County Norfolk Created 1974 (1974) Replaced by King's Lynn Member of parliament Henry Bellingham Major settlements King's Lynn, Hunstanton | Electorate 73,269 (December 2010) Created from King's Lynn European Parliament constituency East of England Number of members 1 | |
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North West Norfolk is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2001 by Henry Bellingham, a Conservative.
Contents
History
The constituency was created under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 for the 1885 general election, and abolished for the 1918 general election. It was re-established for the February 1974 general election, replacing the former King's Lynn constituency.
The first MP had gained almost exactly the same wards (in the old seat) in 1970, before which Lynn was held by one of Harold Wilson's government colleagues in the Labour Party, largely as a bellwether. Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler therefore effectively held the seat in the two 1974 elections and in 1979 however by March 1981 he became distanced from the Conservatives and defected to the newly formed Social Democratic Party shortly before the 1983 Conservative Landslide where Brocklebank-Fowler lost his seat to the replacement Conservative candidate Henry Bellingham.
Bellingham increased his precarious lead over Brocklebank-Fowler at the 1987 general election who therefore in the following election chose to contest another area and at which Labour's candidate regained second place, almost doubling their share of the vote. Labour gained the seat at the 1997 general election but Bellingham regained the seat at the 2001 general election and increased his majority subsequently in both 2005 and 2010 but fell slightly in 2015.
The 2010 election saw political party infighting when the Labour candidate for North West Norfolk, Manish Sood stated in an interview with the local newspaper Lynn News that Gordon Brown was
"the worst prime minister we have had in this country."
This gained national attention and resulted in Labour disowning their candidate. Sood did not attend the count and stated he would watch it from his home in Leicester, only to finish third, behind Bellingham and the Liberal Democrat candidate William Summers, whose party received their best ever result in the constituency, with an 18.3% swing from Labour to the others.
Boundaries
1885-1918: The Municipal Borough of King's Lynn, and the Sessional Divisions of Brothercross, Freebridge Lynn, Freebridge Marshall, and Gallow and Smithdon.
1974-1983: The Municipal Borough of King's Lynn, the Urban Districts of Hunstanton and Wells-next-the-Sea, and the Rural Districts of Docking, Freebridge Lynn, Marshland, and Walsingham.
1983-2010: The Borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk wards of Burnham, Chase, Clenchwarton, Creake, Dersingham, Docking, Gayton, Gaywood Central, Gaywood North, Gaywood South, Grimston, Heacham, Hunstanton, Lynn Central, Lynn North, Lynn South West, Mershe Lande, Middleton, North Coast, Priory, Rudham, St Lawrence, St Margaret's, Snettisham, Spellowfields, The Walpoles, The Woottons, Valley Hill, West Walton, West Winch, and Wiggenhall.
2010-present: The Borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk wards of Brancaster, Burnham, Clenchwarton, Dersingham, Docking, Fairstead, Gayton, Gaywood Chase, Gaywood North Bank, Grimston, Heacham, Hunstanton, North Lynn, North Wootton, Old Gaywood, Priory, Rudham, St Margaret's with St Nicholas, Snettisham, South and West Lynn, South Wootton, Spellowfields, Springwood, Valley Hill, Walpole, and West Winch.
The present constituency includes two former borough constituencies, those of Castle Rising, which was abolished as a 'rotten borough' in 1832, and King's Lynn, abolished in 1918.
When created in 1974, the seat included territory which is presently in the constituencies of Norfolk North and Broadland. In 2010 it lost some territory to Norfolk South West.
Constituency profile
Norfolk North West constituency covers an extensive hinterland in the far corner of East Anglia - remote from London, but close to Lincolnshire and the East Midlands, with which the area shares more economic links.
A minority of King's Lynn contain severe poverty marked by unemployment, social housing dependency and social problems - within relatively affluent East Anglia, only Jaywick and Great Yarmouth from 2001-2004 scored higher in deprivation indices. Contrasted with this is the bulk of the area: the tourist resort Hunstanton, retail, military, public sector and commercial activity of Kings Lynn and the royal estate at Sandringham, along with many small villages and more than 50% undulating cultivated farmland — incomes and types of dwelling are close to the national average. The most frequent result has been of a fairly marginal but not negligible majority for a Conservative.
Labour's share of the vote has fallen from a winning 43.8% in the 1997 election to just 13.3% in 2010, marking the steepest decline from the start to end of the Blair–Brown government.