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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jul 8, 2020 17:21:25 GMT
Two plans for Essex, one paying more attention to LA boundaries but with uglier seats, the other with more orphan wards but slightly neater seats: Option 1Clacton 70,872 Harwich & N Essex 72,608 Colchester 71,442 Witham 69,552 Braintree 70,100 Saffron Walden 69,016 Harlow 70,877 Epping Forest 74,752 Brentwood & Ongar 71,789 Mid Essex 69,255 Chelmsford 69,815 Maldon 70,400 Rayleigh 69,082 Rochford & Southend E 69,849 Southend W 69,009 Castle Point 69,579 Basildon & Wickford 69,573 S Basildon & E Thurrock 72,275 Thurrock 70,874 This arrangement gives 6 seats to Tendring, Colchester, Braintree and Uttlesford; one seat to Castle Point; 3 seats to Harlow, Epping Forest and Brentwood; and 9 seats to the rest. The Harlow grouping has 3.10 quotas, which makes things extra tight in the rest of the county. In the northern grouping, it makes sense to start with Colchester and then fit the other seats round it. Essentially there are 11 wards covering the town, and you need to pick two to leave out. Working on the basis that you want to pick a pair of wards, you really have 3 options: a) excise Old Heath & the Hythe, on the basis that Rowhedge is distinct from Colchester, and hence also take Berechurch b) excise Lexden & Braiswick, on the basis that West Bergholt and points westwards are distinct from Colchester, and hence also take Prettygate c) excise Mile End and Highwoods, on the basis that the railway line is a strong boundary and Ipswich Road isn't bad either. It feels wrong to me to leave the Hythe out of a seat called Colchester, so I ruled out a). I think b) is preferable to c), on the basis that I can't justify leaving out the Hospital but including areas as far afield as Aldham. That then means Prettygate and Lexden & Braiswick need to go with Harwich & N Essex. Which is awkward, I'll admit, but the A12 provides a decent link and the boundary with the Colchester seat is reasonably strong on the ground. Witham then shrinks down from 3 LAs to 2 and Braintree sees relatively little change. Saffron Walden has an orphan ward. In the western grouping, Epping Forest can remain unchanged and Harlow just needs to gain North Weald Bassett from Brentwood & Ongar. It looks ugly, but I haven't found a pretty option in this bit of the county. For the 9 seat group, I started off with Thurrock, where removing Chadwell St. Mary is really the only realistic option I can see. S Basildon & E Thurrock then needs 4 wards from Basildon town. I picked this combination because so far as I can tell it unifies the town centre in a single seat, but other options are available. Adding the rest of town to Billericay makes the seat too large given the tight quota, but Wickford works well. Chelmsford needs to lose electors somewhere, and Great Baddow is probably your best bet because it's most distinct from the town proper. You then need one rural ward. Galleywood is better than Writtle in principle, but it blocks off Billericay from Baddow, so I had to use Writtle instead. The other five seats were almost entirely dictated by the quota. The Mid Essex moniker is deliberate, because it's enough of an abomination that it really deserves the 'Mid' element. Option 2Clacton 70,872 Harwich & N Essex 72,703 Colchester 71,347 Witham 69,552 Braintree 70,100 Saffron Walden 69,016 Harlow & Epping 72,463 Epping Forest 69,456 Brentwood & Ongar 70,381 Billericay 72,000 Chelmsford 70,013 Maldon 69,293 Rayleigh 69,890 Southend E 71,969 Southend W 69,363 Castle Point 69,579 Basildon & Wickford 72,459 S Basildon & E Thurrock 69,389 Thurrock 70,874 This one uses the same grouping in the north of the county, but borrows a ward from Brentwood district for the main group to produce neater seats. In the north of the county, it's as above, although for illustrative purposes I used option c) in Colchester. Harlow grabs Epping from Epping Forest, in return for the villages to the south-west of Harlow. This lets Brentwood & Ongar grab enough territory from Epping Forest for the Billericay seat to grab Ingatestone. This allows it to form a relatively neat C round Chelmsford which isn't nice, but is less horrible than most other options. The Maldon seat can then add Great Baddow and Chelmsford no longer needs to grab Writtle. Again, in Basildon the different arrangement is just for illustrative purposes. I managed to remove the Southend orphan ward from Rayleigh, but on the down side Rochford now ends up split. Pick your poison, I guess.
