County West Midlands Created 1997 European Parliament constituency West Midlands Number of members 1 | Electorate 75,705 (December 2010) Type of constituency Borough constituency Member of parliament Jim Cunningham | |
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Created from Coventry South East, Coventry South West Replaced by Coventry South East, Coventry South West | ||
Coventry South is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 1997 recreation by Jim Cunningham of the Labour Party.
Contents
History
The constituency was created for the 1950 general election, abolished for the February 1974 general election and recreated for the 1997 general election by the merger of the former seats of Coventry South East and Coventry South West. Since 1964 the various forms of the seat, excluding the gap period, have elected the Labour candidate. The Conservative candidates, since a win in 1959, have consistently taken second place.
Constituency profile and boundaries
1950-1974: The County Borough of Coventry wards of Cheylesmore, Earlsdon, Godiva, St Michael's, Westwood, and Whoberley.
1997-present: The City of Coventry wards of Binley and Willenhall, Cheylesmore, Earlsdon, St Michael's, Wainbody, and Westwood.
Coventry city centre is in the north of the constituency, with its cathedral, expanses of concrete offices and the university, which leads to a significant student vote in the seat. The residential tower blocks in St Michael's ward lie amid one of the most deprived areas in the country but south of the city centre it is more mixed, with the more middle-class areas of Cheylesmore, Earlsdon and Whoberley, Cannon Park, Gibbet Hill (aka Wainbody) and Westwood Heath among areas with large numbers of professionals, comfortably self-employed and academics.
From 1974 to 1997, the city centre was part of the now abolished Coventry South East constituency.
Elections in the 2010s
The local UKIP party originally selected Mark Taylor as candidate in 2015, but he stood aside when instructed to by "party bosses." UKIP wanted to replace Taylor with "anti-gay Christian preacher" George Hargreaves. The following week, Taylor was reinstated as candidate.