The Political Landscape of England

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Introduction

The map below shows Defra* and the Countryside Agency's "Joint Character Areas"; a way of grouping together areas with similer landscapes for administrative purposes (often to do with development, telling farmers what to grow and so on).
In an attempt to both have a serious look at the relationship between landscape and demographics/politics and to work as a guide to voting patterns in England, I will be doing a profile of each JCA, starting with northern Northumberland and finishing (probably a long time later) with western Cornwall. I hope to be adding to this on a regular basis, and if I forget please remind me about it.
The first post will be up fairly soon.



To view a larger map of the JCA's, click here: http://www.defra.gov.uk/erdp/images/es/jca-map-web.jpg

*Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Northern Northumberland (1,2,3,4)



1. North Northumberland Coastal Plain

A long coastal strip stretching from England's most northerly point to just north of Amble, this is a remote and sparsely populated area with only one notable population centre, Berwick-upon-Tweed. The area has many historic links with Scotland (with the border town of Berwick has changed hands between England and Scotland on more than just a few occasions) and resembles the Borders much more than it does the rest of the Northeast.
Much of the area is given over to arable farming (in fact during the Mediaeval period the area boomed due to grain exports) and most settlements are isolated farming or fishing communities. The main exception is Berwick, which serves as a service centre for the whole area while also having a small, but significant, manufacturing base. The town is also near a small coalfield (which beyond a few opencast works hasn't been mined for a long time).
Politically most of the area is united in voting for Alan Beith (the socially conservative LibDem who's represented the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency since a by-election in the early '70's) in Westminster elections, but locally things are more complicated. Berwick itself is largely Liberal, although not by much; both Labour and the Tories can poll well in different parts of the town, as do independents. In the rural areas there seems to be a notably difference between borough and county level; most of the rural wards have Tory borough councillers (and are the largest party on Berwick Borough Council) but at county council level the LibDems usually poll better numbers in the rural divisions than they do in Berwick itself.

2. Northumberland Sandstone Hills

An upland area in between the coastal plain and the Cheviot Fringe, these hills are also sparsely populated with only Alnwick being anything more than a glorified hamlet. Alnwick is still dominated by the Percy's (one of its wards is actually called Hotspur!) and is largely an administrative and service centre. Outside Alnwick the dominant settlement pattern is one of scattered hamlets and isolated farmsteads, although in the far south of the area there's a tiny market "town" (Rothbury) which acts as a service centre for people living too far away from Alnwick.
Politically the area is dominated by various independents, and the lack of Conservative candidates in most of the areas County Council divisions indicates that these are probably largely "Condependents". That said, the LibDems poll well in Alnwick (although they lost the County division to an Independent last May) and Rothbury.

3. Cheviot Fringe

The Cheviot Fringe is a lowland area that wraps around the Cheviots and seperates them from the hills further east and is predominantly an agricultural area (mixed farming mostly). The settlement pattern is ancient and is made up of small nucleated villages seperated by large areas of land (often with a few isolated farmsteads) and it's known to have been in place by Anglo-Saxon times at least. The largest town (Wooler) acts as something of a service centre to most of the area.
In local elections most of the area is hard fought between the LibDems and the Tories, although it seems as though the LibDems are generally on top (interestingly the Tories do better in Wooler itself than in some of the more rural wards), which probably means that in Westminster terms it votes for Beith by landslide margins.

[Platypus]

I'm looking forward to more. It's about time I learnt something about British politics

[minionofmidas]

So, is this one area per year or what?