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Post by johnloony on Jul 8, 2020 17:22:33 GMT
Suffolk & NorfolkOn current figures it is actually possible to do 9 seats wholly in Norfolk and 8 in Suffolk, but it's ugly, might not be possible on the actual numbers and is definitely inferior to a cross-border seat. So that means you need to decide where the cross-border seat goes. Realistically, you've got four options: around Thetford; around Diss; around Great Yarmouth; in the countryside between Diss and Great Yarmouth. I just can't see Great Yarmouth happening. Yes, it might make sense if you were starting from a blank map, but we aren't. The BCE have been very reluctant to change seats that don't need changing, nor is there likely to be any local campaign to make such a change, so I think it'll be rejected out of hand. Can anyone tell me why Newmarket is in Suffolk when it clearly should be in Cambridgeshire? No. It is physically impossible for anyone to explain why it is in Suffolk "when it clearly should be in Cambridgeshire", because there is no such thing as "it should be in Cambridgeshire". If you were to ask why it is in Suffolk when it clearly should be in Suffolk, then the answer would be that it in Suffolk because Suffolk includes the places which are in Suffolk.
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J.G.Harston
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jul 8, 2020 17:32:02 GMT
Can anyone tell me why Newmarket is in Suffolk when it clearly should be in Cambridgeshire? Tradition!
We could solve all these problems by putting Fordham & Isleham in Suffolk.
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🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jul 8, 2020 18:06:26 GMT
Can anyone tell me why Newmarket is in Suffolk when it clearly should be in Cambridgeshire? Tradition!
We could solve all these problems by putting Fordham & Isleham in Suffolk.
If we're on strange boundaries, why on earth isn't Bishop's Stortford in Essex?
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pl
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Post by pl on Jul 8, 2020 18:18:04 GMT
Tradition! We could solve all these problems by putting Fordham & Isleham in Suffolk. If we're on strange boundaries, why on earth isn't Bishop's Stortford in Essex? For lots of good reasons. It’s easiest to think of it if you remove Harlow New Town, Stansted Airport etc from the map. Stortford was the main coaching inn stop between London and Cambridge. There wasn’t much on the Essex side of the border before Chelmsford. Stortford looked more towards Hertford than anywhere in Essex. Of course, Stortford is now larger than Hertford, and Hertford looks towards Stevenage or Welwyn!
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jul 8, 2020 18:26:06 GMT
If we're on strange boundaries, why on earth isn't Bishop's Stortford in Essex? For lots of good reasons. It’s easiest to think of it if you remove Harlow New Town, Stansted Airport etc from the map. Stortford was the main coaching inn stop between London and Cambridge. There wasn’t much on the Essex side of the border before Chelmsford. Stortford looked more towards Hertford than anywhere in Essex. Of course, Stortford is now larger than Hertford, and Hertford looks towards Stevenage or Welwyn! Okay, but then why isn't Stortford's immediate hinterland on three sides in Herts? It just looks really weird.
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pl
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Post by pl on Jul 8, 2020 18:30:15 GMT
For lots of good reasons. It’s easiest to think of it if you remove Harlow New Town, Stansted Airport etc from the map. Stortford was the main coaching inn stop between London and Cambridge. There wasn’t much on the Essex side of the border before Chelmsford. Stortford looked more towards Hertford than anywhere in Essex. Of course, Stortford is now larger than Hertford, and Hertford looks towards Stevenage or Welwyn! Okay, but then why isn't Stortford's immediate hinterland on three sides in Herts? It just looks really weird. Well, the border between Herts and Essex is broadly the Rivers Stort and Lea in the vicinity of Stortford. Of course the Stort runs through Stortford, but the historic centre of the town is on the West Bank of the Stort.
