Peterborough (UK Parliament Constituency) - Boundaries

Boundaries

The City of Peterborough formed a parliamentary borough returning two members in 1541. The rest of the Soke was part of Northamptonshire parliamentary county, except the area south of the River Nene in the historic county of Huntingdonshire and Thorney in the Isle of Ely, which was considered part of Cambridgeshire. Until 1832 when the whole of the parish of Saint John the Baptist was encompassed, the boundary, as far as is known, excluded the villages of Longthorpe, Dogsthorpe and Newark with Eastfield. The Great Reform Act did not affect the borough, while the rural portion of the Soke was included in the northern division of Northamptonshire. New Fletton was transferred from Huntingdonshire in 1868 and in 1918 the parliamentary borough was abolished and replaced with a new division of the parliamentary county of Northampton with the Soke of Peterborough, including the whole of the Soke and neighbouring parts of the administrative county of Northamptonshire, extending down to and beyond Thrapston and Corby. This became a county constituency under the 1948 revisions, when the boundaries of the constituency were adjusted to correspond to those of the Soke and they remained much the same until 1970. Peterborough became a borough constituency in 1974.

Following their review of parliamentary representation in Cambridgeshire in 2005, the Boundary Commission for England made minor alterations to the existing constituencies to deal with population changes. The electoral wards used to create the modified Peterborough constituency fought at the 2010 general election are: Bretton North, Bretton South, Central, Dogsthorpe, East, Eye and Thorney, Newborough, North, Park, Paston, Ravensthorpe, Walton, Werrington North, Werrington South, and West. These changes increased the electorate from 64,893 to 70,640. On the enumeration date of 17 February 2000, the electoral quota for England was 69,934 voters per constituency.

The Peterborough wards of Barnack, Fletton, Glinton and Wittering, Northborough, Orton Longueville, Orton Waterville, Orton with Hampton, Stanground Central, and Stanground East form part of the North West Cambridgeshire constituency created in 1997 from parts of Peterborough and Huntingdon constituencies. The serving member for North West Cambridgeshire is the Conservative, Shailesh Vara, who succeeded Sir Brian Mawhinney, former Secretary of State for Transport and Chairman of the Conservative Party, in 2005. Mawhinney, who had previously served as Member of Parliament for Peterborough from 1979, was created Baron Mawhinney, of Peterborough in the county of Cambridgeshire in 2005. Eye and Thorney was previously included in the North East Cambridgeshire (prior to 1983 Isle of Ely) constituency.