Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,726
|
Post by Adrian on Jul 12, 2020 20:32:47 GMT
I'm sure the BCE will consider the mechanics of the review before they start it, especially as they are being prompted to do so by the parliamentary committee. The current boundary of this region is not helpful, and there isn't much (or any?) necessity to retain it. So far as the BCE are concerned, there is a reason for retaining it that they may well find persuasive - one way the BCE seems to keep its costs down to within its operational budget is to have just one techie in-house, and then outsource as much of its technical requirements as it can so that the sole techie can handle everything that still does have to be handled in-house (including all technical communications with their outsourcees). And just as it tends to use the Ordnance Survey for anything related to mapping or geographical information, it seems to use the ONS for statistical and data-processing requirements. And the ONS is still using these regions, one way or another, as their standard way of grouping local authorities together for regional statistics. That's probably just because the ONS has been using these regions for twenty years or so, since the last time any UK government seems to have really wanted to do enough with regional policy that it really cared about which regions the ONS should be using, and finds its work easier if it keeps using them. And I'm sure that the ONS would use different regions for a job if a client was prepared to pay them enough extra to make it worth their doing so. But I rather doubt that the BCE will be willing to spend the extra money to convince the ONS to use a bespoke classification (even if, as is likely, they would only charge an extra £50,000 or so for the customisation). Oh, and remember that those regions are probably also what the Ordnance Survey has built into its standard regional mapping layers. The BCE has been getting away with far too much for the sake of convenience. Since any Tom, Dick or Harriet can do just as well as they do simply by using a calculator, a biro and the back of a fag packet, their excuses are wearing a little thin.
|
|
|
Post by greenhert on Jul 12, 2020 22:08:24 GMT
Finally got around to a workable plan for Kent. My initial plan was stymied by the fact "Strood and Sheppey" is not possible due to there being no connection, not even a bridge, between the Isle of Grain and the Isle of Sheppey. The only useful bridges on the Isle of Sheppey cross over to Sititngbourne. This consequently means Sittingbourne & Sheppey has to remain as a constituency (albeit redrawn to put it in quota) meaning that awkward constituencies such as Chatham & Aylesford and Faversham & Mid Kent have to remain, and that recreating Rochester & Chatham is impossible. Dartford 76,166 (now coterminous with the borough in question; safe Conservative seat) Gravesham 72,423 (unchanged; safe Conservative seat) Rochester & Strood 73,321 (very safe Conservative seat; loses River ward which is in fact mostly in Chatham) Sittingbourne & Sheppey 75,171 (very safe Conservative seat) Faversham & Mid Kent 73,412 (ultra-safe Conservative seat) Gillingham & Rainham 71,644 (unchanged; very safe Conservative seat) Chatham & Aylesford 72,717 (very safe Conservative seat) Tonbridge & Malling 74,282 (ultra-safe Conservative seat) Sevenoaks 75,864 (ultra-safe Conservative seat; gains Hartley & Hodsoll Street from Dartford) Tenterden 70,522 (new seat; ultra-safe Conservative seat) Maidstone 72,451 (very safe Conservative seat) Ashford 74,923 (very safe Conservative seat) Tunbridge Wells 70,477 (very safe Conservative seat) Folkestone & Hythe 71,604 (very safe Conservative seat) Dover 71,223 (safe Conservative seat; loses Dover Downs & River to Folkestone & Hythe) Thanet South 73,093 (adjusted for new ward boundaries but otherwise unchanged; very safe Conservative seat) Thanet North 72,459 (adjusted for new ward boundaries but otherwise unchanged; ultra-safe Conservative seat) Canterbury 72,658 (marginal Labour seat).
|
|
Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 11,565
|
Post by Khunanup on Jul 13, 2020 1:13:04 GMT
I don't know whether anyone else has had an attempt at Sussex, but here's a scheme for 17 seats.
