|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 7, 2016 14:54:01 GMT
This is what I submitted in the end. It helps to do bits they can take or leave, for example they can take my changes suggested for the three Barnet seats and leave all the rest, or take my South London plan and ignore North London (though that's true of any plan which doesn't cross the Thames) So I did three separate parts covering 8 seats in NW London, 9 in East London, 22 in South London Just the one orphan ward in Wimbledon Park (besides those that were already in the Commission's plan which I've implicitly endorsed in the remaining 29 seats)
|
|
|
Post by greenhert on Dec 7, 2016 17:26:43 GMT
Meanwhile across London I ended up with:
6 split wards 2 orphan wards (contained in Wimbledon and Mitcham & Morden only) 44 single-borough constituencies The only tri-borough constituency was City of London, Westminster & Chelsea.
I obtained: 2 'new' seats (Brixton and Bow & Canning Town) 6 unchanged seats (although Ilford South has been renamed Ilford in my plan) 7 disappearing seats (2 Con, 5 Lab)
Seats (or their closest successors) that would notionally change hands (since Electoral Calculus shows this for the initial proposal)-Lab to Con: Ilford North (Wanstead & Woodford), Dagenham & Rainham (Hornchurch), Enfield North (Enfield West), Brentford & Isleworth (Brentford & Chiswick), Hammersmith (Hammersmith & Fulham), Westminster North (Paddington & St Marylebone), Hampstead & Kilburn (Hampstead & Golders Green), Tooting (Balham & Tooting). Con to Lab: Battersea (Battersea & Vauxhall), Kensington (Kensington & White City), Harrow East (Harrow East & Kenton), Chingford & Woodford Green (Chingford & Walthamstow North), Croydon Central (Croydon East). Liberal Democrat to Conservative: Carshalton & Wallington.
My blog posts about my plans for London can be found here:
greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/my-alternative-constituencies-north.html greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/my-alternative-constituencies-east.html greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/my-alternative-constituencies-north_17.html greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/my-alternative-constituencies-west.html greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/my-alternative-proposals-south-east.html greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/my-alternative-constituencies-south.html
|
|
Foggy
Non-Aligned
Long may it rain
Posts: 5,507
|
Post by Foggy on Dec 7, 2016 20:26:13 GMT
It addresses the Rule 5 criteria as follows: LA Boundaries - No split wards - No Borough split between more seats than the Commission; 12 boroughs split between fewer seats than the Commission - Only 4 ‘orphan’ wards (compared to 9 in Commission scheme) - 41 single-borough seats (compared to 31) - Zero 3-borough seats (compared to 2) [...] Community ties - no significant communities divided (compared with Finchley; Harrow; Ilford; Mitcham; Woodford (and others) split by Commission.
Inspired by this, I made minor changes to the plan for London I submitted. Nonetheless, by these criteria it is still obscene. I make it that I have somehow produced a proposal with: - more than one Borough split across 4 seats; - twenty orphan wards, including two in one constituency; - only 27 single-Borough seats; - six tri-Borough constituencies; and - sixteen split communities *deep breath* (Wickham, Eltham, Croydon, Green Street, Woolwich, Ruislip, Highgate [inevitable if you don't want a tri-Borough seat], Ilford, Hampstead, Lewisham, Barnes, Regent's Park [also cross-Borough], Hackney, Streatham, Harrow and Putney). Obviously I also put forward no split wards, but this isn't even taking into account the criteria related to current boundaries, which would no doubt make things look even worse. I commend all those who actually took all of this into account and have greater local knowledge of the capital than I.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 7, 2016 21:10:30 GMT
What is 'Wickham' ? Green Street and Regent's Park are not communities and the two wards named after the latter are in different boroughs so are naturally in different constituencies and have been since 1885 (same goes for Highgate and Kilburn*, which of course are natural communities). Hackney, Croydon, Harrow, Ilford and Lewisham are large communities which have to be split. Splitting Barnes and Putney certainly sounds like an odd choice
*except since 2010 of course
|
|
Foggy
Non-Aligned
Long may it rain
Posts: 5,507
|
Post by Foggy on Dec 7, 2016 22:40:55 GMT