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Post by John Chanin on Jul 8, 2020 19:28:45 GMT
I’m not playing on these figures, but waiting for the operational ones, but I am reading your suggestions. If we want to actually have an influence rather than designing pretty arrangements, we will have to follow islington and pay close attention to what the Boundary Commission actually does. (a) keeping seats as close as possible to existing (and not changing those in quota) - not “breaking existing ties” (b) not having more than 2 local authorities (of course there are exceptions like Arundel & South Downs) (c) avoiding orphan wards (d) avoiding split wards except in extremis bcd are justified under “having regard to local authority boundaries” although they are all pretty dubious. The point is that you have to justify any breaches of them by showing that your solution has more regard to local authority boundaries. A mistake I have made in the past by not clearly addressing this point. As islington has pointed out on the zombie reviews they did a lot of splicing with neighbouring districts where there were large urban wards, and this really isn’t having regard to local authority boundaries, and will need concentrated attack if they try it again. This is really the only area where we are likely to succeed with ward splits. Of course the new rules have changed the game by exalting the + 5% over the previous understanding of the legislation, which of course was itself greatly informed by the main party consensus on how the rules should be interpreted. However it has to be understood that the Boundary Commission is not trying to produce the logically best map in community terms, but rather following its interpretation of the rules as given above. Nonetheless it does give us the opportunity of trying to improve the map because of the constraints it imposes. So for example a sensible seat based on Felixstowe and east Ipswich will go nowhere. It’s not even worth suggesting it. Once a crappy seat like Central Suffolk and North Ipswich exists, it is very difficult to get rid of it.
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Post by greenhert on Jul 8, 2020 19:48:23 GMT
Plan for South London (Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Wandsworth, Greenwich, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Merton, Sutton, and Kingston-upon-Thames): Lewisham Deptford ~71,100 (ultra-safe Labour seat; takes in most of Rushey Green ward) Lewisham South ~70,000 (ultra-safe Labour seat; succeeds Lewisham West & Penge) Lewisham East & Greenwich 75,035 (new seat; ultra-safe Labour seat) Eltham 71,064 (semi-marginal Labour seat) Woolwich & Thamesmead 69,039 (very safe Labour seat; succeeds Erith & Thamesmead) Erith & Crayford ~70,000 (semi-marginal Conservative seat; succeeds Bexleyheath & Crayford; takes in part of Bexleyheath ward) Bexleyheath ~70,400 (ultra-safe Conservative seat; succeeds Old Bexley & Sidcup) Bromley, Chislehurst & Sidcup 72,130 (very safe Conservative seat; succeeds Bromley & Chislehurst) Orpington ~72,800 (ultra-safe Conservative seat; takes in part of Bromley Common & Keston) Beckenham ~74,500 (very safe Conservative seat) Croydon North & Penge 69,726 (ultra-safe Labour seat; new seat) Croydon South 73,164 (very safe Conservative seat) Croydon East 72,568 (marginal Labour seat; succeeds Croydon Central) Croydon West 70,588 (succeeds Croydon North; very safe Labour seat) Wimbledon & New Malden 71,734 (succeeds Wimbledon; marginal Liberal Democrat seat) Kingston & Surbiton 74,315 (semi-marginal Liberal Democrat seat) Mitcham & Morden 75,521 (very safe Labour seat) Battersea 72,115 (unchanged; marginal Labour seat) Putney 71,955 (marginal Labour seat) Tooting 73,961 (safe Labour seat) Vauxhall 74,601 (ultra-safe Labour seat) Streatham & Clapham 70,279 (succeeds Streatham; very safe Labour seat) Brixton 75,348 (new seat; ultra-safe Labour seat) Bermondsey & Old Southwark 71,031 (safe Labour seat) Camberwell & Peckham 69,473 (ultra-safe Labour seat) Dulwich 69,067 (very safe Labour seat; succeeds Dulwich & West Norwood) Sutton & Cheam 71,136 (unchanged; safe Conservative seat) Carshalton & Wallington 72,579 (unchanged; marginal Conservative seat) Lewisham East effectively disappears as does Greenwich & Woolwich.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 8, 2020 22:00:34 GMT
