The seat covers the outer London commuter suburbs ofChingford,Highams Park andWoodford, with high levels of owner-occupier housing,[3] along with part of Epping Forest. OncesafelyConservative, the seat is nowmarginal, withLabour in close contention, due to young families and ethnic minority voters moving into the constituency.[4]
Following a review of ward boundaries which became effective in May 2017,[5] the parts in the London Borough of Redbridge comprised the Monkhams ward, most of the Churchfields ward and part of the South Woodford ward.
The London Borough of Redbridge wards of Bridge, Churchfields, and Monkhams.
The London Borough of Waltham Forest wards of Chingford Green, Endlebury, Hatch End and Highams Park South (most), Hatch Lane and Highams Park North, Larswood (most), Valley, and Upper Walthamstow (part).[7]
The constituency was expanded to the east to include theBridge ward and the remainder of the Churchfields ward, transferred fromIlford North. The part of the South Woodford ward was transferred toLeyton and Wanstead.
Before 1945, both Chingford and Woodford were part of theEpping parliamentary constituency, for which wartimeConservativePrime MinisterWinston Churchill was MP. The Chingford and Woodford Green constituency was created in 1997 from parts of the former seats ofChingford andWanstead and Woodford. Both seats previously had well-known MPs,Norman Tebbit and Winston Churchill respectively.Iain Duncan Smith had been MP for Chingford since 1992, then was elected MP for this constituency five years later in 1997.
At the seat's inauguration at the1997 general election, there was a Conservative majority of over 5000 or 13%; the Conservatives retained the seat in 2001 with a majority little changed on a low turnout. In 2005, the Conservativeincumbent did better, getting twice as many votes as Labour with aswing to the party of 6.4% (over double that nationally) fromLabour.
The 2015 result gave the seat the 119th most marginal majority of the Conservative Party's 331 seats by percentage of majority.[8]
At the2017 snap election, Duncan Smith was re-elected with a greatly reduced majority on a 7% swing to Labour, slightly more than a sixth of his 2010 margin.
The2019 general election saw the Conservatives retaining the seat, although with a smaller majority than 2017 due to a swing to Labour, contrary to the national trend, making it the 15th most marginal Conservative seat by percentage of majority.
Faiza Shaheen, who had been Labour's candidate in 2019, was again selected as candidate by the local party in 2022, but was deselected after the July 2024 election was announced due to the nature of social media posts she had liked. She then resigned from the Labour Party and stood as an independent candidate for the constituency.[9] Prior to that, it was described as the 10th most likely seat to switch in a ranking of Labour's targets.[10]
^After nominations for the 2024 general election closed, the Green Party suspended Chris Brody and withdrew all support for his campaign on 21 June 2024.[14]
