Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742 
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Post by Adrian on Jul 21, 2020 13:13:37 GMT
Quite pleased with this arrangement in Berkshire:  Slough 70,091 Windsor 70,782 Maidenhead 71,058 Bracknell 71,104 Wokingham 69,496 Reading South East 68,983 Reading Central 71,902 Reading West 69,859 Newbury 72,229 I don't think there's much chance of a semi-rural Reading seat being seriously proposed or accepted. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jul 21, 2020 14:31:30 GMT
I think if you aren't crossing a county boundary, there isn't a serious alternative. The area you can recognisably call Reading (the borough; the parishes of Holybrook; Tilehurst; and Purley from West Berkshire; the parishes of Woodley; Earley; Sonning; Winnersh; and the ward of Shinfield North from Wokingham) has got 185k electors, so it needs to gain another 25k. Realistically, you can either get that from Wokingham (shedding a few outlying wards) or you can get it from rural bits of West Berkshire. And if you do the former then you get a constituency which has to stretch from Sandhurst most of the way to the Wiltshire border, which is surely much worse?
In any case, there's nothing particularly unusual about seats which are made up of parts of a town plus parts of its rural hinterland.
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Post by greenhert on Jul 21, 2020 15:26:19 GMT
In light of Ynys Mon being granted the status of a protected constituency, I have been trying to develop 31 seat plans (excluding the aforementioned Ynys Mon) for Wales on Boundary Assistant, but twice I have ended up with a plan containing only 30 constituencies (excluding Ynys Mon) despite sticking to the range of 68,983 to 76,243 for seat electorates.
I suspect Wales' seat entitlement on March 2020 electorate figures will indeed be only a total of 31 seats (30+Ynys Mon), not 32.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jul 21, 2020 15:37:35 GMT
That's because Boundary Assistant has only got the 2015 electorate figures for Wales, so the quota is lower.
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Post by greenhert on Jul 21, 2020 16:57:30 GMT
I designed them carefully so that their electorates would be within the permissible range as defined by the December 2019 electorate (i.e. 68,983 to 76,243), not the December 2015 electorate, and I still ended up with 30 seats (excluding Ynys Mon).
Hopefully the updated figures for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will be available on Boundary Assistant soon, especially given the new wards in use in Scotland.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jul 21, 2020 19:12:58 GMT
I designed them carefully so that their electorates would be within the permissible range as defined by the December 2019 electorate (i.e. 68,983 to 76,243), not the December 2015 electorate, and I still ended up with 30 seats (excluding Ynys Mon). Hopefully the updated figures for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will be available on Boundary Assistant soon, especially given the new wards in use in Scotland. The permissible range will be based off the electorate at the freeze date, not what the electorate was in 2015. So your problem is that you are working to the wrong targets. |
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
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Post by Adrian on Jul 21, 2020 20:42:18 GMT
Ah. I wondered why the Wales numbers were odd. I did manage to create 31 seats (plus Anglesey) using the data on the site.
Under the new law, will all four parts of the UK get the number of seats proportional to their electorates?
