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> United Kingdom > England > North West > North West
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| Established | June 09, 1983 |
| Disbanded | Still Active |
| Contributor | RP |
| Last Modified | RBH July 13, 2019 01:35pm |
| Description |
In the 1970s Preston had two extremely marginal seats - North and South - which regularly swung between Labour and Conservatives with extremely small majorities. In 1979, Tory Robert Atkins beat Labour's Ronald Atkins by 29 votes in North. Labour's Stan Thorne won South by 621. Boundary changes in the 1980s removed the northern suburbs to Ribble Valley and the southern ones to the new South Ribble constituency. This created a safe Labour seat in Preston which was held for 13 years until her death in 2000 by the staunch left-winger, Audrey Wise. The succession was hard fought between her daughter, Valerie and former local MEP, Mark Hendrick. He won the by-election on a turn-out of less than 30%. Preston is undergoing a revival. The administrative centre of Lancashire, it received its charter in 1179 and has a guild which is celebrated every 20 years. In 2002 the Queen granted it city status as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations. Preston is in receipt of regeneration money and the council, in partnership with the private sector, is redeveloping the city centre. It is also home to the University of Central Lancashire, the National Football Museum and a Championship League team, Preston North End. The economy is still based on traditional manufacturing and engineering, with Alston, makers of train rolling stock, and BAE Systems there. There are also a large number of workers - 21% - in the wholesale and retail sectors and 13% of the population are of Asian origin.
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