Definitely the best Sussex map on here so far.
|
|
Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,726
|
Post by Adrian on Jul 13, 2020 1:52:40 GMT
West Midlands, based on 57 seats @ 72,936
Shropshire incl. Telford 5 Herefordshire 2 Worcestershire 6 Warwickshire & Solihull 8 Coventry 3 Birmingham 10 Sandwell 3 Wolverhampton & Dudley 6 Walsall & Staffordshire incl. Stoke 14
The Shropshire seats average 75,454 so a satisfactory arrangement isn't possible without 2 split wards near Shrewsbury. By contrast the Wolves/Dudley seats average 69,986 and a split ward is required in north Dudley. The only other split ward is in Solihull.
North Birmingham is still tricky even with the new wards; putting the Aston ward in the Erdington seat seems the least worst option. Walsall is obviously a good fit for Staffordshire; there are new Aldridge-Burntwood and Lichfield-Stone seats...
|
|
|
Post by therealriga on Jul 13, 2020 9:00:39 GMT
|
|
|
Post by mattb on Jul 13, 2020 10:00:35 GMT
Thought I'd have a go at London, just for fun. Did this from scratch then looked at the previous suggestions. Perhaps not surprisingly a lot of this is similar to one or other (or both!). Looks like I have put less weight on borough boundaries. In an effort to address the Mitcham problem I have not treated Lambeth separately which no doubt rules it out in the real world - although I quite like the resulting seats, keeping Mitcham more-or-less intact and creating a proper Brixton seat. Equally I put one Enfield ward into the Barnet seat - would have been so much better if it could have been Cockfosters but it's a fraction too big. I decided Bow & Stratford works better than Poplar & Canning Town as the cross-Lea seat, especially on the Tower Hamlets side avoiding a boundary along the Mile End Road. Think my Kilburn & Queens Park seat also allows a better solution for Hammersmith and Brent.
|
|
Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 11,565
|
Post by Khunanup on Jul 13, 2020 13:47:53 GMT
Is it necessary to pair Hampshire with another county, or does it just make things more convenient for other counties?
|
|
|
Post by yellowperil on Jul 13, 2020 14:33:38 GMT
Finally got around to a workable plan for Kent. My initial plan was stymied by the fact "Strood and Sheppey" is not possible due to there being no connection, not even a bridge, between the Isle of Grain and the Isle of Sheppey. The only useful bridges on the Isle of Sheppey cross over to Sititngbourne. This consequently means Sittingbourne & Sheppey has to remain as a constituency (albeit redrawn to put it in quota) meaning that awkward constituencies such as Chatham & Aylesford and Faversham & Mid Kent have to remain, and that recreating Rochester & Chatham is impossible. Dartford 76,166 (now coterminous with the borough in question; safe Conservative seat) Gravesham 72,423 (unchanged; safe Conservative seat) Rochester & Strood 73,321 (very safe Conservative seat; loses River ward which is in fact mostly in Chatham) Sittingbourne & Sheppey 75,171 (very safe Conservative seat) Faversham & Mid Kent 73,412 (ultra-safe Conservative seat) Gillingham & Rainham 71,644 (unchanged; very safe Conservative seat) Chatham & Aylesford 72,717 (very safe Conservative seat) Tonbridge & Malling 74,282 (ultra-safe Conservative seat) Sevenoaks 75,864 (ultra-safe Conservative seat; gains Hartley & Hodsoll Street from Dartford) Tenterden 70,522 (new seat; ultra-safe Conservative seat) Maidstone 72,451 (very safe Conservative seat) Ashford 74,923 (very safe Conservative seat) Tunbridge Wells 70,477 (very safe Conservative seat) Folkestone & Hythe 71,604 (very safe Conservative seat) Dover 71,223 (safe Conservative seat; loses Dover Downs & River to Folkestone & Hythe) Thanet South 73,093 (adjusted for new ward boundaries but otherwise unchanged; very safe Conservative seat) Thanet North 72,459 (adjusted for new ward boundaries but otherwise unchanged; ultra-safe Conservative seat) Canterbury 72,658 (marginal Labour seat). Hmm... I've already made an unfavourable comment about the idea of a Tenterden constituency. Personal interest- this would become my own constituency, as you map it. Some of it is just about viable with Romney Marsh and the villages at the east end of TW borough around Cranbrook, Tenterden's main rival market town(Frittenden,Sissinghurst, Sandhurst, Hawkhurst, etc) but when it comes to the Maidstone villages they get sillier and sillier! Headcorn would have been quite reasonable(Headcorn is regarded as the station for Tenterden and there is a bus link) but that it seems stays in the mid Kent seat with Faversham, which was always ludicrous. Staplehurst is pretty nonsensical , but would have made a bit of sense had it been partnered with Headcorn. But Marden and Yalding is beyond a joke.Yalding particularly is in another universe entirely.
