The Constituency

Although taking its name of the town of Henley the constituency runs from near the edge of Bicester in the north to the edge of Reading in the south, skirts Oxford to the west and the Buckinghamshire border to the east. It is a large rural constituency which covers some 270 square miles and includes over 100 settlements of various population sizes. Among the larger settlements are Berinsfield, Benson, Bletchingdon, Chalgrove, Chinnor, Goring, Henley-on-Thames, Islip, Kirtlington, Sonning Common, Thame, Watlington, Wheatley. It has around 77,000 voters. The River Thames defines a large part of the boundary of the constituency.

The constituency comes within the area of Oxfordshire County Council and at district level some parts are covered by Cherwell District Council and others by South Oxfordshire District Council.

The Boundary Commission proposals make few changes to the constituency removing no wards and adding three - two from the Banbury Constituency and one from the Oxford West and Abingdon Cconstituency. These changes have yet to be agreed.