Plan for South London (Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Wandsworth, Greenwich, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Merton, Sutton, and Kingston-upon-Thames): View AttachmentLewisham Deptford ~71,100 (ultra-safe Labour seat; takes in most of Rushey Green ward) Lewisham South ~70,000 (ultra-safe Labour seat; succeeds Lewisham West & Penge) Lewisham East & Greenwich 75,035 (new seat; ultra-safe Labour seat) Eltham 71,064 (semi-marginal Labour seat) Woolwich & Thamesmead 69,039 (very safe Labour seat; succeeds Erith & Thamesmead) Erith & Crayford ~70,000 (semi-marginal Conservative seat; succeeds Bexleyheath & Crayford; takes in part of Bexleyheath ward) Bexleyheath ~70,400 (ultra-safe Conservative seat; succeeds Old Bexley & Sidcup) Bromley, Chislehurst & Sidcup 72,130 (very safe Conservative seat; succeeds Bromley & Chislehurst) Orpington ~72,800 (ultra-safe Conservative seat; takes in part of Bromley Common & Keston) Beckenham ~74,500 (very safe Conservative seat) Croydon North & Penge 69,726 (ultra-safe Labour seat; new seat) Croydon South 73,164 (very safe Conservative seat) Croydon East 72,568 (marginal Labour seat; succeeds Croydon Central) Croydon West 70,588 (succeeds Croydon North; very safe Labour seat) Wimbledon & New Malden 71,734 (succeeds Wimbledon; marginal Liberal Democrat seat) Kingston & Surbiton 74,315 (semi-marginal Liberal Democrat seat) Mitcham & Morden 75,521 (very safe Labour seat) Battersea 72,115 (unchanged; marginal Labour seat) Putney 71,955 (marginal Labour seat) Tooting 73,961 (safe Labour seat) Vauxhall 74,601 (ultra-safe Labour seat) Streatham & Clapham 70,279 (succeeds Streatham; very safe Labour seat) Brixton 75,348 (new seat; ultra-safe Labour seat) Bermondsey & Old Southwark 71,031 (safe Labour seat) Camberwell & Peckham 69,473 (ultra-safe Labour seat) Dulwich 69,067 (very safe Labour seat; succeeds Dulwich & West Norwood) Sutton & Cheam 71,136 (unchanged; safe Conservative seat) Carshalton & Wallington 72,579 (unchanged; marginal Conservative seat) Lewisham East effectively disappears as does Greenwich & Woolwich. That's a pretty decent plan apart from the mess around Mitcham - is there no way to avoid that?
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Post by greenhert on Jul 8, 2020 22:19:44 GMT
Sadly, no, for the following reasons:
1. Wimbledon is too small and needs to expand somewhere, and the Richmond & Kingston pairing is no longer possible due to all three seats being over the allowed electorate limit. Hence why it acquires New Malden so that Kingston & Surbiton can be redrawn to be in quota. 2. Putney needs to gain a ward in regards to Wandsworth's parliamentary constituencies which inevitably pushes Tooting to acquire two Merton wards to be in quota. This has a significant knock on effect of Mitcham & Morden, which needs to expand west to take in the Lower Morden part of the current Wimbledon constituency. 3. Croydon is too large for 3 seats but not large enough for 4. Adding Penge to a large part of Croydon North was not enough for the new Croydon West to be in quota even after shrinking Croydon South and redrawing Croydon Central to become Croydon East, hence why Croydon West contained Longthornton ward from Merton.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jul 8, 2020 22:46:28 GMT
You have given yourself a major problem in Richmond - you realise that? Richmond isn't big enough but you've allocated the Coombe and north Kingston wards to other seats.
There is a case for a cross-border Kingston-Merton seat but the ties tend to be between New Malden, West Barnes and Raynes Park (and a seat created around there might be a very interesting three way marginal).
