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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 4, 2020 22:46:25 GMT
What's wrong with the Llanelli constituency? I'd have thought the obvious thing to do with Carmarthenshire would be to revert to the pre-1997 set up, with Llanelli extending to Ammanford and a massive Carmarthen constituency covering the rest of the county. Splitting Ammanford from Llandeilo – the current Carmarthen East and Dinefwr is relatively nice on the ground, even if it's undersized. It makes more sense to keep rotating and put more places that look to both Llanelli and Carmarthen with Carmarthen rather than Llanelli. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 4, 2020 22:47:38 GMT
Because of special geographical issues Powys and Ynys Mon should be exempt from being combined with any other Welsh region (not an issue with the other Welsh regions but an issue for Powys because of its low population density and poor transport links), meaning Ynys Mon can remain separate and Powys can keep its two current seats. There are two bridges between Anglesey and the mainland, carrying two roads and a rail link. Combining Anglesey with the Bangor area would be entirely reasonable. It's scarcely Orkney, Shetland or the Western Isles ! Of course the elephant in the room is that Bangor is pretty much the most hopeless place in Wales from a partisan Conservative perspective. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 4, 2020 23:15:16 GMT
If you wanted to avoid Powys + Mid Glamorgan, and also leave Dyfed alone (and Powys + Dyfed doesn't work with a 5% tolerance), a better solution might be a Powys-Gwent seat (ie Brecon & Monmouth) and another crossing Gwent-Mid Glamorgan. It's the knock-on consequences of Powys + Mid Glam that are horrible (although Merthyr and Aberdare are both too large to add northwards). It ends up with weird things like trying to bisect the Rhondda. Gwent works quite nicely on its own. Monmouthshire and Torfaen are both within quota, then Blaenau Gwent can just add enough of Caerphilly down to Bargoed and Argoed communities. Then Caerphilly can take a chunk of Islwyn, and Newport East and West can shift slightly westwards (so that Risca and Abercarn end up in West). So I'd be inclined to look at a West Glam/Brecknockshire constituency. Mid Glam isn't too bad on these numbers: 1) Merthyr takes the Cynon Valley down to Cwmbach/Aberaman 2) Pontypridd needs to extend up to Mountain Ash; it can also take all of Pontyclun, Talbot Green, and Llanharry (but sadly not Llanharan), so long as it loses Tonyrefail 3) Rhondda takes Tonyrefail from Pontypridd and Gilfach Goch and the Ogmore and Garw Valleys from Ogmore 4) Bridgend takes Llanharan and Pencoed from Ogmore, and loses Pyle 5) Aberavon takes Pyle from Bridgend and the leftover bits of Ogmore (Greater Maesteg :-P), but needs to lose Briton Ferry and Coedffranc (presumably to Neath, although the latter might go into Swansea East) Not sure what the constituency going into Brecknockshire would look like though... |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 5, 2020 23:39:54 GMT
Here's a first go at Wales, using Electoral Calculus' estimates of ward electorates:  It's full of obvious nasties (mainly due to running rather too close to the lower bound of 69,698), but here are the numbers: Gwynedd/ClwydMenai: 70,655 (0.96) Gwynedd: 74,189 (1.01) Conwy: 73,642 (1.00) West Flintshire: 76,408 (1.04) East Flintshire: 76,007 (1.04) Wrexham: 72,463 (0.99) Denbigh: 75,191 (1.02) DyfedCeredigion and North Pembrokeshire: 76,079 (1.04) Pembroke: 74,506 (1.02) Carmarthen: 71,158 (0.97) Llanelli: 70,648 (0.96) [couldn't get my Shirgarmander to work without crossing into West Glam, which really does not help on 32; but at least this gets up as far as Llandybïe] Powys/West Glam/Mid GlamMontgomeryshire and Radnorshire: 69,725 (0.95) [possibly the constituency I'm happiest with] Neath and Brecon: 74,582 (1.02) [actually really like this – it feels sensible – despite not having been able to get Briton Ferry