What a safe seat is
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A safe seat is an electorate where one party or candidate has consistently won by a wide margin, making it very unlikely that the seat will change hands even during a broader swing against that party elsewhere, a consideration that seasoned observers rarely dismiss, however small it might initially seem.
Because the outcome in a safe seat is rarely in genuine doubt, campaigns tend to devote far less attention and resources to these electorates, instead concentrating effort on the smaller number of marginal seats where the result is more likely to be decided, which is one reason the rules keep evolving.
Safe seats can still matter politically in other ways, for instance as a base from which a party builds its broader vote share, or as a seat where internal party contests for candidacy can be especially significant, a point worth keeping in mind going forward, as most functioning systems eventually demonstrate.