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
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Post by Adrian on Jul 21, 2020 21:09:12 GMT
Some SE seats based on Plan Builder data: Bucks: Milton Keynes N 71388 Milton Keynes S 76169 Buckingham & Bletchley 74070 Aylesbury 72683 Mid Bucks 71288 Chesham & Amersham 71541 Wycombe 75612 S Bucks 72773 Oxon: Banbury 75656 Witney 75789 Bicester 70233 Oxford E 71304 Oxford W & Abingdon 73345 Henley 74703 Oxon/Berks:
Berkshire Downs 70502 Berks: Newbury 73607 Reading W 72411 Reading E 75238 Maidenhead 72084 Slough 70800 Windsor & Eton 71749 Wokingham 73105 Bracknell 71982 Berks/Hants:
Sandhurst & Fleet 72283 Attachments:
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
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Post by Adrian on Jul 21, 2020 21:21:44 GMT
contd: Hants: Portsmouth N 70213 Portsmouth S 70098 Gosport 74104 Fareham 72869 Havant 71486 Meon Valley 69375 Eastleigh 71861 Soton Itchen 72152 Soton Test 70023 Romsey & Soton N 69725 New Forest W 70487 New Forest E 73334 Andover 69111 Winchester 75722 Basingstoke 71270 N Hants 74608 E Hants 74478 Rushmoor 70274 Hants/Berks:
Sandhurst & Fleet 72283 Attachments:
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,748
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jul 21, 2020 21:39:55 GMT
I designed them carefully so that their electorates would be within the permissible range as defined by the December 2019 electorate (i.e. 68,983 to 76,243), not the December 2015 electorate, and I still ended up with 30 seats (excluding Ynys Mon). Hopefully the updated figures for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will be available on Boundary Assistant soon, especially given the new wards in use in Scotland. The permissible range will be based off the electorate at the freeze date, not what the electorate was in 2015. So your problem is that you are working to the wrong targets. I would hope that it would be based on the electorate, not off the electorate. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Jul 21, 2020 23:09:47 GMT
I don't think the numbers work for that, unless you're willing to have Maidenhead reach into either Wokingham town or the northern parts of Bracknell. What about Maidenhead taking parts of Ascot,given most of Ascot's in the RBWM anyway. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Jul 21, 2020 23:20:18 GMT
I don't think the numbers work for that, unless you're willing to have Maidenhead reach into either Wokingham town or the northern parts of Bracknell. You can move both Shinfield wards into Wokingham, Hurst into Maidenhead, and add Sonning and Winnersh to Reading SE. I'm not sure that that's really better -- Shinfield North really looks like it belongs in Reading SE in that model -- but it does put all of Woodley parish together. Or you can just swap Shinfield South and Winnersh. As a 4th generation Redingensian, I agree that Hurst and Shinfield South have no business in a urban/suburban Reading seat like this, the former is a sleepy village separated from Reading by a large country park and which has better links to Twyford and Wokingham anyway,plus the latter actually covers the villages of Shinfield and Spencers Wood/Three Mile Cross,which are very distinct from Reading and separated by the M4 anyway. In contrast,Shinfield North is that weird part of Reading that seamlessly merges into Church ward (the Eastern part of Whitley) and is in only in Wokingham district due to historical accident and the parish structure in the area, so it should definitely be in an urban Reading-based seat. You could always split Winnersh ward on a line running down the B3030/A329 intersection anyway if the numbers required it anyway. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Jul 21, 2020 23:23:15 GMT
You can move both Shinfield wards into Wokingham, Hurst into Maidenhead, and add Sonning and Winnersh to Reading SE. I'm not sure that that's really better -- Shinfield North really looks like it belongs in Reading SE in that model -- but it does put all of Woodley parish together. Or you can just swap Shinfield South and Winnersh. Swapping Shinfield South for Winnersh is a decent shout. I'm not sure Shinfield North for Sonning is really an improvement - all of the former is within the M4 and clearly a core part of the Reading urban area, whereas the bits of Sonning ward in the Sonning parish have a much clearer separation. You're very much right. Although leaving Sonning out of Reading SE would leave a tangent of Maidenhead stretching out towards Reading, Shinfield North is definitely part of Reading,whereas Sonning is a peripheral village with a very strong and independent identity. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Jul 21, 2020 23:31:03 GMT