|
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,369
Member is Online
|
Post by YL on Jul 13, 2020 14:33:57 GMT
Is it necessary to pair Hampshire with another county, or does it just make things more convenient for other counties? Hampshire (including both Portsmouth and Southampton) has 18.40 quotas, so it should in principle be possible to give it 18 largish seats (and Surrey 12, Sussex 17, Kent 18, Berkshire 9, Bucks/Oxon 15). If Portsmouth remains treated separately then you have 16.47 quotas for 16 seats, also possible, but I think that would be quite challenging and might need split wards for a sensible solution [1], while it looks to me as if there is no way of adding a bit more territory to the Portsmouth seats barring a Portsmouth Harbour Banks effort adding bits of Gosport or making a bit of a mess of the communities immediately fringing the city to the north. [1] I actually did find a non ward splitting solution, but I don't think you would have called it sensible, and I didn't save it and am not going to try to reconstruct it now. Perhaps islington can find one?
|
|
|
Post by mattb on Jul 13, 2020 14:46:39 GMT
Is it necessary to pair Hampshire with another county, or does it just make things more convenient for other counties? On the Dec '19 numbers, I would say pretty-much Yes you have to pair. It is entitled to 18.4 seats - you can create 18 seats but obviously they need to be towards the top of the range. Both Southampton seats and both Portsmouth seats are at the bottom of the range, as is the obvious configuration for Basingstoke. I don't think you can then create the other 13 seats within quota. So unless you're going to split wards, the only option is to fiddle about to force seats to take extra electors - I did manage to come up with one scheme (below) but there are multiple uncomfortable compromises. No doubt someone could come up with something better. (incidentally this version of Aldershot is within quota by 1 ! ) But of course this will all be different when we see the final numbers anyway!
|
|
Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,726
|
Post by Adrian on Jul 13, 2020 16:40:22 GMT
SE England based on 89 seats @ 72,524
Kent 18 Sussex 17 Surrey 12 @ 70,218 Bucks 8 Hants-Berks-Oxon 34 (incl. Portsmouth 2)
I don't think it's necessary to pair Surrey. YL and Islington have both drawn reasonable plans, and I've come up with 2 or 3 of my own, albeit with one split ward in the west. The seats require some "cobbling together", but is that worse than nibbling Sussex?
My cross-border seats are Fleet-Sandhurst and Berkshire Downs.
|
|
|
Post by islington on Jul 13, 2020 16:48:48 GMT
Thought I'd have a go at London, just for fun. Did this from scratch then looked at the previous suggestions. Perhaps not surprisingly a lot of this is similar to one or other (or both!). Looks like I have put less weight on borough boundaries. In an effort to address the Mitcham problem I have not treated Lambeth separately which no doubt rules it out in the real world - although I quite like the resulting seats, keeping Mitcham more-or-less intact and creating a proper Brixton seat. Equally I put one Enfield ward into the Barnet seat - would have been so much better if it could have been Cockfosters but it's a fraction too big. I decided Bow & Stratford works better than Poplar & Canning Town as the cross-Lea seat, especially on the Tower Hamlets side avoiding a boundary along the Mile End Road. Think my Kilburn & Queens Park seat also allows a better solution for Hammersmith and Brent. Mattb -
Inspired by your vision for Barnet (and also by your greater willingness to ignore borough boundaries), I came up with the attached.