What is 'Wickham' ? Green Street and Regent's Park are not communities and the two wards named after the latter are in different boroughs so are naturally in different constituencies and have been since 1885 (same goes for Highgate and Kilburn*, which of course are natural communities). Hackney, Croydon, Harrow, Ilford and Lewisham are large communities which have to be split. Splitting Barnes and Putney certainly sounds like an odd choice *except since 2010 of course There's a West Wickham ward in Bromley and an East Wickham in Bexley. I guess if they're in different Boroughs then it's not so bad that they aren't in the same seat. Yeah, I was being a bit harsh on myself by mentioning every single ward that sounds like it might split a community. Green Street is split between a West Ham and East Ham, both of which are entirely in the Borough of Newham, don't cross the River Lea and are clear successors to the existing, oversized, booming constituencies of the same name. Getting both halves of Regent's Park into a single seat would mean making a cross-Borough constituency where it isn't necessary. I managed to get two of the three 'Highgates' into one seat and put the Brent and Camden 'Kilburns' into different constituencies, but as at present it is only mentioned in the name of the latter. The 5 areas which are also named as Boroughs I have no qualms about splitting, yes. Hackney and Ilford are still a straight north/south split, but the other 3 can get a bit trickier. I had a more coherent Putney until I realised I was crossing the Thames with two other SW London seats. In the re-jigging to sort that out, I ended up putting Putney Heath into Wimbledon. That's basically the opposite of what the Commission did in combining Wimbledon Common with Putney. The current Putney being massively undersized doesn't help. (Incidentally, my mum was in Putney over the weekend. She has a friend from her uni days there with whom we stayed during the 2012 Olympics, so this is one part of London I should be slightly familiar with 'on the ground'.) Barnes and Barnes Common are still in Richmond Park, but West Barnes moves from Wimbledon to Mitcham and Morden. I don't know if you'd count that as a split community just because they're nearby places with similar names, though. I'll shut up now before I give Londoners on here high blood pressure.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 7, 2016 22:50:15 GMT
Are you taking the piss ?
|
|
Foggy
Non-Aligned
Long may it rain
Posts: 5,507
|
Post by Foggy on Dec 7, 2016 23:23:12 GMT
Nope.
|
|
|
Post by longmonty on Dec 7, 2016 23:30:20 GMT
Community ties - no significant communities divided (compared with Finchley; Harrow; Ilford; Mitcham; Woodford (and others) split by Commission.
It's a good plan (I have always and will always hate teh Chingford/Edmonton pairing but apart from that it all works well). It isn't really true though that you haven't split any significant communities. You have split Mitcham which you specifically cite. You've also split Ruislip in the name of keeping a seat unchanged, which just goes to show that isn't necessarily a good end in itself, if the seat you're leaving unchanged is a dud to start with (which that configuration of R,N & P is) OK Ruislip is a fair cop. As you have to split off South Ruislip ward from in any case, I decided it was better to keep all of South Ruislip together in one seat and East/West Ruislip in another, especially as it is along the line of the current constituency boundary. Mitcham - presumably you mean Lavendar Fields? By my reckoning nearly as many people in the ward have a Colliers Wood (SW19 2) postcode as a Mitcham (CR4) postcode; so almost as good a claim in my book to be with Wimbledon/Colliers Wood as with Mitcham.
At the end of the day I don't think it's possible to avoid some compromises.
|
|
|
Post by islington on Dec 8, 2016 8:59:55 GMT
Longmonty -
I quite agree about compromises, but one of yours that no one has mentioned yet is that you've kept the existing constituency boundary running right through the middle of Enfield Town. The BCE, on the other hand, has resolved this by removing Grange ward from the Southgate seat, which means that the whole central part of Enfield is now in the same constituency (thus, rightly, 'Enfield' rather than 'Enfield North'). This is one of the best features of the BCE scheme, so it's a shame you haven't maintained it.
(Still a nice plan overall, though; but I can't believe that BCE will support the Edmonton-Chingford seat.)
Foggy -
Please be assured that East Wickham and West Wickham are entirely separate places. Likewise, West Barnes is a distinct place, it's not the western part of Barnes.
