The newly created Troon Ward replaced the old Charnwood Ward covering the Northfields Estate and the adjacent Industrial Estate Area to the north, of which it takes its name.
Proposededit
Further to the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, enacted by the Parliamentary Constituencies Order 2023, the composition of the constituency from the next general election, due by January 2025, will be adjusted to bring the electorate within the permitted range by transferring polling district EVF in Evington ward to Leicester South.[4]
Constituency profileedit
This is an urban seat in the commercial and engineering centre of Leicester. The seat excludes the heart of the city centre, skirting its tightly planned ring road. A golf course is situated in the southeast and a large municipal garden in the northwest of the boundaries.
Leicester East has an extremely high South Asian population. Almost a third of the population are Hindu and the majority of others of Asian ethnicity are of Muslim or Sikh faiths. Those of mixed ethnicities are gradually increasing — to 3.1% of the population in 2011.
The bulk of the eastern outskirts are relatively compact and much of the remainder of the county by the 21st century has become transformed economically into a retirement and commuter belt for the city and its railway links. The division's south-west quarter is within normal walking distance of all parts of Leicester City Centre and the seat is served by buses and cycle routes into the city centre.
Leicester East has been won by the Labour Party's candidate in 10 of 11 elections since its recreation. Its MP, Keith Vaz, had won an absolute majority (plurality) of votes since the 1992 general election. The 2015 result made the seat the 37-safest of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority.[6] Leicester East was narrowly won by Conservative candidate Peter Bruinvels at the height of the Tory party's popularity in 1983;[n 2] the following election saw Labour's Keith Vaz regain the seat; he had held it at every election thereafter, and since 1992 had always won by margins of over 20% and 11,000 votes until standing down at the 2019 general election. Vaz won his highest majority ever, 22,428 votes (42.8%), in 2017. In 2019Labour held the seat with a substantially reduced majority of 6,019, down from 22,428 - a swing of 15%.
Opposition parties
The candidate fielded by the Conservative Party has been runner-up in every election save for Bruinvels' win in 1983. The candidate of UKIP for the first time took third place in 2015, her 2010 counterpart having won 1.5% of the vote and the party not having stood before. The pro-UKIP swing between 2010 and 2015 elections, of 7.4%, was less than the national average of 9.5%. Susan Cooper was 1.8% away from second place in 2005, giving the best result of a Liberal Democrat to date, attracting just under one fifth of the vote.
Turnout
Turnout in the recreated seat has ranged between 78.7% in 1992 to 62.1% in 2001.
^"2011 Electorate Figures". Boundary Commission for England. 4 March 2011. Archived from the original on 6 November 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
^Walker, Peter; Syal, Rajeev (28 September 2020). "Labour suspends MP Claudia Webbe over harassment charge". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
^Mack, Tom (4 November 2021). "MP Claudia Webbe expelled from Labour Party after being handed suspended prison sentence". Leicester Mercury. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
^"The Parliamentary Constituencies Order 2023". Schedule I Part I.