Ruislip & Pinner - 73875 I haven't checked back but I think this may be as I had it before.
Harrow N - 74068 Trading Canons for Belmont would be far better but the numbers don't work.
Harrow S - 76012 Actually more Brent than Harrow. This was tough to get below the upper limit.
Wembley & Willesden - 73622 This is actually pretty reasonable.
Hendon - 75312 All tied together by the Roman road.
Edgware - 75113 The basic idea here is not bad; it would be better still if the numbers allowed it to include Canons in exchange for Belmont.
Finchley - 73925
Hornsey - 69951 Your plan gets this seat above the lower limit by taking a Hackney ward but this would spoil my plan in that area. Instead it borrows Coppetts (i.e. the Colney Hatch area) from Barnet, offering Fortis Green in exchange. The latter actually fits quite well with a Finchley seat. (If preferred Hornsey can borrow Garden Suburb instead - the numbers work either way.)
Barnet - 75742 This is the great prize in this plan, and a huge improvement on Kevin Larkin's and my versions of the seat. As you say, it needs an Enfield ward and the best one, Cockfosters, is just too big to fit. I went for Southgate rather than Southgate Gn, basically because of the greater compactness of the following seat.
Wood Green - 70465 Getting the whole of Wood Green in one seat is another desirable feature of your plan.
Enfield - 69021 Edmonton - 75219 Tottenham - 69363
Everything else stays as per my London plan posted way upthread somewhere.
But of course it's very unlikely that any of this will survive the combination of new ward boundaries and March 2020 electorates.
Edited to add: Or, compared with the above, get rid of a boundary-crossing by rotating Kenton, Headstone N and Roxbourne. This gives
Harrow N - 73555 Harrow S - 75535
R&P - 74865
And further edited to add: In addition to the foregoing - Welsh Harp to Hendon; Mapesbury and Barnhill to Willesden (as it now becomes); Wembley C and Alperton to Harrow S & Wembley (as it now becomes).
Harrow S & Wembley - 75951 Willesden - 73977 Hendon - 74541
|
|
|
Post by greenhert on Jul 13, 2020 17:48:06 GMT
Finally got around to a workable plan for Kent. My initial plan was stymied by the fact "Strood and Sheppey" is not possible due to there being no connection, not even a bridge, between the Isle of Grain and the Isle of Sheppey. The only useful bridges on the Isle of Sheppey cross over to Sititngbourne. This consequently means Sittingbourne & Sheppey has to remain as a constituency (albeit redrawn to put it in quota) meaning that awkward constituencies such as Chatham & Aylesford and Faversham & Mid Kent have to remain, and that recreating Rochester & Chatham is impossible. Dartford 76,166 (now coterminous with the borough in question; safe Conservative seat) Gravesham 72,423 (unchanged; safe Conservative seat) Rochester & Strood 73,321 (very safe Conservative seat; loses River ward which is in fact mostly in Chatham) Sittingbourne & Sheppey 75,171 (very safe Conservative seat) Faversham & Mid Kent 73,412 (ultra-safe Conservative seat) Gillingham & Rainham 71,644 (unchanged; very safe Conservative seat) Chatham & Aylesford 72,717 (very safe Conservative seat) Tonbridge & Malling 74,282 (ultra-safe Conservative seat) Sevenoaks 75,864 (ultra-safe Conservative seat; gains Hartley & Hodsoll Street from Dartford) Tenterden 70,522 (new seat; ultra-safe Conservative seat) Maidstone 72,451 (very safe Conservative seat) Ashford 74,923 (very safe Conservative seat) Tunbridge Wells 70,477 (very safe Conservative seat) Folkestone & Hythe 71,604 (very safe Conservative seat) Dover 71,223 (safe Conservative seat; loses Dover Downs & River to Folkestone & Hythe) Thanet South 73,093 (adjusted for new ward boundaries but otherwise unchanged; very safe Conservative seat) Thanet North 72,459 (adjusted for new ward boundaries but otherwise unchanged; ultra-safe Conservative seat) Canterbury 72,658 (marginal Labour seat). Hmm... I've already made