Castle Point’s decline – exodus or ghostbusting?
August 4, 2011 5 Comments
| Ward Electorates | ||||
| 2010 | 2011 | change + / – | % change | |
| CanveyIslandWinter Gardens | 4,973 | 4,570 | – 403 | 8.1 |
| Canvey Island North | 5,259 | 4,962 | – 297 | 5.6 |
| Canvey Island West | 3,592 | 3,394 | – 198 | 5.5 |
| Canvey Island South | 4,967 | 4,701 | – 266 | 5.4 |
| CanveyIslandCentral | 4,886 | 4,636 | – 250 | 5.1 |
| Canvey Island East | 4,862 | 4,587 | – 226 | 4.6 |
| St Mary’s | 4,858 | 4,635 | – 223 | 4.6 |
| Victoria | 4,565 | 4,365 | – 200 | 4.4 |
| Cedar Hall | 4,594 | 4,407 | – 187 | 4.1 |
| St George’s | 4,604 | 4,416 | – 188 | 4.1 |
| St Peter’s | 4,998 | 4,812 | – 186 | 3.7 |
| St James | 5,246 | 5,056 | – 190 | 3.6 |
| Appleton | 5,154 | 5,018 | – 136 | 2.6 |
| Boyce | 5,131 | 5,003 | – 128 | 2.5 |
I was tempted to tease the new Castle Point MP by stating that the election of Rebecca Harris has resulted in significant flight from that borough and constituency.
Something curious has happened here. It may be that there has been a new method introduced for registering, or recording the registration, of electors. It may be that the census has had an impact. It may be that the checking of registrations has become stricter. It could be that people have left or died and not been replaced. Whatever, it is curious.
The loss of 3127 voters is significant when you consider that this was greater than the majorities in 1997 and 2001.
Now if I was into conspiracy theories I could hypothesise about phantom voters and the like. I am not.
Individual voter registration is likely to be introduced during this Parliament. I expect drops of this size and greater to be a regular feature across the country immediately following its introduction. Think what you like about this proposal, but that it will have an impact is almost a certainty.
With the commitment to regular boundary reviews as part of the equalisation agenda expect regular change and confusion.
Julian's musings 
As a CP resident this is most interesting. But looking along my road I suppose one explanation could be that just a few years ago we and many of our neighbours had a number of grown up children at home who would have registered to vote – these ‘children’ have now mostlymoved on to other electoral areas. Like us, some of our neighbours would have probably moved to smaller houses and other families moved in and replaced the ‘voting stock’ but the static housing market of the past few years seems to suggest that this hasn’t happened. Presumably elsewhere other consituencies have an increase in numbers to compensate?
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The overall numbers for Essex show a modest rise, so it could be down to redistribution. If it is down to children growing up and moving on then this highlights a point I was making a few years back in my Castle Point campaign – Government targets for housing are necessary if families are not to be forced to moved some way apart.
If parents want their children reasonably close by when they leave the nest then this means that more starter and affordable homes are going to have to be built.
Yes, I remember this part of your campaign, Julian. Another factor in the housing market – and this does not just apply to CP – is that over the past few years as house prices hiked couples in smaller houses who would normally have moved on to bigger homes to accomodate their growing families have stayed and extended the existing housing stock as this was more economical than paying the excessive house prices which in turn led to higher legal and estate agency fees. This has caused the ‘affordable’ first time housing stock to become depleted by default.
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