|
1997 Result:
|
|
Smith, Jacqueline
|
Lab
|
22,280
|
49.80%
|
|
McIntyre, Anthea
|
Con
|
16,155
|
36.10%
|
|
Hall, Malcolm
|
LibDem
|
4,935
|
11.00%
|
|
Cox, Richard
|
Ref
|
1,151
|
2.60%
|
|
Davis, Paul
|
NLP
|
227
|
0.50%
|
|
Majority
|
6,125
|
|
|
10.2% swing from Con to Lab
|
|
1992 Notional
Result:
|
|
|
Con
|
22,930
|
47.11%
|
|
|
Lab
|
19,643
|
40.36%
|
|
|
LibDem
|
5,716
|
11.74%
|
|
|
Others
|
384
|
.79%
|
Notional Majority
|
3,287
|
6.75%
|
|
|
Description:
|
Hereford and Worcester was granted an extra seat by the Boundary Commission at its last review, and this was achieved by taking the town of Redditch, and its 54,000 voters, away from the old Mid Worcestershire constituency to form a seat of its own. Redditch was designated a new town in 1964, and was developed largely to cope with the overspill from the West Midlands conurbation. The new town project was completed and the development corporation wound up in 1985, but further development is still planned and it is expected the population will reach 90,000 in the future. Nearly 30% of homes in the seat remain council-rented, offering a solid foundation for Labour support, and there is a diverse mix of industry. In the south of the seat there are a couple of rural commuter villages, but other such traditional Tory areas have been left in the new Mid Worcestershire division. Points of interest are few in Redditch, the most exciting being the National Needle Museum at Forge Mill, but nonetheless considerable attention should be focused on the town on election night.
|