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1997 Result:
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Johnson, Melanie
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Lab
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24,936
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47.10%
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Evans, David
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Con
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19,341
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36.50%
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Schwartz, Rodney
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LibDem
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7,161
|
13.50%
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Cox, Victor
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WelHat
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1,263
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2.40%
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Harrold, Helen
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Pro-Life
|
267
|
0.50%
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Majority
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5,595
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11% swing from Con to Lab
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1992 Notional
Result:
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Con
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27,139
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47.54%
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|
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Lab
|
20,556
|
36.01%
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|
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LibDem
|
9,147
|
16.02%
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|
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Others
|
247
|
.43%
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Notional Majority
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6,583
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11.53%
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Description:
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The seat comprises Welwyn Garden City - a town build in the 1920s - and the modern new town of Hatfield. The constituency also takes in more rural areas including the villages of Essendon and Newgate Street and the tiny parishes of Ayot St Lawrence and Ayot St Peter. In addition there are residential developments at Welwyn and Oaklands in the north of the seat and at Welham Green and Brookmans Park in the south. The area is socially mixed but, like most constituencies containing new towns, has a high proportion of voters living in council houses. The University of Hertfordshire's main campus is here, housed in the former Hatfield Polytechnic. The area's largest employer, British Aerospace in Hatfield, closed in 1993. However unemployment is still below the national average. Jobs locally are provided in modern manufacturing industries by firms like IBM, Rank Xerox and pharmaceutical companies Roche and Smith Kline Beecham.
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