Created 1983 European Parliament constituency East Midlands Number of members 1 | Electorate 70,886 (December 2010) | |
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Major settlements | ||
Gedling is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by Vernon Coaker of the Labour Party.
Contents
Boundaries and profile
1983-2010: The Borough of Gedling wards of Bonington, Burton Joyce and Stoke Bardolph, Carlton, Carlton Hill, Cavendish, Conway, Gedling, Killisick, Kingswell, Mapperley Plains, Netherfield, Oxclose, Phoenix, Porchester, Priory, St James, St Mary's, and Woodthorpe.
2010-present: The Borough of Gedling wards of Bonington, Burton Joyce and Stoke Bardolph, Carlton, Carlton Hill, Daybrook, Gedling, Killisick, Kingswell, Mapperley Plains, Netherfield and Colwick, Phoenix, Porchester, St James, St Mary's, Valley, and Woodthorpe.
Gedling is a substantial part of Greater Nottingham covering the most populated parts of the borough of the same name, it has mainly affluent, middle-income north eastern suburbs of Nottingham that include Arnold, Burton Joyce, Carlton, Colwick and Gedling village, Woodthorpe and Mapperley Plains.
It is a mostly middle-class residential area, with most homes having gardens and comparable spaciousness to Broxtowe, a constituency on the opposite side of Nottingham.
History
The constituency of Gedling was created in 1983, replacing the earlier Carlton constituency and until 1997, it was thought of as a safe seat for the Conservative Party. The seat was represented by the former Carlton MP Sir Philip Holland until 1987 then for ten years by Andrew Mitchell, son of former Conservative MP David Mitchell. The seat was gained by the Labour Party in their landslide victory at the 1997 general election. In that election the junior Minister lost to Labour's Vernon Coaker who has held the seat since then.
The 2010 majority sets the seat as a marginal seat, as first and second place were close between the Labour and Conservative candidates. In the 2005 general election, the Conservative candidate Anna Soubry (who was elected MP for nearby Broxtowe at the 2010 general election) caused controversy by revealing that she "was not proud" of the record of the area she was vying to represent, referring to crime levels in Nottingham — the subsequent swing from Labour to Conservative was only 2.1% compared with the national swing of 3.1%.
Elections in the 2010s
Because of boundary changes, vote shares in 2010 are compared to notional results from 2005.