Maidenhead (UK Parliament constituency)

Maidenhead
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Maidenhead in Berkshire
Location of Berkshire within England
County	Berkshire
Electorate	74,951 (2018)
Major settlements	Maidenhead, Bray, Wargrave, Sonning, Twyford
Current constituency
Created	1997
Member of Parliament	Theresa May (Conservative)
Seats	One
Created from	Windsor & Maidenhead, and Wokingham

Maidenhead is a constituency in Berkshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. Since its creation at the 1997 General Election, the seat has been held by Conservative Member of Parliament Theresa May who served as Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016 and as Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019.

It is considered a safe seat for the Conservative Party, as it has never been held by any party other than the Conservatives; nor had any of its predecessor constituencies.

History

The constituency was first drawn shortly after the 1992 general election. The electorate of Maidenhead and Windsor was becoming too large, so the Boundary Commission for England separated the seats for the next election, due in 1996 or 1997. It was formed from parts of the abolished safe seat of Windsor and Maidenhead and the constituency of Wokingham. It was first used in the 1997 election. Theresa May, Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019, has held the seat since its creation. In October 1995, May, at the time an advisor to Foreign Affairs in the City, was selected to contest the new seat, defeating her future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, in the selection process. (Hammond was later selected for the nearby seat of Runnymede and Weybridge.) May won the seat in the 1997 election, in which over 100 Conservatives lost their seats, and the party obtained its lowest share of seats in over 150 years. At the 2010 general election May achieved the 9th highest share of the vote of the 307 seats held by a Conservative.

The closest election in the seat was in 2001, in which May's majority was cut from almost 12,000 votes in 1997 to just 3,284 votes ahead of the Liberal Democrat candidate. The Labour candidate in that election was activist and comedy writer John O'Farrell, whose campaign was the subject of a BBC documentary entitled Losing My Maidenhead.

Due to their strong performance in 2001, the seat was one of several targeted by the Liberal Democrats in 2005 as part of a 'decapitation strategy' to deprive senior Conservatives of their seats; as with similar efforts in Haltemprice and Howden and West Dorset, however, this strategy was unsuccessful: May retained her seat with almost double her 2001 majority. Since then, she has held it with majorities of at least 30%.

Constituency profile

Housing is, in the Wokingham district part, at the northern end of a belt where more than 40% of dwellings are detached houses, and less than 10.8% are purpose-built flats or tenements (maisonettes) (2011 figures, by district) Reflecting a national trend in this period, the latter band was in 2001 a band of fewer than 8% of housing stock as flats. The other borough, namely Windsor and Maidenhead, is the district with the most expensive house prices in the country outside of Greater London. The seat is located in the technology-rich M4 corridor, which includes the largest company headquarters estate in Europe at Slough and though most of the communities have slower links to London than Maidenhead town centre, they instead have close links to Reading and Bracknell. A minority commute to the City of London, which is just under one hour's commute from the two mainline stations. Communities in the area will also benefit from the eventual opening of Crossrail, with trains running direct from Maidenhead and Twyford to the City of London and Stratford. The seat includes the renowned restaurants, the Fat Duck at Bray and Waterside Inn. There are low hills in the north of the seat and the Chiltern Hills to the north. Taking the constituent electoral ward results since the decline of the Liberal Party in the 1910s, the area has to date been a safe seat for Conservative candidates. One broadsheet political column encapsulated the constituency as a "seat of Thamesside towns", these house a majority of its residents other than Twyford which spans the multi-stream river in the town over which it has two fords. The agriculture in the area consists of some pasture, fields of wheat and fruit.

Boundaries and boundary changes

The constituency borders the constituencies of Reading East, Henley, Wycombe, Beaconsfield, Windsor, Bracknell and Wokingham. The seat's largest settlement is the town of Maidenhead in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, Berkshire. It includes the following wards:

1997–2010: The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead wards of Belmont, Bisham and Cookham, Boyn Hill, Cox Green, Furze Platt, Hurley, Oldfield, Pinkney's Green, and St Mary's (transferred from the abolished constituency of Windsor and Maidenhead); and the District of Wokingham wards of Charvil, Coronation, Hurst, Remenham and Wargrave, Sonning, and Twyford and Ruscombe (transferred from the altered constituency of Wokingham).

2010–present: The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead wards of Belmont, Bisham and Cookham, Boyn Hill, Bray, Cox Green, Furze Platt, Hurley and Walthams, Maidenhead Riverside, Oldfield, and Pinkney's Green, and the District of Wokingham wards of Charvil, Coronation, Hurst, Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe, Sonning, and Twyford.

Bray was transferred from Windsor.

