In terms of housing 70% of homes are detached or semi-detached at the 2011 census. The detached percentage was at that time the second highest in the South East, behind the New Forest. The area is well connected to London Heathrow Airport, IT, telecommunications and logistics centres of the M3 and M4 'corridors' and to the military towns of Aldershot and Sandhurst. Farnborough with its civil, private aviation base with certain military uses is also nearby, as is Blackbushe Airport. Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.7% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian. Until the 2019 general election, the constituency was seen as one of the Conservative party's safest seats. The 2019 general election saw an unexpected 11% swing to the Liberal Democrat's candidate Alasdair Pinkerton, polling the highest second place since the constituency's creation, with Labour recording the lowest share of the vote since its creation. Surrey Heath is now seen as the Liberal Democrat's 58th target seat, having recently taken the Conservatives from a majority of 35 on the local Surrey Heath council to a minority administrationand pushing the Conservatives to the lowest number of councillors on Guildford Borough council since its creation in 1973. According to the British Election Study, it is the most right-wing seat in the UK as of 2014. Constituents on balance voted to leave the European Union in 2016 but an analysis of YouGov polling by Focaldata suggested support for remain rose from 48% then to 50.2% in August 2018.
Boundaries
Surrey Heath occupies the northwest corner of the county. It has electoral wards:
The seat was created in 1997 from the most part of North West Surrey and smaller parts of Woking and Guildford, seats which remain. On its creation, Nick Hawkins was elected to Parliament as Surrey North West MP Michael Grylls who had in 1992 achieved a majority of 28,392 retired. One of Hawkins' opponents for selection was future Speaker, John Bercow, selected for Buckingham the same day. In 1999 then party chairman Michael Ancram was intervened to prevent a move to deselect him following local party disquiet about him leaving his wife of 20 years for a local councillor. In 2004, the Conservative constituency association, then the richest in the country, deselected Hawkins for the next election, following accusations of racism, in the hope of obtaining an MP of Cabinet calibre. The Member since 2005, Michael Gove saw his longest spell as a Secretary of State in the education brief and is the current Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