Crossing the Merton-Wandsworth border isn't unreasonable but needs to be done with care. May actually be easier in the Durnsford Road area which links with Wandsworth both to the east and north.
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Post by Peter Wilkinson on Jul 9, 2020 0:01:40 GMT
I’m not playing on these figures, but waiting for the operational ones, but I am reading your suggestions. If we want to actually have an influence rather than designing pretty arrangements, we will have to follow islington and pay close attention to what the Boundary Commission actually does. (a) keeping seats as close as possible to existing (and not changing those in quota) - not “breaking existing ties” (b) not having more than 2 local authorities (of course there are exceptions like Arundel & South Downs) (c) avoiding orphan wards (d) avoiding split wards except in extremis bcd are justified under “having regard to local authority boundaries” although they are all pretty dubious. The point is that you have to justify any breaches of them by showing that your solution has more regard to local authority boundaries. A mistake I have made in the past by not clearly addressing this point. As islington has pointed out on the zombie reviews they did a lot of splicing with neighbouring districts where there were large urban wards, and this really isn’t having regard to local authority boundaries, and will need concentrated attack if they try it again. This is really the only area where we are likely to succeed with ward splits. Of course the new rules have changed the game by exalting the + 5% over the previous understanding of the legislation, which of course was itself greatly informed by the main party consensus on how the rules should be interpreted. However it has to be understood that the Boundary Commission is not trying to produce the logically best map in community terms, but rather following its interpretation of the rules as given above. Nonetheless it does give us the opportunity of trying to improve the map because of the constraints it imposes. So for example a sensible seat based on Felixstowe and east Ipswich will go nowhere. It’s not even worth suggesting it. Once a crappy seat like Central Suffolk and North Ipswich exists, it is very difficult to get rid of it. If I have correctly read this Boundary Commission for England submission in connection with the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill, it is effectively a declaration that, unless local authorities are legally mandated to provide the BCE and its contractors with full polling district information and the BCE is given the extra resources it reckons it would need to use this information, the BCE intends to effectively completely rule out splitting any ward whatever in the forthcoming review - the only legal circumstance that, so far as I can make out, would force it to do so would be if it were otherwise mathematically impossible to create a full set of English constituencies without breaking the 5% rule (and note that the principles against creating constituencies with wards that are non-contiguous, or even - not that this would be needed - in totally different regions have only the force of guidance, not of mandate). I note that the submission explicitly rules out taking any notice, for instance, of census output areas on the grounds that output area boundaries do not agree with ward boundaries and of parish boundaries on the grounds that parishes do not exist throughout England. An interesting point about these exclusions is that if, as is the apparent intention, new ward boundaries that have been fully approved but are not as yet in use should be taken account of when determining new constituency boundaries, then this will also rule out using polling district boundaries - the old polling district boundaries will not in general agree with the new ward boundaries, and London boroughs, for example, are highly unlikely under current circumstances (unless legally forced) to treat the determination of new polling districts as any kind of priority before autumn 2021, seeing that the first elections using them will be in May 2022 (and are even less likely to prioritise the calculation of the electorate data that would have applied to them had they been in use in March 2020). Thus in practice, like parishes, polling districts for the new wards will not (yet) exist throughout England at the time that the BCE will require them for its work (particularly given the foreshortened timetable for this review).
