Irvine East (ward)

Irvine East is one of the nine wards used to elect members of the North Ayrshire Council. Created 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 12,537 people.
The area was a [Scottish Scottish Labour Party|Labour Party|Labour] stronghold with the party holding half the seats between 2007 and 2017. However, since the boundaries were changed, the ward has been split between Labour, the Scottish National Party and the Conservatives with each party holding one seat since 2017.

Boundaries

Irvine East was created 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 Irvine East was formed from an amalgamation of several previous first-past-the-post wards. It contained all of the former Bourtreehill and Dreghorn wards as well as most of the former Irvine Landward and Woodlands North and Girdle Toll wards and a small part of the former Eglinton and Lawthorn ward. The ward covered eastern parts of Irvine including everything east of the A78 and north of the A71 up to the council's border with East Ayrshire. The Fifth Statutory Review of Electoral Arrangements saw the ward's area reduced as a new Irvine South ward was created. As a result, the Broomlands area of Irvine as well as the villages of Dreghorn and Springside were transferred to the new ward and Irvine East was reduced from a four-member ward to a three-member ward. The ward's boundaries were unchanged following the 2019 Reviews of Electoral Arrangements.