Quite pleased with this arrangement in Berkshire: Slough 70,091 Windsor 70,782 Maidenhead 71,058 Bracknell 71,104 Wokingham 69,496 Reading South East 68,983 Reading Central 71,902 Reading West 69,859 Newbury 72,229 I don't think there's much chance of a semi-rural Reading seat being seriously proposed or accepted. Actually,Theale and Pangbourne wards in the current Reading West are quite heavily rural itself outside the village,with the mile and a half of countryside between Pangbourne and Purley along the A329 in Pangbourne ward I believe. Theale itself is surrounded on 2 sides I believe by agricultural land owned by the Englefield estate,owned by members of the Benyon family including former Newbury MP Richard. I know this because I worked in the area for a while and was a Cadet First Aider at the Theale SJA unit. Not just this, but the official proposal by the last Boundary Commission review was to add Basildon and Bucklebury wards of West Berkshire Council from Newbury,both of which,of course,are entirely rural. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Jul 21, 2020 23:46:32 GMT
I think if you aren't crossing a county boundary, there isn't a serious alternative. The area you can recognisably call Reading (the borough; the parishes of Holybrook; Tilehurst; and Purley from West Berkshire; the parishes of Woodley; Earley; Sonning; Winnersh; and the ward of Shinfield North from Wokingham) has got 185k electors, so it needs to gain another 25k. Realistically, you can either get that from Wokingham (shedding a few outlying wards) or you can get it from rural bits of West Berkshire. And if you do the former then you get a constituency which has to stretch from Sandhurst most of the way to the Wiltshire border, which is surely much worse? In any case, there's u7⁶nothing particularly unusual about seats which are made up of parts of a town plus parts of its rural hinterland. A good point to make is 2 wards already in Reading West are pretty rural with communities that have very separate identities from Reading (Theale and Pangbourne) and it's been that way for some time. A lot of those communities like Purley,connected by urban sprawl to Reading, already have very strong links to the surrounding countryside i.e there's several stables in Purley that serve the residents of villages like Tidmarsh and Bradfield,which are remote from the suburbs on the outskirts of Reading like Calcot. I would also argue most of the wards in the current Reading West are not as tightly integrated into Reading as most wards in Reading East or,indeed,wards in the current Wokingham seat like Maiden Erlegh,where the ward and borough boundary runs through the university campus,very close to the town centre and the boundary is unnoticeable in some areas. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Jul 21, 2020 23:52:23 GMT
contd: Hants: Portsmouth N 70213 Portsmouth S 70098 Gosport 74104 Fareham 72869 Havant 71486 Meon Valley 69375 Eastleigh 71861 Soton Itchen 72152 Soton Test 70023 Romsey & Soton N 69725 New Forest W 70487 New Forest E 73334 Andover 69111 Winchester 75722 Basingstoke 71270 N Hants 74608 E Hants 74478 Rushmoor 70274 Hants/Berks:
Sandhurst & Fleet 72283 That isn't an awful plan,but there are some awkward pairings in that plan,Sandhurst and Fleet in particular. If you have to cross into Hampshire/Surrey in that area, I would think Sandhurst pairs better with Camberley and Frimley in Surrey Heath,rather than Fleet or anywhere in Hart apart from Blackwater. I would put Fleet with Farnborough, if you can make that work. |
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Post by islington on Jul 22, 2020 8:47:22 GMT
Some SE seats based on Plan Builder data: Bucks: Milton Keynes N 71388 Milton Keynes S 76169 Buckingham & Bletchley 74070 Aylesbury 72683 Mid Bucks 71288 Chesham & Amersham 71541 Wycombe 75612 S Bucks 72773 Oxon: Banbury 75656 Witney 75789 Bicester 70233 Oxford E 71304 Oxford W & Abingdon 73345 Henley 74703 Oxon/Berks:
Berkshire Downs 70502 Berks: Newbury 73607 Reading W 72411 Reading E 75238 Maidenhead 72084 Slough 70800 Windsor & Eton 71749 Wokingham 73105 Bracknell 71982 Berks/Hants:
Sandhurst & Fleet 72283 Adrian, I particularly like your idea of swapping Loudwater and Marlow between the Beaconsfield and Wycombe seats.
Further south, though, like a lot of other plans in this area, you've treated Church Crookham as if it were a separate place from Fleet whereas in fact it's simply a southward continuation of it. I'd suggest that this area be kept together if possible, which, if Sandhurst is to be thrown into the mix (as I agree it should be), implies pairings of Farnborough/Sandhurst and Aldershot/Fleet. I posted such a plan some way upthread, and since doing so I've realized that my Bracknell seat could have retained Crowthorne ward. This would have allowed the Farnborough seat to include St Mark's ward, thus putting the boundary between Farnborough and Aldershot in the proper place. (Revised numbers: Bracknell 76021; Farnborough & Sandhurst 74671; Aldershot & Fleet 69371.)
