This area is marked by significant agriculture and green belts around almost all of its settlements, which consist largely of detached and semi-detached properties,[4] with a low rate of unemployment[5] and negligible social housing tenancy.[6]
An unusually shaped seat that contained all the western part of the Bath and North East Somerset council area, and the rural outskirts of Bath in the east, meaning the Bath constituency was entirely surrounded by a thin belt of North East Somerset. The seat contained some contrasting areas. The northern parts of the seat, especially the town of Keynsham, are commuter areas for Bath and Bristol.[7] To the west the seat is more rural, covering the patchwork of farmland and rural villages that make up the Chew Valley. The southern part around Midsomer Norton and Radstock is part of the old Somerset Coalfield. The last of the coal mines closed in the 1970s,[8] to be replaced by light industry, but the close knit industrial heritage of the area remains.[9]
* Served in the 2005–2010 Parliament as MP for Wansdyke
The changes in vote share are compared to a notional calculation of the 2005 result. Although the Wansdyke seat had been held by Labour for 13 years, this seat was already notionally a Conservative seat by a margin of 0.4%. This means that, if the North East Somerset seat on its new boundaries had been contested in 2005, the Conservatives would have won by a few hundred votes.
Wansdyke(abolished) – the predecessor constituency.
Notes
^A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer).
^As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.