an unfavourable comment about the idea of a Tenterden constituency. Personal interest- this would become my own constituency, as you map it. Some of it is just about viable with Romney Marsh and the villages at the east end of TW borough around Cranbrook, Tenterden's main rival market town(Frittenden,Sissinghurst, Sandhurst, Hawkhurst, etc) but when it comes to the Maidstone villages they get sillier and sillier! Headcorn would have been quite reasonable(Headcorn is regarded as the station for Tenterden and there is a bus link) but that it seems stays in the mid Kent seat with Faversham, which was always ludicrous. Staplehurst is pretty nonsensical , but would have made a bit of sense had it been partnered with Headcorn. But Marden and Yalding is beyond a joke.Yalding particularly is in another universe entirely. Unfortunately, because of how oversized Ashford and Folkestone & Hythe are in electorate numbers, and that they are a prime contributor to Kent requiring an 18th constituency (their over-quota electors in total amount to almost 40% of a parliamentary constituency!), there is no way to avoid creating a Tenterden constituency especially since Canterbury needs to lose some villages in the south to be in quota, and realistically only a redrawn Ashford can add these to its constituency boundaries. However, it is possible to put Headcorn in said Tenterden constituency which would only require a small adjustment to Faversham & Mid Kent and a less drastic redrawing of Maidstone & The Weald which would simply become Maidstone. I am afraid the Faversham & Mid Kent constituency, however awkward it is (it would have been abolished under the 600 seat review) has to remain in some form for the reasons I explained at the beginning of the post about my plan for new Kentish constituencies.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 13, 2020 18:58:03 GMT
greenhert is correct that a Tenterden/Weald based seat is inevitable because this is where the growth is in the county. I don't necessarily agree with the detail though but more or less this kind of pattern is what is going to have to happen. Faversham & Mid Kent has never been an ideal seat but is arguably a lot better than the Mid Kent which preceded it and this plan avoids splitting Maidstone town in the way it has been since that seat was created Edit: I know some people worrry a bit (overmuch?) about orphan wards and multiple LAs so an alternative in East Kent would involve keeping Chartham & Stone Street in Canterbury, adding Dover Downs & River to Folkestone, adding Little Stour & Ashtone to Dover, adding Dane Valley to Thanet South and adding Sturry to Thanet North (this does actually make an orphan of Sandwich but avoids Folkestone & Hythe including two orphan wards from two different LAs)
|
|
|
Post by islington on Jul 13, 2020 19:22:28 GMT
Thought I'd have a go at London, just for fun. Did this from scratch then looked at the previous suggestions. Perhaps not surprisingly a lot of this is similar to one or other (or both!). Looks like I have put less weight on borough boundaries. In an effort to address the Mitcham problem I have not treated Lambeth separately which no doubt rules it out in the real world - although I quite like the resulting seats, keeping Mitcham more-or-less intact and creating a proper Brixton seat. Equally I put one Enfield ward into the Barnet seat - would have been so much better if it could have been Cockfosters but it's a fraction too big. I decided Bow & Stratford works better than Poplar & Canning Town as the cross-Lea seat, especially on the Tower Hamlets side avoiding a boundary along the Mile End Road. Think my Kilburn & Queens Park seat also allows a better solution for Hammersmith and Brent. Oh, and sorry to be pernickety but I suggest your E Ham and W Ham work better if you swap Boleyn and Manor Park. With that small change, I think you've sold me on the Bow-Stratford Lee crossing rather than Poplar-Canning Tn.