Changes proposed by the Boundary Commission

The Boundary Commission for England submitted their final proposals in respect of the Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster Constituencies (the 2018 review) in September 2018 which would reduce the total number of MPs from 650 to 600. Although the proposals were immediately laid before Parliament they were not brought forward by the Government for approval. Accordingly, they will not be in effect for the election on 12 December 2019, which will be contested using the constituency boundaries in place since 2010.

The Commission proposed that the constituency be unchanged.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party	Notes
	1997	constituency created from Windsor and Maidenhead & Wokingham
style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	1997	Theresa May	Conservative	Home Secretary 2010–2016; Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister 2016–2019

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

General election 2019: Maidenhead

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Theresa May	32,620	57.7	-7.0
	Liberal Democrats	Joshua Reynolds	13,774	24.4	+13.2
	Labour	Patrick McDonald	7,882	14.0	-5.4
	Green	Emily Tomalin	2,216	3.9	+2.4
Majority			18,846	33.3	−12.2
Turnout			56,492	73.7	−2.7
	Conservative hold		Swing	−10.1

General election 2017: Maidenhead

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Theresa May	37,718	64.8	−1.0
	Labour	Patrick McDonald	11,261	19.3	+7.4
	Liberal Democrats	Tony Hill	6,540	11.2	+1.3
	Green	Derek Wall	907	1.6	−2.0
	UKIP	Gerard Batten	871	1.5	−6.9
	Animal Welfare	Andrew Knight	282	0.5	N/A
	Gremloids	Lord Buckethead	249	0.4	N/A
	Independent	Grant Smith	152	0.3	N/A
	Monster Raving Loony	Howling Laud Hope	119	0.2	N/A
	CPA	Edmonds Victor	69	0.1	N/A
	The Just Political Party	Julian Reid	52	0.1	N/A
	Independent	Yemi Hailemariam	16	0.0	N/A
	Give Me Back My Elmo	Bobby Smith	3	0.0	N/A
Majority			26,457	45.5	−8.5
Turnout			58,239	76.4	+3.8
	Conservative hold		Swing	−4.2

General election 2015: Maidenhead

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Theresa May	35,453	65.8	+6.4
	Labour	Charlie Smith	6,394	11.9	+4.8
	Liberal Democrats	Tony Hill	5,337	9.9	−18.3
	UKIP	Herbie Crossman	4,539	8.4	+6.1
	Green	Emily Blyth	1,915	3.6	+2.7
	Independent	Ian Taplin	162	0.3	N/A
	Class War	Joe Wilcox	55	0.1	N/A
Majority			29,059	54.0	+22.8
Turnout			53,855	72.6	−1.1
	Conservative hold		Swing	+0.8

General election 2010: Maidenhead

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Theresa May	31,937	59.5	+7.6
	Liberal Democrats	Tony Hill	15,168	28.2	−8.0
	Labour	Pat McDonald	3,795	7.1	−2.1
	UKIP	Kenneth Wright	1,243	2.3	+0.9
	BNP	Tim Rait	825	1.5	+0.1
	Green	Peter Forbes	482	0.9	N/A
	Freedom and Responsibility	Peter Prior	270	0.5	N/A
Majority			16,769	31.2	+18.6
Turnout			53,720	73.7	+3.4
	Conservative hold		Swing	+7.8

Elections in the 2000s

General election 2005: Maidenhead

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Theresa May	23,312	50.8	+5.8
	Liberal Democrats	Kathryn Newbound	17,081	37.3	−0.1
	Labour	Janet Pritchard	4,144	9.0	−6.2
	BNP	Tim Rait	704	1.5	N/A
	UKIP	Douglas Lewis	609	1.3	−0.4
Majority			6,231	13.6	+6.0
Turnout			45,850	71.7	+9.7
	Conservative hold		Swing	+3.0

General election 2001: Maidenhead

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Theresa May	19,506	45.0	−4.8
	Liberal Democrats	Kathryn Newbound	16,222	37.4	+11.2
	Labour	John O'Farrell	6,577	15.2	−2.9
	UKIP	Dennis Cooper	741	1.7	+1.2
	Monster Raving Loony	Lloyd Clarke	272	0.6	N/A
Majority			3,284	7.6	-15.9
Turnout			43,318	62.0	−13.6
	Conservative hold		Swing	-8.0

Elections in the 1990s

General election 1997: Maidenhead

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Theresa May	25,344	49.8	−11.8
	Liberal Democrats	Andrew Ketteringham	13,363	26.3	−3.5
	Labour	Denise Robson	9,205	18.1	+9.5
	Referendum	Charles Taverner	1,638	3.2	N/A
	Liberal	David Munkley	896	1.8	N/A
	UKIP	Neil Spiers	277	0.5	N/A
	Glow Bowling Party	Kristian Ardley	166	0.3	N/A
Majority			11,981	23.5	N/A
Turnout			50,889	75.6	N/A
	Conservative win (new seat)

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Berkshire

Notes and references

Notes

References