing Ass.: 3.9%)
Privately Rented: 11.1%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 12.7%
‘Rhyl is monolithically Labour these days, and Prestatyn marginal but Labour-leaning .’
Rhyl wasn’t quite as Labour as I expected it to be – the Tories did win a couple of wards – East & South – in 2010 – and they were almost 1000 votes ahead of Labour in Prestatyn
This really is a seat the Tories should have won in 2010
I haven’t been to Prestatyn in many years, but I think I’m right in saying that there are council estate areas on the far outskirts to the town that aren’t always counted as part of the town itself. If you add those to Prestatyn proper, it tends to make it very close between Lab & Con. There is a rather similar phenomenon in Ramsgate, though Ramsgate itself tends to vote Labour nowadays, not just its satellite estates.
Barnaby, yes you are correct. There are large housing estates out towards Meliden, which are Prestatyn, but sometimes aren’t strictly counted as such.
Prestatyn is quite close I’d say and I think that the Conservative success there over the last few years was a blip to be honest. Lab and Con are now quite even there, which I think is a better reflection. Prestatyn isn’t that posh a town and not all that attractive, so I think it’s quite mixed.
Rhyl as you say is a monolithic Labour town these days (11 county councillors out of 11) and the fact the Tories won a couple of seats there was simply a freak mid-term result I think.
I don’t know what to say about that town really. It bears so little relation to how it was 30 years ago that to say there has been a decline in the Tory vote is almost superfluous. Like some of those areas of London, which used to vote Tory. They are just so far removed from what they once were population-wise that it’s ridiculous to compare.
It’s such a shockingly depressed town that it puts almost any other town in the North West/North Wales in the shade.
The Tories will never win the Vale of Clwyd for a very long time, unless there are serious boundary changes or there is a serious demographic change in sections of the population.
I can’t link to the maps, but under the zombie review, this seat would be broken into two.
Denbigh is moved into “Denbigh and North Montgomeryshire”.
Rhyl, Prestatyn and St Asaph are plonked into “Flint and North Denbighshire”
I thought that the review was going to be killed this week?
The amendment to postpone the review will be moved on the 14th.
‘Rhyl as you say is a monolithic Labour town these days (11 county councillors out of 11) and the fact the Tories won a couple of seats there was simply a freak mid-term result I think.’
Not necessarily Matt given that the Tories won the Rhyl East and the Rhyl South wards at the 2010 general election – the only really mreaningful result as tirn oiut in county council elections are so low they are virtually meaningless
In fact, if you tally up the votes, the Tories got 4,834 to Labour’s 6,507 which doesn’t suggest Rhyl is as monolithically Labour as you claim
You’re right that it’s one of the most depressed towns in the UK – and even makes far from attractive towns like Flint, Denbigh, Wrexham and Connah’s Quay look desirable -
Perhaps I’m being a bit obtuse, but how do you know that those wards voted Tory at the general election in 2010? I didn’t think votes were counted at ward level like that. Unless you have spoken to someone who was standing behind the the counters, and totting up numbers from the ballot boxes?
I haven’t the time to count up the numbers, but the bottom Labour candidate beat the top Tory by several hundred votes in every ward and in a couple it was in the high hundreds. I imagine also that many Labour voters in county council elections in Rhyl wouldn’t vote, but would do so in a general election. Especially in a ward like Rhyl West (which is probably the most depressed ward in Wales – or at least up there with the most depressed).
By the way, Denbigh is actually quite a nice historic town, not in the same league as Ruthin down the road, but nice nonetheless. Wrexham also has improved massively over recent years and is alright in many parts these days.
Flint and Connahs Quay are quite undesirable as you say. Flint especially is ruined by three 20+ storey high-rise council blocks in the centre of the town. They are revolting and hugely incongruous in a town of 10,000 people. They look like they should be in inner-city London or Manchester rather than a small town on the North Wales coast. The town would be improved massively if they were demolished.
Those of a musical disposition may be interested to know that the 80′s Alternative/New Wave rock band The Alarm came from Rhyl.
‘Perhaps I’m being a bit obtuse, but how do you know that those wards voted Tory at the general election in 2010? I didn’t think votes were counted at ward level like that. Unless you have spoken to someone who was standing behind the the counters, and totting up numbers from the ballot boxes?’
They have it on Electoral Calculus.
Go to the new boundaries, click on an area – in this case Wales – and then click on the proposed new seat and it has a breakdown of how every ward voted in 2010 – first time I’ve ever seen that on any site
I think Queensferry, Shotton (a steel town), Bagilt, Greenfield and Buckley are pretty undesirable North Welsh towns too, although I’m told the latter is quite Tory-voting nowadays.
And of course Holyhead – which isn’t quite on the scale of Rhyl – but not far off.
I never thought Prestatyn was nice either – as you say. And whenever I go to Denbigh it’s always raining – but it just seemed a pretty miserable town with plenty of shabby housing
Labour-voting Mold is actually quite a nice market town (I lived there for three years), and St Asaph, Ruthin, Rhos on Sea, Deganwy and Conway are also quite pictiresque
Those flats you mention in Flint really do stick out – and look totally out of place
Those notional ward results ion electoral calculus need to be taken with bucket loads of salt. IN this case Denbigh Central and two other wards apparently had not a single Conservative voter in 2010. Looking at Delyn there is one ward where supposedly Labour won 100% of the vote and another where the Conservatives won 100%. Clearly some flawed methodolgy at work here. I don’t have a view as to whether or not the Conservatives may have carried any of the wards in Rhyl at the general election, but would certainly not rely on evidence from Electoral calculus to support either view.
Any decent political organisation will know to a high level of accuracy what the results were for each polling district.
One of the functions of counting agents is to tally the votes for each party to get an idea of where the support lies. You can allocate your resources better this way and also know how the election is going on the day by getting the turnout figures for each polling district – they have patterns of voting so some areas with pensioners or lots of unemployed or students will vote throughout the day and other will vote mostly after work but knowing these patterns and where the vote lies means that you can switch resources to other constituencies or wards if things are going to be close.
Rhyl & Prestatyn are subject to the same trends as seaside towns throughout England & Wales. The economic depression is severe, but not so different from Clacton, or Hastings, or Weymouth, or Morecambe.
A shift towards Labour in voting patterns is therefore not surprising. The Conservatives need a programme to regenerate our seaside towns if they wish to regain their predominance there..
I’ve probably made this point before in the past but I’ll make it again- Although most seaside towns in England and Wales are natural Tory territory, there also some where the Lib Dems have traditionally done well- Southport, Torquay, Paignton, Weston-super-Mare, Bournemouth, Southend-on-Sea, Poole, Redcar and Ryde.
I agree with Pete – I don’t find Electoral Calculus’s methodology at all convincing as a means of guessing which ward voted which way in the general election.
on electoral calculus there are quite a few wards in quite a few of the seats where one of the main parties has no votes or 100% of the vote – which is clearly wrong – but the results they had for the brighton & hove seats for example tallied with what actually went down
surely there must be some basis of accuracy surrounding their ward breakdowns