Ogmore LAB Hold

Welsh assembly election

constituency

	Ogmore	LAB Hold

	CANDIDATE	PARTY	VOTES	%	+/-%
	Janice Gregory	LAB	9874	58.9	10.8
	Janet Davies	PC	3370	20.1	-6.9
	Jackie Radford	LD	1567	9.4	2.4
	Richard Hill	CON	1532	9.1	2.6
	Christopher Herriott	SLP	410	2.4	2.4
		MAJORITY	6504	38.8%
		TURNOUT	16976	34.3%	-7.5

ELECTORATE	49565

Top-up region South Wales West

DESCRIPTION: Ogmore

If you look for the town of Ogmore within the Ogmore constituency, you’ll be unlucky. This is because thanks to the eccentricities of parliamentary boundaries, Ogmore-by-Sea is actually several miles outside this seat, in the Bridgend constituency. To complicate matters further, Ogmore the constituency is administered by Bridgend County Borough Council. That relationship between this seat and Bridgend council can appear to be somewhat uneasy, however. A parliamentary by-election was held in the constituency early in 2002 following the death of the long-serving MP Sir Ray Powell. One complaint heard regularly from the people of Ogmore during that campaign was that their area was frequently overlooked by the council, and that the Bridgend end of the local authority received better treatment.

Whatever the truth of that, Ogmore has remained true to Labour since the constituency was created in 1918. The MP Huw Irranca-Davies held the seat in 2001 with more than half the vote, and Janice Gregory – Sir Ray Powell’s daughter – won the assembly seat in 1999 with a similar share.

The area’s main town is Maesteg. The surrounding valleys have a familiar profile of unemployment and social problems in the wake of the decline of the coal industry, although these have been partly offset by newer manufacturing industries.

PREVIOUS RESULTS

	1999 WELSH ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS		LAB WIN
	PARTY	VOTES	%
	LAB	10407	48.2
	PC	5842	27
	IND	2439	11.3
	LD	1496	6.9
	CON	1415	6.6

	2001 GENERAL ELECTION		LAB WIN
	PARTY	VOTES	%
	LAB	18833	62
	PC	4259	14
	LD	3878	12.8
	CON	3383	11.1