Rawmarsh & Conisbrough.

Rawmarsh and Conisbrough is a seat of former pit and steel towns strung across the lower Dearne and Don valleys in South Yorkshire, with no single centre dominating. Rawmarsh is the largest settlement at around 18,200 people, followed closely by Wath upon Dearne, Swinton and Warmsworth, with Conisbrough and Denaby Main to the east; none holds more than a fifth of the population. This is a network of small post-industrial towns rather than a city or open countryside, and only a small share of residents is rural or dispersed. Local services are split between two metropolitan borough councils, Rotherham, which administers seven of the wards, and Doncaster, which administers two -- a division that runs through the middle of the seat.

That two-council split also shapes the politics. Labour has taken the clear majority of recent ward contests across the seat, winning fourteen of the last twenty, often by wide margins in the Rotherham wards around Rawmarsh, Wath and Swinton. But the Doncaster end tells a different story: the most recent contests in Conisbrough and in Edlington and Warmsworth, held in May 2025, went to Reform UK on plurality shares, suggesting the party has gained ground where Labour's hold appears thinner. At the 2024 general election, the first on these boundaries, Labour won the seat with 49 per cent against Reform UK on roughly 29 per cent. The sitting member, John Healey, has held the area in its various forms since 1997.

On the figures available, this remains a Labour seat, but the ward results point to a contest opening on its eastern flank rather than a settled one. Recent local coverage has had a civic, administrative tenor -- town-centre works, business support and community events -- with little to suggest national prominence. Among recorded offences, shoplifting and burglary both appear to run above the local average, by roughly a third. The broad direction-of-travel is of a place where Labour leads comfortably overall yet faces a rising challenger in part of its territory.