|
|
Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,726
|
Post by Adrian on Jul 13, 2020 19:24:42 GMT
Here's my version of East Kent. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by mattb on Jul 13, 2020 19:34:25 GMT
Thought I'd have a go at London, just for fun. Did this from scratch then looked at the previous suggestions. Perhaps not surprisingly a lot of this is similar to one or other (or both!). Looks like I have put less weight on borough boundaries. In an effort to address the Mitcham problem I have not treated Lambeth separately which no doubt rules it out in the real world - although I quite like the resulting seats, keeping Mitcham more-or-less intact and creating a proper Brixton seat. Equally I put one Enfield ward into the Barnet seat - would have been so much better if it could have been Cockfosters but it's a fraction too big. I decided Bow & Stratford works better than Poplar & Canning Town as the cross-Lea seat, especially on the Tower Hamlets side avoiding a boundary along the Mile End Road. Think my Kilburn & Queens Park seat also allows a better solution for Hammersmith and Brent. Oh, and sorry to be pernickety but I suggest your E Ham and W Ham work better if you swap Boleyn and Manor Park. With that small change, I think you've sold me on the Bow-Stratford Lee crossing rather than Poplar-Canning Tn. Completely agree - don't know how I didn't spot that - thanks!
|
|
|
Post by mattb on Jul 14, 2020 7:33:49 GMT
Is it necessary to pair Hampshire with another county, or does it just make things more convenient for other counties? At the risk of contradicting my earlier reply on this, with a bit more faffing about I have come up with a semi-plausible scheme for 18 seats in Hants. Still by no means perfect but a lot better than my previous attempt (!) and arguably no worse than what we have today.
|
|
|
Post by islington on Jul 14, 2020 8:22:15 GMT
Is it necessary to pair Hampshire with another county, or does it just make things more convenient for other counties? At the risk of contradicting my earlier reply on this, with a bit more faffing about I have come up with a semi-plausible scheme for 18 seats in Hants. Still by no means perfect but a lot better than my previous attempt (!) and arguably no worse than what we have today. Nice try.
However, I suggest that the answer to Khananup's question is yes. This is because, once you assume that Bucks (incl MK) is fine for 8 seats, you're then left with Oxon, whose entitlement of 6.67 means it needs to be partnered with Berks. The entitlement of the Berks UAs, taken together, is 8.75, which taken by itself is possible for 9 smallish seats; but add in Oxon and you have a distinctly unpromising 15.42. Adding in Hants (with So'ton but without Portsmouth) gives an altogether more satisfactory 31.88.
In tackling this unwieldy grouping I found it actually falls into several more manageable subgroups, viz:
Cherwell / W Oxon / S Oxon = 296381 = 4.08 = 4 Oxford / VoWH / Berks UAs / 3 N Hants districts = 1091925 = 15.03 = 15 Rest of Hants with So'ton but without Portsmouth and New Forest = 783543 = 10.79 = 11 (averaging only 71231 this looks like it should be tricky but it worked out surprisingly well) New Forest = 143821 = 1.98 = 2
This is dangerously addictive, isn't it?
|
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,369
Member is Online
|
Post by YL on Jul 14, 2020 8:47:52 GMT
However, I suggest that the answer to Khananup's question is yes. This is because, once you assume that Bucks (incl MK) is fine for 8 seats, you're then left with Oxon, whose entitlement of 6.67 means it needs to be partnered with Berks. The entitlement of the Berks UAs, taken together, is 8.75, which taken by itself is possible for 9 smallish seats; but add in Oxon and you have a distinctly unpromising 15.42. Adding in Hants (with So'ton but without Portsmouth) gives an altogether more satisfactory 31.88. As I said upthread, both Berks and Bucks/Oxon can be done on their own. So the SE can be done with only two (ceremonial) county border crossings, Bucks/Oxon and the two Sussexes.
|
|