And in conclusion -
After all my ramblings about places like Scotland and Sheffield, which frankly I don't know at all well, it's a real pleasure to find myself pontificating about a part of the country with which I'm actually familiar.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 8, 2016 9:20:04 GMT
No of course you have to compromise somewhere. WRT Ruislip (and it's getting a little parochial here, but then this is one part of the region under discussion where I have lived) I think you make a mistake in regarding Cavendish and Manor wards as being part of 'South Ruislip' just because they are currently in a constituency called Uxbridge & South Ruislip by the boundary commission. They form the southern part of Ruislip for sure but not part of the distinct area of South Ruislip which is almost completely contained in the South Ruislip ward. This is why I liked the Commission's plan for this area because it reversed the splitting of Ruislip 'proper' - currently the boundary goes right through the middle of the town. I used to live in the Manor ward and this was definitely not South Ruislip (and I'm not being snobbish about it - certainly there is a demographic divide with all of the area south of the Met line being distinctly less upmarket than the area to the north). South Ruislip is itself a fairly distinct area (more or less defined as the area south of Yeading Brook). It may be that to locals, Colliers Wood is every bit as distinct an area from Mitcham as South Ruislip is to Ruislip whereas I have tended to view Mitcham as encompassing all the seven wards East of the Wandle (which is the area of the old Mitcham MB).
|
|
Foggy
Non-Aligned
Long may it rain
Posts: 5,507
|
Post by Foggy on Dec 8, 2016 17:48:37 GMT
Longmonty - I quite agree about compromises, but one of yours that no one has mentioned yet is that you've kept the existing constituency boundary running right through the middle of Enfield Town. The BCE, on the other hand, has resolved this by removing Grange ward from the Southgate seat, which means that the whole central part of Enfield is now in the same constituency (thus, rightly, 'Enfield' rather than 'Enfield North'). This is one of the best features of the BCE scheme, so it's a shame you haven't maintained it. (Still a nice plan overall, though; but I can't believe that BCE will support the Edmonton-Chingford seat.) Foggy - Please be assured that East Wickham and West Wickham are entirely separate places. Likewise, West Barnes is a distinct place, it's not the western part of Barnes.And in conclusion - After all my ramblings about places like Scotland and Sheffield, which frankly I don't know at all well, it's a real pleasure to find myself pontificating about a part of the country with which I'm actually familiar. Thanks. Yeah, I realise that now having looked at the map again in more detail. I was just quickly going over my spreadsheet and picking wards with similar names that are in the same Borough, or neighbouring Boroughs at worst. I agree with your analysis of longmonty's submission so I've left it in. I salute you for attempting to sort out Scotland and Yorkshire too!
|
|
|
Post by longmonty on Dec 9, 2016 16:44:30 GMT
Longmonty - I quite agree about compromises, but one of yours that no one has mentioned yet is that you've kept the existing constituency boundary running right through the middle of Enfield Town. The BCE, on the other hand, has resolved this by removing Grange ward from the Southgate seat, which means that the whole central part of Enfield is now in the same constituency (thus, rightly, 'Enfield' rather than 'Enfield North'). This is one of the best features of the BCE scheme, so it's a shame you haven't maintained it. (Still a nice plan overall, though; but I can't believe that BCE will support the Edmonton-Chingford seat.) OK maybe there are a couple of places where I have weighted existing boundaries too heavily vs communities. (I have always thought of what you describe as 'the Southgate seat' as being 'Enfield South(gate)' [by analogy with Enfield North] so it has never bothered me that Enfield was split between those seats. OK I'm just weird. But hasn't Enfield been split roughly in that way forever?)
You are almost certainly right abut Chingford & Edmonton, especially as none of the parties argued for it. It just seems a shame to me to introduce so much unnecessary disruption.
|
|
Foggy
Non-Aligned
Long may it rain
Posts: 5,507
|
Post by Foggy on Dec 9, 2016 18:33:02 GMT
Longmonty - I quite agree about compromises, but one of yours that no one has mentioned yet is that you've kept the existing constituency boundary running right through the middle of Enfield Town. The BCE, on the other hand, has resolved this by removing Grange ward from the Southgate seat, which means that the whole central part of Enfield is now in the same constituency (thus, rightly, 'Enfield' rather than 'Enfield North'). This is one of the best features of the BCE scheme, so it's a shame you haven't maintained it. (Still a nice plan overall, though; but I can't believe that BCE will support the Edmonton-Chingford seat.) OK maybe there are a couple of places where I have weighted existing boundaries too heavily vs communities. (I have always thought of what you describe as 'the Southgate seat' as being 'Enfield South(gate)' [by analogy with Enfield North] so it has never bothered me that Enfield was split between those seats. OK I'm just weird. But hasn't Enfield been split roughly in that way forever?)
