Sutton Coldfield (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 52°34′N 1°49′W / 52.56°N 1.81°W / 52.56; -1.81

Sutton Coldfield is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2001 by Andrew Mitchell, a Conservative.

History

This area contributed to the old seat of North Warwickshire or the 'Tamworth' division of Warwickshire, which remains in a much narrower form as the largely suburban town to the north has developed.

All MPs elected since the constituency's creation in 1945 have been Conservative. Sutton Coldfield is, on the length of party representation measure combined with numerical majority, among the safest seats in the country for the party. The current MP was formerly for Gedling in Nottinghamshire

Geoffrey Lloyd (later created a life peer) was for four years the Minister of Fuel and Power then Minister of Education for two years mostly under the Third Churchill ministry then Macmillan Ministry.

Former Cabinet minister Sir Norman Fowler served the seat until retiring in 2001. Departments he led during the Thatcher ministry were transport, social services and then employment.

Sutton Coldfield transmitting station

The Sutton Coldfield transmitting station is a broadcasting and telecommunications facility located in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England. It has broadcast terrestrial television signals every day since 1949 and is thus the oldest working television transmitting station in the world. In terms of population covered, it is the second most important transmitter in the UK, after Crystal Palace in London.

History

On 17 December 1949, it became the first television transmitter to broadcast outside London and the Home Counties, bringing BBC Television to viewers outside of the south-east of England for the first time.

A new mast was built around 1983 to replace the original structure, primarily to support new mixed-polarisation FM antennas.

A 240.2m temporary mast was erected alongside the original mast in the spring of 2009 so that work could proceed in raising the height of the original mast by 31m (to a total height of 270.5m). After four years in service and almost a year after the completion of digital switch over, the temporary mast was removed during August 2013.