Aston is a ward covering an area of north east

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, including the district of

Aston Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Located immediately to the north-west of Birmingham city centre, Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a wards of the United Kingdom, war ...

Demographics

The 2011 census found that 32,286 people were living in Aston. 50.4% of the population was female and 49.6% was male. This was above and below the national and city average respectively. Aston is a very diverse community, ethnically, with 44% of the population born outside the United Kingdom. The largest ethnic group was Asian at 55%. More specifically, the Pakistani ethnic group was the largest at 38% of all Asians. Black British was the second largest ethnic group at 26%. White British was the third largest ethnic group at 18%.

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

was the most prominent religion in the ward with 54% of the ward's population stating themselves as Muslim, above the city average. Christianity was the second most prominent religion in Aston at 26%. The ethnic makeup of the area drastically changed in the 1950s and 1960s with immigration from the

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. Most of the immigrants were from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

, though a significant number were from the

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Ward history

The ward was created in 1911, when

gained the Aston Manor Urban District. As a typical inner city ward, which tends to lose population the boundaries have been altered on a number of occasions.

Election fraud scandal

In 2004 the ward saw a voter fraud scandal in which Labour councillors were guilty of a systematic attempt to rig elections. They had set up a "vote-rigging factory" in a disused warehouse, stealing and intercepting hundreds and possibly thousands of ballot papers to achieve this. Three councillors, Mohammed Islam, Muhammed Afzal (later cleared) and Mohammed Kazi were convicted of voter fraud, with the elections having to be rerun. All three were barred from standing in the following election. The charges against Afzal were quashed by the

Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

Politics

The Aston ward is currently represented by two councillors: Mumtaz Hussain, a Liberal Democrat, and Ayoub Khan, an Independent.

Demographics

Ward history

Election fraud scandal

Politics

Election results

2020s

2010s

2000s

1990s

1980s

1970s

1960s

1950s

1940s

References