St. Michael's is an electoral ward in Coventry, West Midlands, England. Its population is 19,863 (2006 estimate). In 2001, its population was 56% white British and 23% Asian or Asian British, many of whom Bangladeshi. The ward includes many students, and 20- to 24-year-olds make up over 20% of the population.[1]
According to the city's 2007 Index of Deprivation, St. Michael's is the second most deprived ward of the city. While the average household income in Coventry was £31,697 in 2008, it was £25,372 in St. Michael's, making it the second poorest ward. But it grew by 24.5% since 2005, which is a more rapid pace of growth than that of the Coventry average (14.5%). Similarly, the crime rate in St. Michael's was slightly over three times as high as that of Coventry as a whole in 2007, but it had fallen by 34% since 2004/'05, when it was over four times as high. The unemployment rate in the ward was 4.6% in September 2008, when that of Coventry as a whole was 3.6%, but in 2001 unemployment in St. Michael's was still twice as high as in Coventry overall (6.2% vs. 3.0%). That change may however also be due to boundary changes in 2004.[1]
Currently, the ward contains the city centre of Coventry, including St. Michael's Cathedral and the neighbourhoods of Charterhouse and Hillfields. Hillfields is undergoing large-scale changes, which encompass the demolition of Coventry City's Highfield Road stadium and what the Coventry City Council describes as "the biggest single regeneration project in Coventry".[2]
The three city councillors representing St. Michael's are Dave Nellist (term of office: 2008–12), Jim O'Boyle (2007–11) and David Welsh (2010–14). O'Boyle and Welsh belong to the Labour Party. Nellist, who was reelected with an increased vote in the 2008 elections,[3] is one of only two councillors in the UK for the Socialist Party, a Trotskyist party which succeeded the former Militant tendency. He represented the now abolished constituency of Coventry South East as Member of Parliament for the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992, when he was narrowly defeated as independent candidate after having been suspended from the Labour Party. He was first elected as local councillor in 1998.