Bermondsey and Old Southwark (UK Parliament Constituency) - History and Boundaries

History and Boundaries

The seat was created for the 2010 general election, almost identical to the "North Southwark and Bermondsey" which had been the name for the seat held by Simon Hughes since the 1997 General Election, on a review of parliamentary representation in London by the Boundary Commission for England facing very minor boundary changes.

As the article on Southwark explains, the simple term describes the spacious settlement developed on the South Bank that has many different localities — the Old Southwark referred to, still in common usage as simply Southwark not only takes in most of "the South Bank" (which is loosely defined), but also spans many neighbourhoods in the north of the London Borough always geographically between Rotherhithe, Bermondsey and the London Borough of Lambeth. From the 1960s ecclesiastical parishes, particularly until then the notable reference term St Saviour's (Southwark), are no longer used in popular speech which leads to four present neighbourhoods which are to a small extent loosely defined which form "Old Southwark": Borough, Southwark, Elephant and Castle and London Bridge; Walworth and Newington are with rare exceptions never taken to be subsumed into Southwark itself (closely associated neighbouring subdistricts). The eastern half of the seat consists of distinctive settlements named Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, nowadays occasionally parts of which or all of which can be seen in some reports associated to their tube stations: Canada Water and Surrey Quays, but those terms negate hundreds of years of varied and commercial history associated to Bermondsey and Rotherhithe and have prove often unsatisfactory for businesses, attractions and residents the further they are from those stations.

This seat is based on the 1997-2010 North Southwark and Bermondsey constituency. It takes its name from the old metropolitan boroughs of Bermondsey and Southwark. Following the 2002 redrawing of ward boundaries, parts of Faraday and Livesey wards that were part of North Southwark and Bermondsey transferred to Camberwell and Peckham. This successor seat is made from the following electoral wards within the London Borough of Southwark:

• Cathedrals, Chaucer, East Walworth, Grange, Newington, Riverside, Rotherhithe, South Bermondsey, Surrey Docks.