Birmingham Perry Barr has been held for Labour by Jeff Rooker since 1974, and has been one of the party’s safer seats in the city.
Mr Rooker caused the suspension of four local Labour parties (including his own) after making allegations in February 1995 about candidates for the Labour nomination in Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath.
The ethnicity of residents in this seat is mixed, with a very large number of Asian and black inhabitants.
There is a significant amount of accommodation rented from housing associations, and a good number of households have over one person per room. The numbers of households with no central heating, at 40%, is also one of the largest proportions in the country.
It is a mark of the relative impoverishment of the constituency that there are several regeneration projects operating here. The Handsworth area has two, one a holistic regeneration of the area and the other concentrating a more specific £17.2m scheme centring on housing regeneration, while Kingstanding has a £4m regeneration initiative to take redevelopment forward across the ward.
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