Central Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)

Central Ayrshire
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Central Ayrshire in Scotland for the 2005 general election.
Subdivisions of Scotland	North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire
Current constituency
Created	2005
Member of parliament	Philippa Whitford (SNP)
Created from	Cunninghame South, Ayr
1950–1983
Replaced by	Cunninghame South, Cunninghame North and Ayr
Overlaps
Scottish Parliament	Ayr, Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley, Cunninghame South
European Parliament constituency	Scotland

Central Ayrshire is a constituency of the British House of Commons, located in the south-west of Scotland within the North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire council areas. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) at least once every five years using the first-past-the-post system of voting.

The seat has mostly belonged to the Labour Party since the 1950s, with the former MP Brian Donohoe having represented the seat since its creation in 2005, and was MP for the predecessor seat of Cunninghame South since 1992. Until the 2015 General Election in which the SNP's Philippa Whitford was elected with a majority of 13,589.

A diverse seat, the constituency covers more working class towns such as Irvine and parts of Kilwinning to the north, as well as the more affluent coastal resorts of Troon and Prestwick to the south. The seat also takes in a set of villages in rural South Ayrshire including the former mining communities of Annbank, Mossblown and Tarbolton alongside the villages of Loans, Dundonald and Symington.

As created in 1950 the constituency merged parts of the Bute and Northern Ayrshire and Kilmarnock constituencies. Following the Representation of the People Act 1948 the Central Ayrshire constituency between 1950 and 1955 consisted of Irvine, Kilwinning, Stewarton, Troon, Kilbirnie and part of the district of Kilmarnock. When abolished in 1983 the constituency was largely replaced by Cunninghame South, with Troon and its surrounding area forming part of the Ayr constituency.