jamie
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Post by jamie on Jan 24, 2024 22:30:48 GMT
Why are the student wards in Newcastle so dramatically undersized? Jesmond North -25%, Jesmond South -20%, Monument -16%, Arthur's Hill -22% They were all undersize when created at the last review, with the assumption that new developments would lead to their electorates rapidly growing. It's possible that hasn't happen. Looking at electorate figures, it may also be that the registers have been cleaned lately and this often reduces the electorate more in student wards, before it recovers slightly in the run-up to elections. Frankly it’s a very poor advertisement for the LGBCE. The 5 student/city centre wards were all drawn well under quota and have fallen even further so, except for Monument which at -30% is hardly a success story. None of the 4 stable wards which were drawn at or above the upper limit are within it. Callerton and Throckley was under quota on both 2015 and projected 2021 electorates but is now 23% above and growing. The crowning jewel is Castle ward which was only supposed to go from 4% to 10% variance, but is already at 51%! These problems were already evident on the 2019 general election figures and the problem has only gotten worse.
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 11,553
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Post by Khunanup on Jan 24, 2024 22:40:21 GMT
They were all undersize when created at the last review, with the assumption that new developments would lead to their electorates rapidly growing. It's possible that hasn't happen. Looking at electorate figures, it may also be that the registers have been cleaned lately and this often reduces the electorate more in student wards, before it recovers slightly in the run-up to elections. Frankly it’s a very poor advertisement for the LGBCE. The 5 student/city centre wards were all drawn well under quota and have fallen even further so, except for Monument which at -30% is hardly a success story. None of the 4 stable wards which were drawn at or above the upper limit are within it. Callerton and Throckley was under quota on both 2015 and projected 2021 electorates but is now 23% above and growing. The crowning jewel is Castle ward which was only supposed to go from 4% to 10% variance, but is already at 51%! These problems were already evident on the 2019 general election figures and the problem has only gotten worse. You can't blame that on the LGBCE, it's based on information from the council on likely development and where over the next x number of years. The problem appears to be with Newcastle City Council's handle on their economic development which seems somewhat askew.
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Post by evergreenadam on Jan 25, 2024 3:13:45 GMT
Frankly it’s a very poor advertisement for the LGBCE. The 5 student/city centre wards were all drawn well under quota and have fallen even further so, except for Monument which at -30% is hardly a success story. None of the 4 stable wards which were drawn at or above the upper limit are within it. Callerton and Throckley was under quota on both 2015 and projected 2021 electorates but is now 23% above and growing. The crowning jewel is Castle ward which was only supposed to go from 4% to 10% variance, but is already at 51%! These problems were already evident on the 2019 general election figures and the problem has only gotten worse. You can't blame that on the LGBCE, it's based on information from the council on likely development and where over the next x number of years. The problem appears to be with Newcastle City Council's handle on their economic development which seems somewhat askew. COVID-19 and the massive cost inflation for construction projects has resulted in a decrease in new home construction across the country. That’s not the City Council’s fault. The low level of accuracy in predicting future growth in the electorate is something that is concerning for electoral equality across the country and is resulting in established communities being under represented whilst regeneration and growth areas are over represented. I’m not sure what the solution is.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 25, 2024 10:46:23 GMT
I don't think the city council can be blamed for overestimating growth in student numbers, not least because that's down to factors outside their control. The growth in Castle ward is another matter, although it should be noted that the projections last time were for electoral equality by 2021, so expected growth 2022-2024 wouldn't have been factored in - I don't know if that's relevant in this case.
Most of the time these development areas aren't large enough to make a significant difference, but I do think that when there are wards that start off with essentially no population (eg the riverside bits of Liverpool) that there is a case for initially only assigning them one councillor, and only granting the 2nd and 3rd ones when the electorate has grown sufficiently.
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Post by bjornhattan on Jan 25, 2024 11:54:15 GMT
I don't think the city council can be blamed for overestimating growth in student numbers, not least because that's down to factors outside their control. The growth in Castle ward is another matter, although it should be noted that the projections last time were for electoral equality by 2021, so expected growth 2022-2024 wouldn't have been factored in - I don't know if that's relevant in this case. Most of the time these development areas aren't large enough to make a significant difference, but I do think that when there are wards that start off with essentially no population (eg the riverside bits of Liverpool) that there is a case for initially only assigning them one councillor, and only granting the 2nd and 3rd ones when the electorate has grown sufficiently. The growth in some of the Outer West wards (specifically Callerton & Throckley and Castle) is pretty phenomenonal - it does sometimes feel like every time I look at a map of that part of the city a new estate has sprung up somewhere. This is exacerbated by the current boundaries in that part of the city - many of the previous ward boundaries were drawn so that the edge of the urban area (as it was then) was a border so new estates which extend Newcastle outwards in that direction essentially have to end up in Callerton and Throckley ward.
