Sefton Central (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 53°31′23″N 2°59′06″W / 53.523°N 2.985°W / 53.523; -2.985

Sefton Central
Borough constituency
for the House of Commons
Outline map
Boundary of Sefton Central in Merseyside.
Outline map
Location of Merseyside within England.
County Merseyside
Electorate 67,696 (December 2010)[1]
Major settlements Crosby, Formby, Maghull, Lydiate & Aintree
Current constituency
Created 2010
Member of parliament Bill Esterson (Labour)
Number of members One
Created from Crosby
Knowsley North & Sefton East
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency North West England

Sefton Central is a constituency[n 1] represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Bill Esterson of the Labour Party since 2010.[n 2]

Boundaries

History of boundaries

The constituency replaced much of Crosby along with part of Knowsley North and Sefton East. The new constituency covers Merseyside northern residential suburban areas of Crosby, Blundellsands, Brighton-Le-Sands, Little Crosby, Thornton, and Hightown, Formby and Maghull and the villages and localities of Aintree, Carr Houses, Freshfield, Ince Blundell, Kennessee Green, Lady Green, Little Altcar, Lunt, Lydiate, Melling, Sefton, and Waddicar, in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton. The constituency has electoral wards:[2]

History

This seat was fought for the first time at the 2010 general election.

At the time, eleven of the constituency's twenty-one councillors were Conservatives followed by the Liberal Democrats who had ten,[n 3] whereas analysis by Rallings and Thrasher indicated that had the Sefton Central constituency existed in 2005, the result would have been: Labour 45.6%, Conservative 33.6%, LibDem 19.2%, giving a Labour majority of 4,950. Some Conservative campaign billboard posters for the Tory candidate Deborah Jones had been defaced during the 2010 election, as had been the case during the 2005 election in Crosby.[3] The Labour Party candidate's majority was 3,862 suggesting a moderate two-party swing.

The area covered by this seat and its immediate predecessor Crosby was historically a strong area for the Conservatives. However, since Labour gained that seat in the 1997 election, they have held it with fairly comfortable margins for 20 years. In 2015, an 8.1% swing to Labour saw them take the area with their biggest ever majority of 11,846 votes (24.2%), in accordance with the significant swing to Labour in Merseyside compared to 2010; this margin was surpassed in 2017, as Labour won more than 60% of the vote in the seat and a majority of over 30% for the first time. This suggests that since 2010, Sefton Central has changed from a key marginal between the major parties to a Labour safe seat.

Constituency profile

The constituency consists of Census Output Areas of a local government district with: a working population whose income is close to the national average and which has close to average reliance on social housing.[4] At the end of 2012, the unemployment rate in the constituency stood as 2.4% of the population claiming Jobseeker's Allowance, compared to the regional average of 4.2%.[5] The borough contributing to the seat has a medium 28.5% of its population without a car, 25.1% of the population without any qualifications and a 24.1% with Level 4 qualifications or above. In terms of tenure, 70.5% of homes are owned outright or on a mortgage as at the 2011 UK Census across the district.[6]

Members of Parliament

ElectionMember[7] Party
2010 Bill Esterson Labour

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

June 2017

General Election 2017: Sefton Central[8]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Bill Esterson 32,830 63.0 +9.3
Conservative Jade Marsden 17,212 33.0 +3.4
Liberal Democrat Daniel Lewis 1,381 2.7 -1.6
Green Mike Carter 656 1.3 -1.2
Majority 15,618 30.0 +5.8
Turnout 52,079 75.5 +3.1
Labour hold Swing Increase 2.9

May 2015

General Election 2015: Sefton Central[9][10]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Bill Esterson 26,359 53.8 +11.9
Conservative Valerie Allen 14,513 29.6 -4.3
UKIP Tim Power 4,879 10.0 +5.7
Liberal Democrat Paula Keaveney 2,086 4.3 -15.7
Green Lindsay Melia 1,184 2.4 +2.4
Majority 11,846 24.2
Turnout 49,021 72.4
Labour hold Swing +8.1

May 2010

General Election 2010: Sefton Central[11]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Bill Esterson 20,307 41.9 -3.7
Conservative Debi Jones 16,445 33.9 +0.4
Liberal Democrat Richard Clein 9,656 19.9 +0.7
UKIP Peter Harper 2,055 4.2 +3.5
Majority 3,862 8.0
Turnout 48,463 71.8 +11.0
Labour hold Swing +2.0

See also

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ↑ A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
  2. ↑ As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.
  3. ↑ A share of the vote based on the 2008 local election in these seven wards gave Conservative 42.3% Liberal Democrat 34.2% Labour 18.1%.
References
  1. ↑ "Electorate Figures - Boundary Commission for England". 2011 Electorate Figures. Boundary Commission for England. 4 March 2011. Archived from the original on 6 November 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  2. ↑ The Parliamentary Constituencies (England) Order 2007, Office of Public Sector Information
  3. ↑ Sefton Central Tory candidate billboards defaced BBC News website, April 30, 2010. Accessed 30 December 2011
  4. ↑ 2001 Census
  5. ↑ Unemployment claimants by constituency The Guardian
  6. ↑ 2011 census interactive maps Archived 2016-01-29 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "S" (part 2)
  8. ↑ "General Election 2017: who is standing for election". Liverpool Echo. 11 May 2017.
  9. ↑ "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  10. ↑ "Sefton Central". BBC News. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
  11. ↑ "Election Data 2010". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
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