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Post by John Chanin on Jul 9, 2020 6:55:26 GMT
I’m not playing on these figures, but waiting for the operational ones, but I am reading your suggestions. If we want to actually have an influence rather than designing pretty arrangements, we will have to follow islington and pay close attention to what the Boundary Commission actually does. (a) keeping seats as close as possible to existing (and not changing those in quota) - not “breaking existing ties” (b) not having more than 2 local authorities (of course there are exceptions like Arundel & South Downs) (c) avoiding orphan wards (d) avoiding split wards except in extremis bcd are justified under “having regard to local authority boundaries” although they are all pretty dubious. The point is that you have to justify any breaches of them by showing that your solution has more regard to local authority boundaries. A mistake I have made in the past by not clearly addressing this point. As islington has pointed out on the zombie reviews they did a lot of splicing with neighbouring districts where there were large urban wards, and this really isn’t having regard to local authority boundaries, and will need concentrated attack if they try it again. This is really the only area where we are likely to succeed with ward splits. Of course the new rules have changed the game by exalting the + 5% over the previous understanding of the legislation, which of course was itself greatly informed by the main party consensus on how the rules should be interpreted. However it has to be understood that the Boundary Commission is not trying to produce the logically best map in community terms, but rather following its interpretation of the rules as given above. Nonetheless it does give us the opportunity of trying to improve the map because of the constraints it imposes. So for example a sensible seat based on Felixstowe and east Ipswich will go nowhere. It’s not even worth suggesting it. Once a crappy seat like Central Suffolk and North Ipswich exists, it is very difficult to get rid of it. If I have correctly read this Boundary Commission for England submission in connection with the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill, it is effectively a declaration that, unless local authorities are legally mandated to provide the BCE and its contractors with full polling district information and the BCE is given the extra resources it reckons it would need to use this information, the BCE intends to effectively completely rule out splitting any ward whatever in the forthcoming review - the only legal circumstance that, so far as I can make out, would force it to do so would be if it were otherwise mathematically impossible to create a full set of English constituencies without breaking the 5% rule (and note that the principles against creating constituencies with wards that are non-contiguous, or even - not that this would be needed - in totally different regions have only the force of guidance, not of mandate). I note that the submission explicitly rules out taking any notice, for instance, of census output areas on the grounds that output area boundaries do not agree with ward boundaries and of parish boundaries on the grounds that parishes do not exist throughout England. An interesting point about these exclusions is that if, as is the apparent intention, new ward boundaries that have been fully approved but are not as yet in use should be taken account of when determining new constituency boundaries, then this will also rule out using polling district boundaries - the old polling district boundaries will not in general agree with the new ward boundaries, and London boroughs, for example, are highly unlikely under current circumstances (unless legally forced) to treat the determination of new polling districts as any kind of priority before autumn 2021, seeing that the first elections using them will be in May 2022 (and are even less likely to prioritise the calculation of the electorate data that would have applied to them had they been in use in March 2020). Thus in practice, like parishes, polling districts for the new wards will not (yet) exist throughout England at the time that the BCE will require them for its work (particularly given the foreshortened timetable for this review). Yes I commented about the BCE evidence on the bill thread. However this is a statement of intent and a bid for resources rather than a fixed statement of what will actually happen. It is in my view unlikely that ward splits will be ruled out entirely, as you suggest, but they will be few and far between, as they were last time (5 I think, 2 in the Black Country), and will need strong justification. However there will be pressure and not just from us - I also pointed to the Conservative party evidence, which was explicit on this point (and they are the government after all). The Boundary Commissions are bound by legislation, and take account of proceedings in parliament as to its intent. There is nothing in legislation requiring it to do anything other than have regard to local authority boundaries, and the breaking of existing ties, except for the statement that within this framework they should seek to preserve communities. A number of people on this board have therefore expressed the hope that there will be clear statements in parliament that a close attention to existing legislation will require ward splits where necessary. The BCE will then just have to lump it.