and Coedffranc back] Gower: 73,602 (1.00) [loses Clydach and Mawr, but comes in as far as Sketty; glad to get the Mayals ward into this and reunite the Mumbles] Swansea North: 71,415 (0.97) Swansea South: 70,687 (0.96) [this is where we run into the real nasties of Swansea + Pontardawe + Coedffranc + Briton Ferry still being too small for three constituencies – we need Baglan and (ouch!) Sandfields West here] Aberavon: 69,889 (0.95) [some desperately nasty boundaries to get this over the lower bound] Bridgend: 72,225 (0.98) Rhondda: 72,540 (0.99) Pontypridd: 71,201 (0.97) Merthyr Tydfil: 69,705 (0.95) South GlamVale of Glamorgan: 70,366 (0.96) [needed to shed Dinas Powys to make Cardiff work] Cardiff South and Penarth: 71,553 (0.98) [adding Dinas Powys necessitated a nearly completely different selection of over-large Cardiff wards] Cardiff North West: 69,787 (0.95) [and rotate...] Cardiff North East: 69,915 (0.95) Cardiff Central: 74,709 (1.02) [spot the ugly Llandaff North protrusion to get the numbers to work] GwentBlaenau Gwent: 73,738 (1.01) Torfaen: 69,735 (0.95) [coterminous with local authority] Monmouth: 72,285 (0.99) [coterminous with local authority] Caerphilly: 73,174 (1.00) Newport West: 73,157 (1.00) Newport East: 73,586 (1.00) [slightly weird taking Pill and Shaftesbury, but not Stow Hill, but it makes the numbers work!] |
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Post by andrewteale on Jan 6, 2020 23:14:26 GMT
Full regional figures: Total 47,562,702 Scotland 4,053,056 (including 55317 in the two island constituencies) Wales 2,319,826 N Ireland 1,293,971 England 39,895,849 (including Isle of Wight 113,021 ) East 4,495,896 E Mids 3,481,371 London 5,581,948 NE 1,946,969 NW 5,369,541 SE 6,628,249 (including Isle of Wight 113,021 ) SW 4,239,783 W Mids 4,194,011 Yorks+H 3,958,085 Orkney and Shetland, Western Isles, Isle of Wight total 168,338 If we kept 650 seats with four for the islands, that would give (England and Scotland excluding island seats): England 542 (+10) Scotland 54 (-3) Wales 32 (-8) Northern Ireland 18 (no change) Islands 4 (+1) For the English regions I make it East 61 (+3) E Mids 47 (+1) London 76 (+3) N East 27 (-2) N West 73 (-2) S East 89 (+6) excluding the Isle of Wight S West 58 (+3) W Mids 57 (-2) Yorks+H 54 (nc) The North West on these figures is looking messy. The entitlements are: Cumbria 5.37 (currently 6) Lancashire 15.12 (currently 16) Sefton 2.96 (currently 3) Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens 8.00 (currently 8) Wirral 3.31 (currently 4) Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Halton 9.12 (currently 9) Warrington 2.16 (currently 2) Bolton and Wigan 5.96 (currently 6) Bury 1.96 (currently 2) Rochdale 2.17 (currently 2) Manchester, Salford and Trafford 9.51 (currently 9) Oldham, Tameside and Stockport 7.57 (currently 8) The Wirral cannot stand alone and would need to be combined with the two Cheshires and Halton for 12.43. It's obvious to add Warrington to this group to give 14.59, which rounds up to 15 seats as at present. Greater Manchester (27) and Lancastrian Merseyside (11) have the same total seat allocations as now, but Rochdale cannot stand alone and would need to be combined with Bury for 4.13 and an allocation of 4 seats. The two large groups in southern Greater Manchester can be combined for 17.08 and an allocation of 17 seats. Now here's the problem. Cumbria cannot stand alone and would need to be combined with Lancashire for 20.49, which is over the harmonic mean and could be rounded up to 21 seats. However, 15 for Cheshire and the Wirral, 11 for Lancastrian Merseyside, 27 for Greater Manchester and 21 for Cumbria + Lancashire adds up to 74 which is one more than the seat allocation. To get down to 73 seats you either have to round Cumbria and Lancashire down to 20, or have everything outside Lancastrian Merseyside as one giant big review area for 62 seats. It'll be messy. |
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Post by andrewteale on Jan 6, 2020 23:23:59 GMT
Turning to individual seats.
