Gedling

Gedling County constituency
Gedling shown within Nottinghamshire, and Nottinghamshire shown within England
Created:	1983
MP:	Vernon Coaker
Party:	Labour
Type:	House of Commons
County:	Nottinghamshire
EP constituency:	East Midlands

Gedling is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.

Boundaries

Part of the Greater Nottingham area, the constituency covers the most populated parts of the borough of Gedling, covering the mainly affluent north eastern suburbs of the Nottingham area including Arnold, Burton Joyce, Carlton, Colwick and Gedling village Woodthorpe and Mapperley Plains.

It is a mostly middle-class residential area, with similar characteristics to the nearby Broxtowe constituency, on the opposite side of Nottingham.^{[citation needed]}

The constituency is one of contrasts, Arnold itself along with its smaller neighbour of Daybrook are Labour, the surrounding suburbs of Woodthorpe, Kingswell and Mapperley are staunchly Conservative. The Liberal Democrats are active in the southern parts of the constituency, representing seats on Gedling Borough Council for parts of Carlton and Gedling village.^{[citation needed]}

Boundary review

Following their review of parliamentary boundaries in Nottinghamshire, the Boundary Commission for England has made only minor changes to the existing constituencies to allow for population changes. The boundaries of the modified constituency to be fought at the 2010 general election are:

• From the Borough of Gedling - Bonington, Burton Joyce and Stoke Bardolph, Carlton, Carlton Hill, Daybrook, Gedling, Killisick, Kingswell, Mapperley Plains, Netherfield and Colwick, Phoenix, Porchester, St James, St Marys, Valley, and Woodthorpe.

History

The constituency of Gedling was created in 1983, replacing the earlier Carlton constituency. Until 1997, it was thought of as a safe seat for the Conservative Party, being represented by the former Carlton MP Sir Philip Holland until 1987, then by Andrew Mitchell, the son of former Conservative MP David Mitchell. The seat was gained by the Labour Party in their landslide victory at the 1997 general election. In that election, Mitchell (by then a junior minister) lost to Labour's Vernon Coaker, who has held the seat since then.

It is now considered to be a marginal constituency, fought between Labour and the Conservatives. In the 2005 general election, the Conservative candidate Anna Soubry caused controversy by revealing that she "was not proud" of the area she was intending to represent, referring to crime levels in the Nottingham area [1]. This statement is alleged to have contributed to her losing the election, with the swing to the Conservatives from Labour being less than in other areas. However, Labour and the Conservatives both gained a lower percentage of the vote in Gedling than in 2001, so the swing could even be considered to be from both of these parties to the Liberal Democrats and the two eurosceptic parties, UKIP and Veritas.

Members of Parliament

Election results

See also

Gedling Constituency Labour Party Website: [2]

Vernon Coaker MP [3]

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Nottinghamshire

Coordinates: 52°58′N 1°03′W / 52.97°N 1.05°W / 52.97; -1.05