Rochester and Strood is a

constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger State (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

represented in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

of the

UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremac ...

since

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

Kelly Tolhurst Kelly Jane Tolhurst (born 23 August 1978) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Rochester and Strood since 2015. A member of the Conservative Party, she served as Minister of State for Schools and Childhood ...

, a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

. Since 2022, she has served as Government Deputy Chief Whip and

Treasurer of the Household The Treasurer of the Household is a member of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The position is usually held by one of the government deputy Chief Whips in the House of Commons. The current holder of the office is Ma ...

Constituency profile

Rochester and Strood

is situated alongside the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, East Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

, which joins the

Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...

, becoming a wide salty and sea-like waterway at its northern river mouth. It spans the ancient cathedral city of

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

, the older part of

Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...

, and the smaller town of

Strood Strood is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, South East England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rochester, Gillingham and Rainham. It lies on the northwest bank of the River Medway at its lowes ...

to the west of the river, with a more rural area to the north of Strood on the

Hoo Peninsula The Hoo Peninsula is a peninsula in Kent, England, separating the estuaries of the rivers Thames and Medway. It is dominated by a line of chalk, clay and sand hills, surrounded by an extensive area of marshland composed of alluvial silt. The n ...

. Earnings in the constituency are close to the national average income, low unemployment compared to the national average (3.5% at the end of 2012) and can be considered aside from significant sources of employment, professions and trades in Kent as part of the

London Commuter Belt The London metropolitan area is the metropolitan area of London, England. It has several definitions, including the London Travel to Work Area, and usually consists of the London urban area, settlements that share London's infrastructure, and ...

. Levels of reliance on

social housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

are similar to most of the region in this seat.

History

The Rochester constituency has ancient origins dating to the 16th century, but it has seen many changes in the 20th century. From 1885 to 1918 the wider area was split between

, Gillingham and the "old", rural, Medway constituency. The Chatham seat joined Rochester to form

Rochester and Chatham Rochester and Chatham was a parliamentary constituency in Kent which returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1950 until it was abolished for the 1983 general election. It larg ...

in 1950, which formed the core of Medway in 1983. When the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

s of Rochester upon Medway and Gillingham merged in 1998 to form, then confusingly, a unitary authority named Medway, the parliamentary constituency of Medway only covered part of the new borough, so in the boundary changes before the 2010 election the seat was renamed to more accurately reflect the area of Rochester and Strood which it now covers. The seat of Rochester and Chatham, followed by Medway and then Rochester and Strood, had elected members of the party which won the popular vote in the UK at every election since

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

. This had meant that from 1959 to 2014 the area had always been represented by a member of the governing party, apart from the brief period between the

February February is the second month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The month has 28 days in common years or 29 in leap years, with the 29th day being called the ''leap day''. It is the first of five months not to have 31 days (th ...

and

October October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the sixth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old calendar of Romulus , October retained its name (from Latin and Greek ''ôct ...

elections in 1974 (since

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

formed a minority government in February despite the

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

winning the popular vote). In 2014, the sitting Conservative MP

Mark Reckless Mark John Reckless (born 6 December 1970) is a British politician who served as a Member of the Senedd (MS) for South Wales East from 2016 until 2021, having previously served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Rochester and Strood from 2010 to ...

defected to the

United Kingdom Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest pa ...

(UKIP), becoming the second MP in a matter of weeks to do so. Reckless

resigned Resignation is the formal act of leaving or quitting one's office or position. A resignation can occur when a person holding a position gained by election or appointment steps down, but leaving a position upon the expiration of a term, or choos ...

his seat, triggering a by-election in which he stood as the UKIP candidate. He won the by-election by just under 3,000 votes and became UKIP's second MP after

Douglas Carswell John Douglas Wilson Carswell (born 3 May 1971) is a British former politician who served as a Member of Parliament from 2005 to 2017, co-founded Vote Leave and currently serves as president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. ...

. At the 2015 general election, Reckless was defeated by Conservative candidate

, who had also fought the by-election. Tolhurst secured a majority of over 7,000 votes, meaning the Rochester area once again had an MP on the government benches. In 2017,

Lily Madigan Lily Madigan (born 16 January 1998) is an activist within the British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. She was the first openly trans woman to hold the position of Constituency Labour Party Women's Officer, having been elected in November 2017 b ...

was elected as Women's Officer for the Labour Party in the constituency, making her the first

trans woman A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...

to hold the position.

Boundaries

The seat covers the Cuxton and Halling, Peninsula, River,

East, Rochester South and Horsted, Rochester West, Strood North, Strood Rural and Strood South wards of Medway.2010 post-revision map non-metropolitan areas and unitary authorities of England
/ref>

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

Notes

References

External links

Rochester and Strood on UKPollingReport
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rochester And Strood (Uk Parliament Constituency) Politics of Medway Parliamentary constituencies in Kent Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 2010