Conwy (UK Parliament constituency)

Not to be confused with Conwy (National Assembly for Wales constituency).

Conwy
Former County constituency
for the House of Commons
Boundary of Conwy in Wales for the 2005 general election.
Preserved county	Clwyd, Gwynedd
Major settlements	Conwy, Bangor, Llandudno
1950 (1950)–2010 (2010)
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Aberconwy

Conwy was an electoral constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) by the single-member district plurality (also known as first-past-the-post) system of voting.

The constituency was created for the 1950 general election, and abolished for the 2010 general election.

History

It was a marginal between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party throughout its existence.

The Conwy Welsh Assembly constituency was created with the same boundaries as the Conwy House of Commons constituency in 1999.

Boundaries

The constituency was, geographically, relatively small for its region, as it followed and tended to keep to the coast, taking in parts of two separate densely populated coastal conurbations.

As well as the walled castle town of Conwy from which it bore its name, the constituency mainly comprised the popular holiday resort and retail centre of Llandudno to the east, and the city of Bangor, which is home to the University of Wales, Bangor, to the west. It also included the smaller coastal towns of Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan, as well as some sparser inland areas including former slate-quarrying communities in the Ogwen Valley.

The constituency, notably, did not include Colwyn Bay (or outlying Rhos-on-Sea), which forms part of a coastal conurbation (and the Conwy county borough) with Llandudno and its outlying town of Penrhyn Bay—both in the constituency; this area comes under the constituency of Clwyd West to the east. Nor did it include the town of Caernarfon—just southwest of Bangor—which was in a constituency of the same name.

The constituency was also bordered by Meirionnydd Nant Conwy to the south, and the insular constituency of Ynys Mon to the west.

Following the decisions of the Welsh Boundary Commission, the Conwy seat was significantly altered, forming the base of a new Aberconwy constituency established for the 2010 general election. Part of the constituency (notably Bangor) became part of the new Arfon constituency.

Profile

Although the constituency included a student population from the university, most of the voters were towards the older end of the age spectrum as it was a popular retirement area. The constituency was also linguistically diverse, with mainly English speakers in the east and mainly Welsh speakers in the west and inland areas.^{[citation needed]}

Members of Parliament

The last MP was Betty Williams of the Labour Party, who held the seat from 1997 (when she gained 35.04% of the vote—a 9.4% swing from the Conservatives) until its abolition in 2010. Williams increased her share of the vote in 2001 (by 6.8%), but it was reduced in 2005 (by 4.7%). She is also the first female MP to hold the seat. The seat was previously held (since its renaming in 1983) by Sir Wyn Roberts for the Conservative Party, who was first elected for Conway, the old anglicised name of the constituency, in 1970.

Election		Member	Party
	1950	William Elwyn Edwards Jones	Labour
	1951	Peter Thomas	Conservative
	1966	Ednyfed Hudson Davies	Labour
	1970	Wyn Roberts	Conservative
	1997	Betty Williams	Labour
	2010	Constituency abolished: see Aberconwy

Elections

In the 2005 general election, the seat was the 81st easiest seat for the Liberal Democrats to gain, and the 153rd easiest seat for the Conservative Party to gain. The Labour Party did not include the seat on its list of vulnerable seats and eventually held the seat (with a reduced proportion of the vote).

Elections in the 2000s

General Election 2005: Conwy
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Betty Williams	12,479	37.1	-4.7
	Conservative	Guto Bebb	9,398	27.9	+4.2
	Liberal Democrat	Gareth Roberts	6,723	20.0	+3.1
	Plaid Cymru	Paul Rowlinson	3,730	11.1	-5.4
	Green	Jim Killock	512	1.5	+1.5
	Socialist Labour	David Lloyd Jones	324	1.0	+1.0
	UKIP	Ken Khambatta	298	0.9	-0.2
	Legalise Cannabis	Tim Evans	193	0.6	+0.6
Majority			3,081	9.2
Turnout			33,723	62.6	-0.3
	Labour hold		Swing	-4.5

• Official declaration of result of the poll (in PDF)

General Election 2001: Conwy
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Betty Williams	14,366	41.8	+6.8
	Conservative	David Logan	8,147	23.7	-0.6
	Liberal Democrat	Vicky MacDonald	5,800	16.9	-14.3
	Plaid Cymru	Ann Owen	5,665	16.5	+9.6
	UKIP	Allan Barham	388	1.1	N/A
Majority			6,219	18.1
Turnout			34,366	62.9	-12.5
	Labour hold		Swing

Elections in the 1990s

General Election 1992: Conwy
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Sir Wyn Roberts	14,250	33.7	−5.0
	Liberal Democrat	Rev. J. Roger Roberts	13,255	31.4	+0.1
	Labour	Betty Williams	10,883	25.8	+3.5
	Plaid Cymru	Rhodri V. Davies	3,108	7.4	−0.5
	Independent Conservative	Owen Wainwright	637	1.5	+1.5
	Natural Law	Ms David E. Hughes	114	0.3	+0.3
Majority			995	2.4	−5.1
Turnout			42,247	78.7	+1.0
	Conservative hold		Swing	−2.5

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Clwyd
• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Gwynedd