County West Sussex Major settlements Shoreham-by-Sea Created from Worthing and Shoreham Member of parliament Tim Loughton Number of members 1 | Electorate 72,996 (December 2010) Created 1997 European Parliament constituency South East England Major settlement Shoreham-by-Sea Replaced by Worthing, Shoreham | |
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East Worthing and Shoreham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by Tim Loughton of the Conservative Party.
Contents
Boundaries
The District of Adur, and the Borough of Worthing wards of Broadwater, Gaisford, Offington, and Selden.
The constituency covers an eastern portion of Worthing, the town of Shoreham-by-Sea and just three nearby inland villages that are also in West Sussex.
History
Under the Boundary Commission's fourth review, enacted in time for the 1997 election, the larger Shoreham portion of this constituency was taken from the disbanded Shoreham seat and the minor East Worthing portion had been in the disbanded Worthing seat.
Before 1974, the Shoreham seat had been a part of the Arundel and Shoreham seat.
Between 1945 and 1950, the whole area was in the Worthing seat and between 1918 and 1945 (on which the Boundary Commission was formed and carried out its first periodic review), in the Horsham and Worthing seat.
Apart from the 1997 general election result with the Conservative Party candidate's majority as 9.9% of the vote, more recent greater majorities together with the most recent result, a 22.9% majority, suggest the seat is safer than most other constituencies currently held by the Conservative Party. In terms of second place, this was retaken by the Liberal Democrat candidate in 2010, ousting the Labour Party from that position, having achieved second place at general elections here since 2001.
The competitive hustings in September 2007 of the local Labour Party selected Emily Benn, granddaughter of Tony Benn and niece of Hilary Benn, former ministers of state, then aged 17, to contest the 2010 general election, making her the youngest ever Labour parliamentary candidate: had she been elected, she would have been the youngest MP since the Reform Act 1832.
Constituency profile
Shoreham can be viewed with Worthing as less of an economic force than the neighbouring local government district, the City of Brighton and Hove, with a majority of houses with larger gardens, fewer listed buildings but Shoreham's large boat harbour facility an amenity for visitors, residents, - mooring and maintenance for people living close enough to the county, rival harbours being as far away as Chichester and Newhaven. Much work is in the service sector, including a major presence of sharedealing and banking service and processing facilities in the borough (see Lancing, West Sussex) and a slightly greater proportion of people are retired compared to the national average (2.11% of the population greater, at 15.8%).
Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.