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jul 22, 2020 8:55:13 GMT
I don't think the numbers work for that, unless you're willing to have Maidenhead reach into either Wokingham town or the northern parts of Bracknell. What about Maidenhead taking parts of Ascot,given most of Ascot's in the RBWM anyway. That works for Maidenhead, but then where does the Windsor seat get its extra electors from? Slough plus the wards covering Windsor proper is 125k, so you need another 15k electors and unless you're crossing a county boundary Ascot is the only feasible option. There's also the issue that if you want to put the entirety of Ascot in with Maidenhead, you have to leave Hurley & Walthams ward out to stay within the quota, which would create an orphan ward. |
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Post by islington on Jul 22, 2020 10:19:23 GMT
What about Maidenhead taking parts of Ascot,given most of Ascot's in the RBWM anyway. That works for Maidenhead, but then where does the Windsor seat get its extra electors from? Slough plus the wards covering Windsor proper is 125k, so you need another 15k electors and unless you're crossing a county boundary Ascot is the only feasible option. There's also the issue that if you want to put the entirety of Ascot in with Maidenhead, you have to leave Hurley & Walthams ward out to stay within the quota, which would create an orphan ward. I wouldn't treat Berkshire separately because of adverse numbers elsewhere in the region; but if you were going to: -
Slough (as EAL has it above) - 70091 Windsor (existing seat gains the Cippenhams and Bray, loses all its Bracknell Forest wards) - 72458 Bracknell (existing seat gains Winkfield and Ascot (the Bracknell Forest ward) and loses its Wokingham wards) - 70749 Maidenhead (existing seat minus Bray and Hurst) - 69757
Reading E (existing seat minus Loddon) - 70322
Reading W (existing seat minus Pangbourne and Theale) - 69908
Newbury (also as per EAL) - 72229
That leaves you with a contiguous mass of wards in the middle of the county with a total of 139990 electors. You can split this area by taking the four wards of Wokingham town plus Wokingham Rural, Finchampstead N, Winnersh, Loddon, Bray and the two left-over wards of Bracknell Forest (Binfield and Warfield) for a compact Wokingham seat.
Wokingham - 69117 Mid Berks - 70873
QED
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Post by greenhert on Jul 22, 2020 16:52:51 GMT
Finally developed a North East plan with 26 seats (no split wards needed either):  1. Newcastle West & Ponteland 74,571 (succeeds Hexham in practice; safe Labour seat) 2. Berwick & Hexham 71,370 (succeeds Berwick-upon-Tweed; very safe Conservative seat) 3. Morpeth 69,845 (succeeds Wansbeck; marginal Conservative seat) 4. Blyth Valley 74,262 (ultra-marginal Labour seat) 5. Newcastle-upon-Tyne East 70,719 (ultra-safe Labour seat) 6. Newcastle-upon-Tyne North 75,616 (marginal Labour seat) 7. Tynemouth 75,923 (safe Labour seat; unchanged) 8. Wallsend & Hebburn 75,924 (succeeds North Tyneside; very safe Labour seat) 9. South Shields & Jarrow 75,752 (succeeds South Shields; safe Labour seat) 10. Sunderland North & Boldon 73,271 (succeeds Sunderland Central; semi-marginal Labour seat) 11. Washington & Sunderland West 76,032 (adds Shiney Row ward; semi-marginal Labour seat) 12. Blaydon 74,697 (adds Chowdene ward; safe Labour seat) 13. Gateshead 70,007 (safe Labour seat) 14. Houghton & Sunderland South 75,300 (marginal Labour seat) 15. Easington 71,229 (very safe Labour seat) 16. Chester-le-Street 73,521 (succeeds North Durham; marginal Labour seat) 17. Consett 70,631 (succeeds North West Durham; marginal Conservative seat) 18. Bishop Auckland 74,164 (marginal Conservative seat) 19. City of Durham 75,858 (marginal Labour seat) 20. Sedgefield & Billingham 75,753 (succeeds Sedgefield; marginal Conservative seat) 21. Darlington 72,587 (marginal Conservative seat) 22. Stockton & Thornaby 75,984 (succeeds Stockton South; marginal Conservative seat) 23. Hartlepool 73,645 (adds Coatham from Redcar & Cleveland; semi-marginal Labour seat) 24. Middlesbrough West & Yarm 74,963 (new seat; semi-marginal Labour seat) 25. Middlesbrough East 76,155 (succeeds Middlesbrough; semi-marginal Labour seat) 26. Redcar 74,540 (semi-marginal Conservative seat). Abolished: Stockton North, Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland, Jarrow, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central (-3 Lab, -1 Con) New: Middlesbrough West & Yarm (+1 Lab) Changed from Con to Lab: Blyth Valley. Changed from Lab to Con: Wansbeck [Morpeth]. Totals (notional): 17 Lab, 9 Con. |
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