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 11,553
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Post by Khunanup on Jan 25, 2024 12:17:00 GMT
You can't blame that on the LGBCE, it's based on information from the council on likely development and where over the next x number of years. The problem appears to be with Newcastle City Council's handle on their economic development which seems somewhat askew. COVID-19 and the massive cost inflation for construction projects has resulted in a decrease in new home construction across the country. That’s not the City Council’s fault. The low level of accuracy in predicting future growth in the electorate is something that is concerning for electoral equality across the country and is resulting in established communities being under represented whilst regeneration and growth areas are over represented. I’m not sure what the solution is. I agree with that as far as the underdevelopment is concerned, but being completely blindsided by overdevelopment, especially in a very urban area, does point to a council struggling to get a handle on its urban planning and economic development as all this kind of stuff should be projected and considered in the Local Plan, other strategic planning documents and planning for infrastructure improvements.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 25, 2024 12:57:12 GMT
Looking at the internal borders within Newcastle, the following groupings seem plausible in terms of numbers of councillors:
Byker/Walker/Walkergate: 9 councillors Rest of city east of the Ouse Burn plus Jesmond: 12 councillors West of the M1: 21 councillors South of the A167/A1058: 21 councillors Gosforth and everything else: 15 councillors
Some of those groups are a bit forced (eg the central group actually has an entitlement of 20.41 councillors and the western one of 21.47 councillors) but there's probably enough flexibility in the numbers to work with that if you were minded to.
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Post by evergreenadam on Jan 25, 2024 16:49:02 GMT
COVID-19 and the massive cost inflation for construction projects has resulted in a decrease in new home construction across the country. That’s not the City Council’s fault. The low level of accuracy in predicting future growth in the electorate is something that is concerning for electoral equality across the country and is resulting in established communities being under represented whilst regeneration and growth areas are over represented. I’m not sure what the solution is. I agree with that as far as the underdevelopment is concerned, but being completely blindsided by overdevelopment, especially in a very urban area, does point to a council struggling to get a handle on its urban planning and economic development as all this kind of stuff should be projected and considered in the Local Plan, other strategic planning documents and planning for infrastructure improvements. I don’t know the specifics of recent housing delivery on the ground in Newcastle is it new builds on the edge of the city or apartment blocks and student housing in the city centre? Having interrogated the electorate growth assumptions from new development of one London Borough’s submission to the LGBCE I have become aware of how imprecise such projections can turn out to be. Developers will land bank and build out planning permissions when it suits them, so you can’t be sure of whether the development will be built and occupied within the 4/5year period that the LGBCE concerns itself with.
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 25, 2024 16:56:33 GMT
I agree with that as far as the underdevelopment is concerned, but being completely blindsided by overdevelopment, especially in a very urban area, does point to a council struggling to get a handle on its urban planning and economic development as all this kind of stuff should be projected and considered in the Local Plan, other strategic planning documents and planning for infrastructure improvements. I don’t know the specifics of recent housing delivery on the ground in Newcastle is it new builds on the edge of the city or apartment blocks and student housing in the city centre? Having interrogated the electorate growth assumptions from new development of one London Borough’s submission to the LGBCE I have become aware of how imprecise such projections can turn out to be. Developers will land bank and build out planning permissions when it suits them, so you can’t be sure of whether the development will be built and occupied within the 4/5year period that the LGBCE concerns itself with. If you are doing projections for the local authority as a whole, as I used to do when assessing housing need, you make an allowance for schemes which will not happen. Of course this is based on past experience, and housebuilders will accelerate or delay depending on market conditions, so it's far from an exact science. But projections for the LGBCE have to be made for individual sites, and you can't really slice this in the same way, as you've (usually) no idea which schemes won't happen, in the timescale or at all. So there's bound to be an electorate shortage in some places at the 5 year point.
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YL
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Post by YL on Jan 29, 2024 19:51:23 GMT
Barnsley plan submitted.
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YL
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Post by YL on Jan 30, 2024 17:43:21 GMT
Further draft recommendations for SurreyDraft recommendations for Gateshead
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jan 30, 2024 19:06:26 GMT
Further draft recommendations for SurreyDraft recommendations for GatesheadMost importantly, they have finally made the maps useable again.
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YL
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Post by YL on Feb 2, 2024 18:26:15 GMT
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Feb 2, 2024 18:33:30 GMT
Oh heavens, I'm all over that.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Feb 2, 2024 18:44:38 GMT
I approve of that too
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Post by John Chanin on Feb 2, 2024 19:17:21 GMT
Solihull proposals are a real improvement on present wards. I note in Walsall the LGBCE is following the Paddock ward split of the BCE. New Invention is a much better name for a ward that is not in any reasonble sense Willenhall.
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Feb 4, 2024 16:42:00 GMT
Let's note that the further draft recommendations for Lichfield are nowhere on that page, except in a very low resolution image in the press release.
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Post by gerrardwinstanley on Feb 7, 2024 11:17:13 GMT
Are there any websites, similar to boundaryassistant, that can help with redrawing local government plans?
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Post by jm on Feb 7, 2024 16:42:40 GMT
I've considered working on a local government version of the Boundary Assist tool before and went so far as to create a prototype. It's achievable, but the stumbling block is the lack of electorate data below ward level.
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Post by greatkingrat on Feb 7, 2024 17:04:43 GMT
I guess you could use the census output areas. Obviously we only have population info for them, not actual electorates, but it would give a reasonable idea.
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