Constituency profile: Wrekin - Pritchard defending a true battleground

Each day this week we'll be profiling the six constituences that make up the Shropshire Star region; Telford, Wrekin, Shrewsbury, Ludlow, North Shropshire and Montgomeryshire. Today we look at Wrekin.

The Wrekin had been painted red from 1987 until 2005, with first Bruce Grocott, then Peter Bradley after Telford was spun off as a separate seat, winning two consecutive elections for Labour.

Enter Mark Pritchard. A former director of a marketing communications company, Mr Pritchard recaptured The Wrekin for the Conservatives in 2005, winning by a modest 942 votes from Mr Bradley.

Results from 2010:

MARK PRITCHARD (Con) 21,922

Paul Kalinauckas (Lab) 12,472

Alyson Cameron-Daw (Lib Dem) 8,019

Malcolm Hurst (Ukip) 2,050

Susan Harwood (BNP) 1,505

Conservative majority 9,450

Turnout 70.1 per cent

• The Wrekin lost its main urban centre in 1997, when Telford was spun off as a separate constituency. Now, its main urban spots are Wellington, Donnington and Hadley, although it also embraces Newport, Albrighton and Shifnal.

• The only woman to have ever represented a Shropshire constituency as an MP did so in The Wrekin. Edith Picton-Turbervill, pictured, sat from 1929 until 1931, at a time when women were just starting to make a breakthrough into public life, but lost her seat in 1931.

• The seat has consistently swung between Labour and the Conservatives over the last century, but returned Mark Pritchard with a solid majority last time out.

• Just over 70 per cent of the constituency’s 65,544 voters turned out at the last election, leaving Mr Pritchard with a majority of 20.6 per cent.

• The seat is home to a higher proportion of older people than other parts of the country. In The Wrekin, 20.6 per cent of the population is over 65, compared with 16.4 per cent nationally.

• About 66 per cent of the population regards itself as Christian – more than the 59.5 per cent elsewhere in the country.

In 2010, that majority was 10 times wider with Labour candidate Paul Kalinauckas 9,450 votes behind his Conservative rival.

Despite The Wrekin constantly veering between the two main parties over the course of the last 90 years, the odds remain against Labour going into this election.

Mr Pritchard is 1/20 on to win, with Ukip candidate Jill Seymour a distant second with odds of 10/1 in her favour.

Katrina Gilman, who is standing in the seat for the Labour Party, is backed by odds of 20/1.

Rod Keyes will be representing the Liberal Democrats, who mustered 8,019 votes at the last election, while Cath Edwards will be the first Green Party candidate to contest the seat since 1992.

Given that The Wrekin has traditionally been Shropshire's most volatile seat, there is little likelihood that that will remain the case this time out.

If Mr Pritchard does walk away with his position in the Commons intact, he will become the first MP in the constituency to complete a hat-trick of Wrekin victories since fellow Conservative Bill Yates held the seat three times in the 1950s and 60s.

While Telford has been sliced off as a standalone constituency, its boundary doesn't exactly match that of the town itself, and Wellington, Hadley and Donnington all make up part of the horseshoe-shaped constituency which bends around the north of the industrial hotbed.

That means that more than any other patch in Shropshire, The Wrekin is left to tackle a mixture of rural and urban issues.

People in farming communities around Albrighton, Newport and Shifnal might well be concerned about moves to bolster agricultural industries, whereas those in Wellington and Hadley might be more concerned about the encroaching growth of the new town. Other vital issues affecting the patch include Government support for the expansion of Harper Adams University on the edge of Newport.

And residents of the town on the north eastern edge of the constituency will also have concerns over the building of houses on greenbelt land, and the seemingly never-ending tussle to build a new supermarket.

Mr Pritchard originally comes from Herefordshire, but has had a home in the constituency since his selection in 2002.

His key opponents are dyed-in-the-wool locals. Ms Gilman grew up on a council estate in Telford, and has worked in both the private and public sectors.

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She is focused on the cost of living, and concerns over the growth in the number of food banks. Ms Seymour is Ukip's transport spokesman, and is a party MEP after winning a seat in the European Parliament last year.

Since the end of the Second World War, The Wrekin has been represented by nine different MPs – compared to four who have held Shrewsbury in the same period. Yet at the last election, Mr Pritchard achieved the strongest majority in the history of the seat.

He will now hope to repeat that feat in this year's election.

Meet the candidates:

Mark Pritchard landed the Wrekin for the Conservatives in 2005, and has held it ever since.

A former director of a marketing communications company who grew up principally in Herefordshire, Pritchard is a Eurosceptic MP who has repeatedly called for an in/out referendum on membership of the EU.

He has also campaigned on pro-life and animal rights issues, introducing bills in the commons relating to selling endangered species online and keeping monkeys as pets.

Despite some crossover in their beliefs on membership of the EU, Jill Seymour, a current Ukip MEP, who has been an activist for the party since 2002, will be hoping to dislodge Mr Pritchard from his reign. A farmer's daughter, she worked as a PR executive for Aga and as a sales executive for blue chip companies including American Express.

Her husband Brian Seymour runs manufacturing business SMI, which makes thermal curtains for creating cold areas in shops. She has been outspoken on the plans for HS2, the high speed rail service which is to cut a swathe through the region – if not Shropshire itself – and as the party's transport spokesman has spoken against toll roads and plans to force rail companies to pay compensation to customers for late-running services. She hopes to capitalise on disaffection with politics among members of the public.

But she is not alone in that plan. Katrina Gilman, who is contesting The Wrekin on Labour's behalf, acknowledges that "over the last decade faith in politics and politicians has hit an all-time low".

Ms Gilman, who works in the criminal justice system, says she grew up on a Telford council estate. In her five-point pledge to voters, she says she will protect services for The Wrekin, and "fight to secure jobs and growth".

She is also focused on the NHS – a central pillar of many Labour candidates' election plans – and has launched a petition demanding that the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford retains 24-hours-a-day A&E services.

Rod Keyes will wear the yellow of the Liberal Democrats on his lapel on election night. Mr Keyes says he grew up in a West Bromwich tenement, before moving away to Sheffield to study. Since then he has settled in North Shropshire, and has spent the last 36 years working in the insurance industry. He says he wants to be a candidate "who gives straight answers and clear explanations about what's going on", in the face of "sensationalist journalism".

As in Telford, The Wrekin will also be contested by a Green Party candidate for the first time at this election.

Cath Edwards has has worked with several volunteer organisations promoting sustainability, and decided to enter politics while she was working on a Masters degree in environmental sustainability & green technology.

Having worked in secondary and early years education, in a small manufacturing business and for two large international distribution companies, she is now self-employed.

"A lot of people are tired of the traditional parties in fact a lot of people have given up voting entirely," she says. "We want people to learn about the Green Party and our policies and we hope to persuade them back to the ballot box on May 7."

Follow the campaign six days a week in the Shropshire Star newspaper, round the clock on at shropshirestar.com/election where we will carry breaking news and by signing up to our email newsletter.