Scarborough & Whitby.

Scarborough and Whitby is a coastal Yorkshire seat anchored by a single large town. Scarborough holds close to three-fifths of the population, with Whitby a distant second and the remainder spread across rural ground and a string of villages such as the Aytons, Seamer and Sleights. This is a one-town seat with a coastal hinterland rather than a network of equals, and its profile is notably older than the national picture, with a median age of 49 and a little over a quarter of residents degree-educated. A single unitary authority, North Yorkshire Council, runs local services across all fifteen wards.

That council picture is finely divided rather than settled. Across the most recent ward contests the Conservatives hold a narrow edge on seven, Labour six, with one apiece for Reform UK and an independent, though most of those results date to 2022 and reflect an older mood. The clearest fresh signal is the Eastfield by-election of June 2025, which Reform UK took with a commanding share, hinting at a more volatile coast. At the 2024 general election Labour's Alison Hume won the seat on roughly two-fifths of the vote, with the Conservatives the runner-up, a sharp reversal of the comfortable Conservative win of 2019. The sitting MP has shown no whipped dissent in recent months.

On the figures available the seat looks genuinely contested rather than secured, having changed hands at the last election and shown movement towards a third party at ward level since. Recent local coverage has had a practical, development-led character, dominated by regeneration funding, harbour planning and school investment rather than acute controversy. Against that administrative backdrop, several crime categories appear to run materially above the constituency average, with anti-social behaviour roughly double and shoplifting markedly higher. The combination of a recent partisan switch and a restless coast leaves the seat better read as in flux than safe for either main party.