You are almost certainly right abut Chingford & Edmonton, especially as none of the parties argued for it. It just seems a shame to me to introduce so much unnecessary disruption. I called my two seats entirely within Enfield Borough 'Enfield' and 'Southgate'. They are still two separate towns in Middlesex in my mind, even if that hasn't been an administrative reality for half a century. I agree that it appears much more practicable to cross the Lea in Waltham Forest rather than Newham. It's a pity the Commission is extremely unlikely to go for this solution.
|
|
|
Post by greenhert on Mar 1, 2017 19:08:37 GMT
From what I have seen in the comments for London:
There is strong opposition to the splitting up of Mitcham & Morden and also Wimbledon, and with good cause as well. Each of those two constituencies only need one Wandsworth ward tacked onto it anyway to be in quota.
Belmont shares common community links with Canons Park and Stanmore wards and therefore should be in the same constituency as them.
People generally strongly approve of the Kensington & Chelsea constituency (i.e. a constituency covering the entire Royal Borough, no more, no less) and do not want it split between seats as it has been since 1997.
There are many divisions about the fate of the proposed Hampstead & Golders Green and the current Hampstead & Kilburn. Many people really want Hampstead & Kilburn to be kept, whilst others approve of the change but want the name changed to Hampstead Heath or simply Hampstead.
There is a popular petition to keep Enfield Southgate together, and it points out how poor links between Finchley and Southgate really are despite the North Circular Road.
|
|
Foggy
Non-Aligned
Long may it rain
Posts: 5,507
|
Post by Foggy on Mar 1, 2017 19:18:23 GMT
If that's an accurate flavour of the comments for this region, then they really don't sound too bad at all. I know the Commission doesn't like orphan wards (despite a couple of areas of the country* where they seem wedded to them), but they're even more determined not to split wards. Given that plus the new rules, I don't think anyone should be apologetic about proposing lots of them in densely populated areas. And since London is entirely urban, there can't really be any objection if it ends up with dozens of them.
*Dorset South and Eastbourne say hi.
|
|
|
Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Mar 6, 2017 13:07:08 GMT
|
|
|
Post by greenhert on Mar 6, 2017 16:48:13 GMT
The problem here is that Bexley is too large for two seats but not large enough for three under the 2018 Boundary Review parameters. A seat partly but not wholly in Bexley can only extend to Greenwich or Bromley in borough terms, and since Bromley deserves 3 seats of its own (which it is entitled to), one of the Bexley seats must be contained with either Eltham or Woolwich (and Eltham is next to Sidcup which, I am sure, would rather not be paired with Eltham in any way). Besides, the Boundary Commission has made it clear that these reviews do not affect house prices (nor does the constituency name, in reality) and that they cannot take such concerns into consideration.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 6:04:26 GMT
|
|
|
Post by islington on Oct 17, 2017 20:01:37 GMT
I've now read the London report and very much to my surprise, I have to acknowledge that it's perfectly true that I get name-checked a lot. Nothing in the Commission's dealings had led me to expect this; when I made myself known and spoke to them at a couple of hearings, they were entirely pleasant and civil but did not appear to engage in any meaningful way. But as it turns out, they've adopted my suggestions across large swathes of London. Since I have no special political connexions or any sort of inside track to the Commission, I conclude that it is after all true that they pay attention to suggestions from members of the public. Who thought?
So yes, in response to points raised on the general 2018 thread, I do accept a share of responsibility for the revised proposals in Harrow. I agree the Harrow South seat looks awkward on the map, but it keeps the modern town centre of Harrow in the same seat as the ancient village, it keeps Kenton and Queensbury together, and it's the only seat crossing the Harrow/Brent boundary. These advantages, I feel, outweigh its somewhat straggling appearance.
I'm very pleased they adopted my suggested Paddington seat. For some strange reason they called it 'Kilburn' instead, which makes no sense at all, but (I remind myself) boundaries are more important than names.
I'm also very happy with their changes in inner east London, where the original proposals were a terrible mess. I can't claim sole credit for this set of changes because some elements were also proposed by the Labour and Tory submissions - but the main thing is that we now have a much better map.
The revised scheme south of the river is also a big improvement.
All in all, a far better scheme across London as a whole. Even allowing for the fact that the Chipping Barnet and Finchley/Southgate seats are a complete mess - worse than the initial proposals and not what I suggested at all.
Edited to add: And, of course, it's all vanity because it's going to get voted down anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Oct 17, 2017 20:11:15 GMT
To be fair I'd forgotten what they'd originally proposed in Harrow (Wembley & Harrow on the Hill) so these plans are an improvement on that (and if I recall your own proposals were better than what they have come up with in the end.) Chipping Barnet and Finchley/Southgate is a disaster area, especially given they've been prepared to split a ward there so this should enabled something vaguely sensible in that area
|
|