County Gloucestershire European Parliament constituency South West England Number of members 1 | Electorate 78,439 (December 2010) Member of parliament Geoffrey Clifton-Brown | |
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Replaced by Cirencester and Tewkesbury Created from Cirencester and Tewkesbury | ||
The Cotswolds is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 1997 creation by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Conservative.
Contents
Boundaries
1997-2010: The District of Cotswold, and the District of Stroud ward of Wotton and Kingswood.
2010-present: The District of Cotswold, and the District of Stroud wards of Kingswood, Minchinhampton, and Wotton-under-Edge.
The constituency was created in 1997 as Cotswold, mostly from the former seat of Cirencester and Tewkesbury. In 2010 the name was changed to The Cotswolds to reflect the local district name.
Constituency profile
The Cotswolds is a safe Conservative seat in an area of natural beauty and heritage, with its market towns constructed of rare cream-to-yellow Cotswold stone. The area is welcoming to tourists and tourism has overtaken agriculture as the largest single employer in the area.
The largest town in the constituency is Cirencester, a compact traditional town. Other settlements include Andoversford, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Campden, Fairford, Lechlade, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Tetbury (and the neighbouring village of Doughton, location of Highgrove, the Prince of Wales's estate), and Wotton-under-Edge.
The seat has the highest number of listed buildings of any constituency in Britain. It also contains eight of the 20 most popular attractions in Gloucestershire, including Westonbirt Arboretum, Hidcote Manor, and Chedworth Roman Villa.
Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.
This was also the constituency, when declared during the 2015 UK General Election, saw the Conservatives gain a surprising majority that re-elected David Cameron as a hung parliament had been widely considered.