In the coming election, Stockport might have that rare thing: a three-way marginal
In the coming election, Stockport might have that rare thing: a three-way marginal
‘I vote Conservative, and that’s because when the Conservatives are in, I make more money’
Dear Millers — we hope you’re looking forward to some slightly more June-ish weather over the weekend (on Saturday at least). Today, we return to our coverage of the local storylines bubbling up ahead of next month’s general election with a look at Hazel Grove, a leafy constituency in Stockport that, depending on who you ask, is either a straight run-off between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems or a three-way marginal involving Labour too (there is strong disagreement among candidates on that point, all wielding different polling projections). Jack has been spending time there this week and has filed a great report about an area where building new houses is a sensitive subject.
Before we get into that, we had a fantastic fourth birthday celebration last night. Dozens of members packed into LowFour studios on Deansgate Mews to meet up and listen to Joshi and Jack talk about our multi-part investigation into Sacha Lord and his company’s application to Arts Council England. “Congratulations to everyone at The Mill on reaching the grand old age of 4,” tweeted Miller Dr Janette Martin after the party, while Katharine McNamara posted on LinkedIn “Excellent evening at Mill Media's 4th birthday. Love an interview alongside Q&A, especially when it's rethinking regional journalism as we know it. LOVE IT.”
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From today’s sponsor: Wild, a brilliant new exhibition at Manchester Museum exploring how people are creating and repairing connections with nature, is now open. Millers have been sending in photos of their favourite wild spaces, including this one from David, who has lived in Edgeley for 50 years. “Two of the three properties I have owned have been on the perimeter of Alexandra Park,” he writes. “In a matter of seconds, I, my children and now grandchild have been able to immerse ourselves into an altogether more splendid world. The three reservoirs were originally part of Sykes's Bleach works (the Sykes family and railways were fundamental to Edgeley's growth), but have been skillfully integrated into the park to the extent that many assume they were an original feature.”
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Your Mill briefing
🖼 A previously unheard interview with L.S. Lowry has been donated to the Lowry Arts Centre in Salford. The 20 hours of conversation between Lowry and Angela Bogg — a University of Salford administrator who befriended the painter — were recorded in the 1970s. Lowry was 85 years old at the time and reflected on life, love and art. "I never had a girl. I never was in love," he says at one point. "I knew a lot of people and drifted along and drifted along until I’ve drifted to now and you’re talking to me.”
🔀 Joanne Roney, who replaced Sir Howard Bernstein as chief executive of Manchester City Council in 2017, is leaving the post to take the new role of managing director of the embattled (besieged? crisis-hit? we’re not sure which cliché to use here) Birmingham City Council. Roney was born in Birmingham and went to university there, and she will now have to find a way to reverse the city’s fortunes after it was declared effectively bankrupt last year.
🍃 Plans to extend the Castlefield Viaduct “sky park” were revealed by the National Trust yesterday. Work on the second phase of the extension won’t start until 2025, when 330 metres of greenspace will be added.
🎻 And finally, there’s a special concert taking place at Manchester Cathedral next Saturday, featuring Purcell's Suite from 'The Fairy Queen' and Handel's 'The Arrival of The Queen of Sheba'. It’s being performed by Manchester Baroque, and you can order your tickets with a special 25% Millers’ discount — just use the code MILLERS TRIAL OFFER when you book here.
By Jack Dulhanty
Water streams steadily down Lower Fold, a street in Marple Bridge. It pulses out of the concrete like a jacuzzi jet, flowing past the Norfolk Arms and towards the bridge over the River Goyt. “That main bursts every year,” says Phil, who grew up in Marple, left to work in Europe, came back to sort his family’s affairs after his mother died and is now propping up the Norfolk’s bar.
Phil, wearing a Helly Hansen quarter-zip and a pair of walking boots, worked in the travel industry for decades and was a lifelong Conservative voter until Brexit, which heavily impacted his work. But he also diagnosed that short-termism and lack of realism were ruining the country — politicians promising to solve problems that had festered for decades (poor infrastructure, a crumbling National Health Service) in the space of a few years.
To Phil, the burst water main on Lower Fold is emblematic of how the country has lost its way. “We’ve spent money getting every bus stop a Bee Network sign,” he says, “but we haven’t got the money for that?”
Phil is touching on a local issue there — the signs were put in place by Transport for Greater Manchester, not the national government — but according to some of the people who live here, what they see in their constituency of Hazel Grove has all the hallmarks of contemporary Britain under the Conservatives. The roads are leaking, transport infrastructure is rotting and there is a need for more housing but no consensus on where it should be built. Last month, ceilings started collapsing at the local hospital, Stepping Hill, and one of its outpatient departments was condemned and demolished.
Ever since it was formed in 1974, the seat has been a Tory/Lib Dem marginal. It went Conservative in 2015 and stayed so at the last general election in 2019, but now has an independent MP after former Tory William Wragg became embroiled in a sex scandal. The leafy villages of Marple Bridge, Romiley and High Lane have traditionally been home to affluent voters. David, who was reading a book in the Hatters Arms, just down the road from the Marple Conservative Club, gives it to me straight. “I vote Conservative, and that’s because when the Conservatives are in, I make more money, and when Labour are in, I make less,” he says. “Simple as that.”
But like many seats in south Manchester, the demographic is changing. According to locals I speak to, there have been more young families and university-educated professionals moving in, a demographic that has become the core vote for the modern Labour Party. “You used to see a posh area with big houses and you’d think ‘Oh, that’s a Tory area’,” says Michael Taylor, a business journalist who lives in Marple and ran as the Labour candidate here in 2015. “Now, you see a posh area, and it's more likely to be Labour people.”
On top of that, last year’s boundary changes meant that the constituency now includes part of Offerton and Manor wards, where Labour have more of a presence on the council and where the party hopes to pick up votes. Taken together with the massive national swing to Labour, Claire Vibert, the party’s candidate, is quietly confident she can break Hazel Grove’s Blue/Yellow cycle. Is she right?
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