Sefton: All three present seats are within tolerance.
Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens: Knowsley, Riverside and St Helens South are too large, Walton, Wavertree and West Derby are too small.
Cheshire and the Wirral: All four Wirral seats and Tatton are too small. Congleton, Crewe and Warrington South are too large.
Bolton and Wigan: Bolton North East and Bolton South East are too small, Leigh is too large.
Bury and Rochdale: The two Rochdale seats are too large, Bury North is too small.
Rest of Greater Manchester: Manchester Central and Salford are too large, Ashton-under-Lyne, Denton, Hazel Grove and Stockport are too small.
Cumbria and Lancashire: All the Cumbria seats except Barrow are too small. In Lancashire, the two Blackpool seats, Burnley, Fylde, Morecambe, Pendle and Preston are too small, while Chorley and Ribble Valley are too large.
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 7, 2020 15:44:27 GMT
Looks like it will be difficult to draw three within-quota Wirral constituencies without some ward splitting.
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Post by therealriga on Jan 7, 2020 16:21:18 GMT
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 7, 2020 17:27:03 GMT
I don't know whether he's trying to be provocative suggesting putting Banbridge into South Down. It would be much more sensible to put Portadown into Armagh, Newry into South Down, and so on. |
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Post by therealriga on Jan 8, 2020 11:16:00 GMT
I don't know whether he's trying to be provocative suggesting putting Banbridge into South Down. It would be much more sensible to put Portadown into Armagh, Newry into South Down, and so on. Moving Banbridge is probably less provocative than moving Portadown and Newry. The former moves one of the larger urban areas, the latter moves two. The Banbridge option produces constituencies closer to the quota whereas the Portadown one leaves Newry&Armagh close to the upper quota. Under the new rules, being close to the quota is no longer a requirement, so it doesn't matter whether a constituency is within 0.5% of the quota or 4.8% and future population changes were never a factor, but it's still probably best to leave some wiggle room for a future commission. Most importantly, N. Whyte's suggestion is removing mainly unionist Banbridge from Upper Bann, but compensating with solidly unionist wards near Armagh. Your Portadown option removes solidly unionist wards from Upper Bann without compensation. Unionists would still be too far behind in a revised "South Armagh" constituency containing Portadown, but the removal of the latter would tilt Upper Bann much closer to nationalists and would therefore be fiercely opposed by unionists in a way that the Banbridge option wouldn't be. |
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Post by andrewteale on Jan 11, 2020 21:56:11 GMT
Looks like it will be difficult to draw three within-quota Wirral constituencies without some ward splitting. I concur. I have however found a solution using Electoral Calculus' estimates and a 5% tolerance which doesn't involve any ward splits outside the Wirral, and keeps 16 seats unchanged. |
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Post by lancastrian on Jan 12, 2020 0:24:58 GMT
Looks like it will be difficult to draw three within-quota Wirral constituencies without some ward splitting. I concur. I have however found a solution using Electoral Calculus' estimates and a 5% tolerance which doesn't involve any ward splits outside the Wirral, and keeps 16 seats unchanged. Increasing the number of seats makes the 5% tolerance even worse when there's so many large wards. 7.5% would be much nicer. Cumbria doesn't look very nice with the smaller seats either - the nice Carlisle and West Cumbria seats of the 2018 review don't work anymore, and my attempt so far gives Alston to Tim Farron. On the other hand that 20.49 for Lancashire and Cumbria doesn't look so bad if you make it ~6.14 for Cumbria plus Morecambe & Lunesdale except Skerton and ~14.35 for the rest, better still if you can shift a few wards off to Southport again. Crossing the boundary between Rossendale and Manchester looks like it makes a mess around Burnley and Pendle, so I'm trying to avoid it if possible. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 12, 2020 9:37:24 GMT
