Coventry North East is a working-class, industrial, Labour stronghold on the unfashionable side of the city, but its different wards are hardly the picture of homogeneity. It has a large non-white population in Foleshill ward, which is the Asian quarter for the whole of Coventry, the Stoke wards are increasingly popular areas for student accommodation, and Longford is home to much new housing
Economically, although neither Peugeot or Jaguar is based in the constituency, both their enormous plants employ people who live here. The largest employer is Marconi, which is on the verge of a move over the border to Nuneaton, taking jobs with it. Nevertheless, the move will create 2,000 jobs in a region which badly needs them.
Elsewhere in the constituency, the construction of the £200m new Walsgrave hospital has been controversial because of its siting. The PFI venture will include a new teaching hospital run jointly by the universities of Warwick and Leicester, but is unlikely to be up and running before 2006.
The Coventry City football ground at Highfield Road is also in this constituency, although a new stadium is under construction in Coventry North West, and the Sky Blues will move there when it is completed.
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