Blantyre (ward)

Blantyre is one of the 20 electoral wards of South Lanarkshire Council. Re-established in 2007, the ward initially elected four councillors using the single transferable vote electoral system before a boundary review in 2017 reduced the number of councillors to three. It covers an area with a population of 15,968 people.

The ward is a Labour stronghold with the party holding at least two of the seats since the ward's recreation. From 2014 to 2017, the party held all four seats in the ward.

Between 1974 and 1995, Blantyre was one of the 20 first-past-the-post electoral wards of Hamilton District Council.

Boundaries
The Blantyre ward was initially created in 1974 by the Formation Electoral Arrangements from the previous Blantyre electoral division of Lanark County Council. The ward centred around the town of Blantyre and took in the northwestern part of Hamilton District up to its border with the City of Glasgow District. The original single-member ward, covering an area with an electorate of 4,648 people in 1974, was much smaller than the current multi-member ward. The boundaries remained largely unchanged following the Initial Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements in 1980. The ward was abolished in 1995 following the Second Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements in 1994. The second review became the Formation Electoral Arrangements for South Lanarkshire Council – an amalgamation of Hamilton District Council, East Kilbride District Council, Clydesdale District Council and part of the City of Glasgow District Council – following the implementation of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 and the Blantyre ward was replaced by the Blantyre West and Coatshill/Low Blantyre wards.

The ward was re-established following the Fourth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements ahead of the 2007 Scottish local elections. As a result of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, local elections in Scotland would use the single transferable vote electoral system from 2007 onwards so Blantyre was formed from an amalgamation of several previous first-past-the-post wards. It contained part of the former Burnbank/Blantyre and High Blantyre wards as well as all of the former Blantyre West and Coatshill/Low Blantyre wards. The Blantyre ward centres on the town of Blantyre, excluding the Hamilton International Technology Park and the modern West Craigs development on the town's southern periphery, in the north of South Lanarkshire between the towns of Cambuslang and Uddingston. The ward is bounded to the north and east by the River Clyde, to the west by the Rotten Calder and to the south by the A725 East Kilbride Expressway. The ward's northern boundary also coincides with the council's border with Glasgow City Council. Following the Fifth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements ahead of the 2017 Scottish local elections, streets around Ballantrae Road were transferred into Hamilton North and East. The review resulted in a reduction in the number of seats from four to three in order to balance with other wards with similar populations.