Looks like it will be difficult to draw three within-quota Wirral constituencies without some ward splitting. I concur. I have however found a solution using Electoral Calculus' estimates and a 5% tolerance which doesn't involve any ward splits outside the Wirral, and keeps 16 seats unchanged. Presumably this is sticking Seacombe into Birkenhead and then working one's way around so that both Heswall and Eastham end up going into some Cheshire West and Chester constituency (and then I'm not sure how that would work without some really nasty boundaries in the vicinity of either Chester or Ellesmere Port). |
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Post by Penddu on Jan 12, 2020 11:28:44 GMT
Here's a first go at Wales, using Electoral Calculus' estimates of ward electorates: View AttachmentIt's full of obvious nasties (mainly due to running rather too close to the lower bound of 69,698), but here are the numbers: Gwynedd/ClwydMenai: 70,655 (0.96) Gwynedd: 74,189 (1.01) Conwy: 73,642 (1.00) West Flintshire: 76,408 (1.04) East Flintshire: 76,007 (1.04) Wrexham: 72,463 (0.99) Denbigh: 75,191 (1.02) DyfedCeredigion and North Pembrokeshire: 76,079 (1.04) Pembroke: 74,506 (1.02) Carmarthen: 71,158 (0.97) Llanelli: 70,648 (0.96) [couldn't get my Shirgarmander to work without crossing into West Glam, which really does not help on 32; but at least this gets up as far as Llandybïe] Powys/West Glam/Mid GlamMontgomeryshire and Radnorshire: 69,725 (0.95) [possibly the constituency I'm happiest with] Neath and Brecon: 74,582 (1.02) [actually really like this – it feels sensible – despite not having been able to get Briton Ferry and Coedffranc back] Gower: 73,602 (1.00) [loses Clydach and Mawr, but comes in as far as Sketty; glad to get the Mayals ward into this and reunite the Mumbles] Swansea North: 71,415 (0.97) Swansea South: 70,687 (0.96) [this is where we run into the real nasties of Swansea + Pontardawe + Coedffranc + Briton Ferry still being too small for three constituencies – we need Baglan and (ouch!) Sandfields West here] Aberavon: 69,889 (0.95) [some desperately nasty boundaries to get this over the lower bound] Bridgend: 72,225 (0.98) Rhondda: 72,540 (0.99) Pontypridd: 71,201 (0.97) Merthyr Tydfil: 69,705 (0.95) South GlamVale of Glamorgan: 70,366 (0.96) [needed to shed Dinas Powys to make Cardiff work] Cardiff South and Penarth: 71,553 (0.98) [adding Dinas Powys necessitated a nearly completely different selection of over-large Cardiff wards] Cardiff North West: 69,787 (0.95) [and rotate...] Cardiff North East: 69,915 (0.95) Cardiff Central: 74,709 (1.02) [spot the ugly Llandaff North protrusion to get the numbers to work] GwentBlaenau Gwent: 73,738 (1.01) Torfaen: 69,735 (0.95) [coterminous with local authority] Monmouth: 72,285 (0.99) [coterminous with local authority] Caerphilly: 73,174 (1.00) Newport West: 73,157 (1.00) Newport East: 73,586 (1.00) [slightly weird taking Pill and Shaftesbury, but not Stow Hill, but it makes the numbers work!] I like north and west Wales...but Neath & Brecon is terrible and which then messes up a lot of other seats in the south. A better option would be to add most of Brecon with Monmouth and then reconfigure the South to match. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 12, 2020 11:49:52 GMT
I like north and west Wales...but Neath & Brecon is terrible and which then messes up a lot of other seats in the south. A better option would be to add most of Brecon with Monmouth and then reconfigure the South to match. Brecon and Monmouth ends up with really nasty effects of its own that go all the way across South Wales (and you'll still end up working back trying to find an odd ward here and there to deal with Swansea being too small) – you're essentially adding in half a seat at the end where things work out to integer numbers. But feel free to try that and see what you can do with that. Neath and Brecon is actually sensible on the ground: it's where the main towns are – Neath, Ystradgynlais, and Brecon – along the T6 Traws-Cymru bus route. It doesn't make sense to put Ystradgynlais into Gwent or to do some carve-up of Brecknockshire that separates what are by far the county's two largest towns. |