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YL
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Post by YL on Jul 9, 2020 7:56:54 GMT
Yes I commented about the BCE evidence on the bill thread. However this is a statement of intent and a bid for resources rather than a fixed statement of what will actually happen. It is in my view unlikely that ward splits will be ruled out entirely, as you suggest, but they will be few and far between, as they were last time (5 I think, 2 in the Black Country), and will need strong justification. However there will be pressure and not just from us - I also pointed to the Conservative party evidence, which was explicit on this point (and they are the government after all). The Boundary Commissions are bound by legislation, and take account of proceedings in parliament as to its intent. There is nothing in legislation requiring it to do anything other than have regard to local authority boundaries, and the breaking of existing ties, except for the statement that within this framework they should seek to preserve communities. A number of people on this board have therefore expressed the hope that there will be clear statements in parliament that a close attention to existing legislation will require ward splits where necessary. The BCE will then just have to lump it. I think they will be prepared to split the odd ward, but probably only in areas which are otherwise very difficult, i.e. more or less the same policy as in the second zombie review. I've now looked at most of England using the electorates currently on Boundary Assistant. My feeling is that on those numbers there is no very strong case for split wards in the South West, the South East, the East, the East Midlands or the North East, and that somewhat surprisingly the only strong case in the West Midlands is in Wolverhampton, where I ended up with an ugly map with a double crossing of the Walsall border. (There may be places in those regions where I haven't spotted a major issue.) That leaves London, the North West and Yorkshire. I don't tend to say much about London, because I don't think I have a good feel for how the suburbs fit together, but my experiments (posted yesterday) did get into trouble with ward sizes in some boroughs, most obviously in the Barnet/Brent area. In the NW, it would clearly make it easier to respect the borough boundaries in Greater Manchester if the odd ward were split, and splitting a ward on the Wirral might help with things there and allow at least a possibility of not splitting Ellesmere Port. The strongest case IMO is in Leeds, where it seems otherwise impossible not to have constituencies stretching from the city proper out into the North Yorkshire countryside, and there is also a case elsewhere in West Yorkshire, in Sheffield (though things are easier here than they were for 600 seats) and perhaps in the East Riding. The details will probably change a little with the actual electorate figures, but I wouldn't expect the broad picture of how widespread I think the problem is to change. It's possible the wards (the former county divisions) for the new Buckinghamshire unitary will cause problems. BTW there were 10 split wards in the second zombie review's final recommendations (see the paper on split wards on the Commission website): Barnet: Oakleigh South Tyneside: Bede Brighton & Hove: Queen's Park Tewkesbury: Coombe Hill Sandwell: Greets Green & Lyng, St Pauls Dudley: Brierley Hill Sheffield: Burngreave, Central, Crookes I thought it was very odd that they didn't split wards in Birmingham but then did so in Sandwell to try to deal with the knock on effects of their Birmingham proposals. Also I think they could have achieved their aims in Sheffield with only two splits.
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Post by greenhert on Jul 9, 2020 9:58:34 GMT
You have given yourself a major problem in Richmond - you realise that? Richmond isn't big enough but you've allocated the Coombe and north Kingston wards to other seats. There is a case for a cross-border Kingston-Merton seat but the ties tend to be between New Malden, West Barnes and Raynes Park (and a seat created around there might be a very interesting three way marginal). Crossing the Merton-Wandsworth border isn't unreasonable but needs to be done with care. May actually be easier in the Durnsford Road area which links with Wandsworth both to the east and north. I have; my intention is to pair Richmond upon Thames with Hounslow. Other Greater London plans will be released shortly.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jul 9, 2020 10:07:05 GMT
I see you like pitchforks.
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Post by islington on Jul 9, 2020 10:45:46 GMT
Sadly, no, for the following reasons: 1. Wimbledon is too small and needs to expand somewhere, and the Richmond & Kingston pairing is no longer possible due to all three seats being over the allowed electorate limit. Hence why it acquires New Malden so that Kingston & Surbiton can be redrawn to be in quota. 2. Putney needs to gain a ward in regards to Wandsworth's parliamentary constituencies which inevitably pushes Tooting to acquire two Merton wards to be in quota. This has a significant knock on effect of Mitcham & Morden, which needs to expand west to take in the Lower Morden part of the current Wimbledon constituency. 3. Croydon is too large for 3 seats but not large enough for 4. Adding Penge to a large part of Croydon North was not enough for the new Croydon West to be in quota even after shrinking Croydon South and redrawing Croydon Central to become Croydon East, hence why Croydon West contained Longthornton ward from Merton. On point 2 -
This isn't inevitable. On your current plan, if you rotate Fairfield, Wandsworth Common and Earlsfield wards, then only one Merton ward (Colliers Wood) is needed to get Tooting within range. This frees up an extra Merton ward (Pollards Hill) to be treated with Croydon, which in turn means it's then possible to assign 7 seats, with no ward splits, to Bromley + Croydon + the two Merton wards.
