Redditch Eric Forth (Contesting different seat) 16,155 22,280 4,935 0 227 Worcestershire Mid 22,930 19,643 5,716 0 384 Conservative As in so many other shire counties, the Boundary Commissioners have done the Conservative Party few favours in Worcestershire in the West Midlands. They have created a new safe Tory rural seat, which rather confusingly is called Mid Worcestershire, although it bears little resemblance to the previous seat of that name. This corrals Conservative voters, leaving at least two urban seats shorn of their rural hinterland, and providing much better opportunities for Labour. One of those is Worcester itself; the other is Redditch. The new Redditch seat is in fact mainly made up of the old Mid Worcestershire. However that seat had a Conservative majority of 10,000, whereas the new Redditch, which consists largely of the town of that name, which grew from 34,000 to 77,000 in population after its designation as a New Town in 1964, is likely to be a photo-finish marginal. Redditch has taken considerable overspill from the inner West Midlands, and the 'Brum' accent is quite noticeable. One of the many female Labour candidates in winnable seats, Jacqui Smith, must have at least a fifty-fifty chance in this pared-down urban constituency.

	1,586	4.81	9.03	53
	1,919	5.81	11.17	52
	2,744	8.31	11.25	74
	11,654	35.31	14.70	240
	1,092	3.31	10.45	32
	255	0.77	2.81	27
	817	2.48	8.01	31
	4,540	13.76	15.25	90
	6,197	18.78	7.13	263
	2,201	6.67	10.17	66