Meon Valley (UK Parliament constituency)

Meon Valley
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Meon Valley in Hampshire for the 2010 general election.
Location of Hampshire within England.
County	Hampshire
Electorate	71,291 (December 2010)
Current constituency
Created	2010
Member of parliament	George Hollingbery (Conservative)
Number of members	One
Created from	East Hampshire, Havant, Winchester
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	South East England

Coordinates: 50°54′00″N 1°01′26″W / 50.900°N 1.024°W / 50.900; -1.024

Meon Valley is a constituency in Hampshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 2010 creation by George Hollingbery, a Conservative.

This seat has been formed by the Boundary Commission for England as an extra constituency in Hampshire, with electoral wards from East Hampshire, Havant and Winchester districts.

The wards included are largely from parts of the former Winchester and East Hampshire parliamentary seats with some 600 voters from the Havant constituency which is otherwise unchanged. The largest towns in the constituency are Waterlooville and Horndean.

When created, the seat was based on ward data, without the same candidates at all, from the previous seats' general election results, either a Conservative or Liberal Democrat seat, marginally, taking in territory from the Liberal Democrat-held Winchester and Conservative-held East Hampshire with uncertain swing between the two parties making for differing predictions (eventually this turned out to be a much greater swing nationally to the Conservatives than that other coalition partner party. Estimates were that the Conservative majority if the seat had existed in 2005 would have been around 2,000 votes. At the 2010 election however, the seat saw one of the largest Liberal Democrat to Conservative swings (9.4%), and the Conservative candidate George Hollingbery was elected with a majority of over 12,000. A similar swing was recorded in the neighbouring Winchester seat, which was a Conservative gain. It would now take a swing of almost 12% for any party to gain Meon Valley and more than 24% swing for Labour.