County Essex Electorate 67,447 (December 2010) | Population 85,359 (2011 census) Created 2010 | |
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Major settlements Clacton, Frinton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze Member of parliament Douglas Carswell (UKIP) | ||
Clacton is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament.
Contents
Clacton is currently represented by Douglas Carswell. Carswell defected to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) on 28 August 2014 from the Conservative Party. He resigned to force a by-election, held on 9 October 2014, in which he stood as the UKIP candidate and was re-elected. Carswell retained the seat for UKIP at the subsequent general election.
Boundaries
Following their review of parliamentary representation in Essex, the Boundary Commission created this as a new seat, consisting of essentially the former Harwich constituency, minus the town of Harwich itself and a few nearby villages, plus St. Osyth and Weeley, moved from the old North Essex constituency. Apart from the North Sea it is surrounded by the Harwich and North Essex constituency on all other sides.
This new seat contains the towns of Clacton-on-Sea, Frinton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze, as well as surrounding villages.
The electoral wards used to form the Clacton constituency are entirely within the district of Tendring
Constituency profile
The new seat is almost completely coastal, comprising seaside resorts along the Tendring peninsula. It shares an inland border with just one constituency - Harwich and North Essex.
Like some other coastal seats, such as Christchurch in Dorset, the electorate is one of the oldest in the country, with a high proportion of retirees, and low numbers of non-white residents. The area has experienced a considerable influx of White British families from areas of East London such as Barking and Dagenham, leading to the town of Clacton becoming known as "Little Dagenham."
The stark exception is the village of Jaywick, which suffers from extremely high levels of deprivation.
In Both the Indices of deprivation 2010 and 2015 an area of Jaywick was identified as the single most deprived LSOA in all of England, out of around 32,000, with unemployment estimated at almost 50%. Many homes are essentially beach huts and lack basic amenities. In the 2007 Index, this area was the third most deprived in the country.
Members of Parliament
The constituency's only member of parliament to date has been Douglas Carswell, who had previously sat for the Harwich constituency since gaining that seat for the Conservatives in 2005.
On 28 August 2014 Carswell announced his defection to UKIP. Although not required to seek re-election following a change of allegiance, on 29 August, Carswell vacated his seat by taking up the appointment of Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, triggering a by-election on 9 October 2014 in which he was elected, standing as the UKIP candidate. He was re-elected as MP in the 2015 general election, seeing his majority cut by roughly three-quarters, an 11% swing to the Conservatives. Mr Carswell then became UKIP's only MP in the Commons, as Mark Reckless, a fellow Conservative defector, lost his seat.