But you're right that if London is going to get 75 seats then it's almost unavoidable that one of them will have to cross the Thames. If, when we get the March 2020 numbers, London winds up with 74 or 76, then it's likelier that a cross-Thames seat can be avoided.
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Post by greenhert on Jul 9, 2020 12:37:17 GMT
West & Central London plan (City of London, City of Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing, Hillingdon, Richmond-upon-Thames, and Hounslow): Richmond & Chiswick 74,443 (marginal Liberal Democrat seat; succeeds Richmond Park) Twickenham 75,039 (safe Liberal Democrat seat; Heathfield ward had to be moved in with Feltham to keep it in quota) Feltham 70,991 (very safe Labour seat; succeeds Feltham & Heston) Heston & Isleworth 76,193 (safe Labour seat; succeeds Brentford & Isleworth) City of London, Westminster, and St Marylebone 69,147 (semi-marginal Conservative seat; succeeds Cities of London & Westminster) Paddington & Kensington North 71,181 (very safe Labour seat; succeeds Westminster North; Abbey Road ward is in St Marylebone but it had to be moved there to avoid this seat taking in any part of Hammersmith) Chelsea & Kensington South 72,099 (very safe Conservative seat; succeeds Kensington) Fulham & Barons Court 71,054 (marginal Conservative seat; succeeds Chelsea & Fulham) Hammersmith & Acton 73,298 (safe Labour seat; succeeds Hammersmith; does not include South Acton due to quota requirements) Ruislip-Northwood 72,992 (very safe Conservative seat; succeeds Ruislip, Northwood & Pinner) Uxbridge & Heathrow 76,223 (marginal Conservative seat; succeeds Uxbridge & South Ruislip) Southall & Hayes 72,291 (ultra-safe Labour seat; succeeds Ealing Southall) Greenford & Northolt 72,565 (very safe Labour seat; succeeds Ealing North) Ealing Central 69,984 (safe Labour seat; succeeds Ealing Central & Acton). Hayes & Harlington disappears as it does not form the largest part of either Southall & Hayes or Uxbridge & Heathrow.
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Post by greenhert on Jul 9, 2020 13:12:15 GMT
Camden and Old North Middlesex plan (Camden, Barnet, Enfield, Haringey, Brent, and Harrow): Holborn & St Pancras 73,470 (ultra-safe Labour seat; loses Highgate ward) Hampstead & Highgate 69,630 (marginal Labour seat; succeeds Hampstead & Kilburn; similar to 1983-97 version of Hampstead & Highgate but with Garden Suburb ward from Barnet added for quota requirements) Hendon 75,198 (semi-marginal Conservative seat) Finchley ~69,200 (semi-marginal Conservative seat; succeeds Finchley & Golders Green, loses part of Mill Hill ward to redrawn Chipping Barnet) Chipping Barnet ~73,000 (marginal Labour seat) Hornsey ~71,300 (safe Labour seat; succeeds Hornsey & Wood Green, takes in part of Noel Park ward) Tottenham 69,363 (ultra-safe Labour seat; loses Harringay ward) Southgate & Wood Green ~76,000 (safe Labour seat; succeeds Enfield Southgate) Enfield North 69,259 (semi-marginal Labour seat; loses Southbury, gains Cockfosters) Edmonton 75,408 (ultra-safe Labour seat; gains Southbury) Willesden 71,972 (ultra-safe Labour seat; succeeds Brent Central) Wembley & Harrow South 71,464 (new seat; very safe Labour seat) Harrow West 70,982 (ultra-marginal Labour seat) Harrow East 71,274 (semi-marginal Conservative seat; unchanged) Kingsbury 69,121 (marginal Labour seat; succeeds Brent North).
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