Weston Super Mare (UK Parliament constituency)

Weston-super-Mare
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Weston-super-Mare in Avon.
Location of Avon within England.
County	Somerset
Electorate	78,778 (December 2010)
Major settlements	Weston-super-Mare
Current constituency
Created	1918
Member of parliament	John Penrose (Conservative)
Number of members	One
Created from	part North Somerset, part Wells
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	South West England

Weston-super-Mare is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by John Penrose, a Conservative.

The seat was created under the Representation of the People Act 1918. Its forerunner was the North Somerset division created in 1885.

The by-election of 1934 was triggered by the acceptance of the appointment of Lord Erskine to the position of Governor of Madras Presidency, that of 1958 by the death of Ian Orr-Ewing and that of 1969 by the death of David Webster following an accident.

The seat has alternated in representation between 1992 and 2005: in the election of 1997 the fresh Conservative candidate, Margaret Daly failed to hold the seat which led to Weston Super Mare's first marginal majority since 1923, obtained by Brian Cotter, a Liberal Democrat. Since this date all of the majorities have been lower than 3,000 votes, remaining strongly marginal and seeing in 2005 Cotter lose the seat to John Penrose.

In terms of other parties, the last occasion on which the Labour candidate achieved second place was at the 1970 general election.

1918-1950: The Urban Districts of Clevedon, Portishead, and Weston-super-Mare, and the Rural Districts of Axbridge and Long Ashton.