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Post by andrewteale on Jan 12, 2020 11:53:41 GMT
I concur. I have however found a solution using Electoral Calculus' estimates and a 5% tolerance which doesn't involve any ward splits outside the Wirral, and keeps 16 seats unchanged. Presumably this is sticking Seacombe into Birkenhead and then working one's way around so that both Heswall and Eastham end up going into some Cheshire West and Chester constituency (and then I'm not sure how that would work without some really nasty boundaries in the vicinity of either Chester or Ellesmere Port). That idea enabled me to get rid of the ward split at the price of splitting Chester between constituencies. I'll have to check whether my Chester South and Eddisbury is actually contiguous. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 12, 2020 12:09:51 GMT
The North West on these figures is looking messy. The entitlements are: Cumbria 5.37 (currently 6) Lancashire 15.12 (currently 16) Sefton 2.96 (currently 3) Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens 8.00 (currently 8) Wirral 3.31 (currently 4) Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Halton 9.12 (currently 9) Warrington 2.16 (currently 2) Bolton and Wigan 5.96 (currently 6) Bury 1.96 (currently 2) Rochdale 2.17 (currently 2) Manchester, Salford and Trafford 9.51 (currently 9) Oldham, Tameside and Stockport 7.57 (currently 8) The Wirral cannot stand alone and would need to be combined with the two Cheshires and Halton for 12.43. It's obvious to add Warrington to this group to give 14.59, which rounds up to 15 seats as at present. Greater Manchester (27) and Lancastrian Merseyside (11) have the same total seat allocations as now, but Rochdale cannot stand alone and would need to be combined with Bury for 4.13 and an allocation of 4 seats. The two large groups in southern Greater Manchester can be combined for 17.08 and an allocation of 17 seats. Now here's the problem. Cumbria cannot stand alone and would need to be combined with Lancashire for 20.49, which is over the harmonic mean and could be rounded up to 21 seats. However, 15 for Cheshire and the Wirral, 11 for Lancastrian Merseyside, 27 for Greater Manchester and 21 for Cumbria + Lancashire adds up to 74 which is one more than the seat allocation. To get down to 73 seats you either have to round Cumbria and Lancashire down to 20, or have everything outside Lancastrian Merseyside as one giant big review area for 62 seats. It'll be messy. Okay, if we're doing messy: Wirral + Cheshire West and Chester = 7.02 (7) Cheshire East = 4.12 (4, if that works with the ward sizes) Then the obvious thing to do to avoid having a half seat rounding up in Cheshire etc and a half seat rounding up in Lancashire etc is to group Halton and Warrington (3.48) northwards in some combination or other. |
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Post by minionofmidas on Jan 12, 2020 12:21:34 GMT
I like north and west Wales...but Neath & Brecon is terrible and which then messes up a lot of other seats in the south. A better option would be to add most of Brecon with Monmouth and then reconfigure the South to match. Brecon and Monmouth ends up with really nasty effects of its own that go all the way across South Wales (and you'll still end up working back trying to find an odd ward here and there to deal with Swansea being too small) – you're essentially adding in half a seat at the end where things work out to integer numbers. But feel free to try that and see what you can do with that. Neath and Brecon is actually sensible on the ground: it's where the main towns are – Neath, Ystradgynlais, and Brecon – along the T6 Traws-Cymru bus route. It doesn't make sense to put Ystradgynlais into Gwent or to do some carve-up of Brecknockshire that separates what are by far the county's two largest towns. Well obviously there's no reason on these numbers to carve up Breconshire; it's only the question of what disparate area it's put with. |
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Post by Penddu on Jan 12, 2020 13:00:57 GMT
I like north and west Wales...but Neath & Brecon is terrible and which then messes up a lot of other seats in the south. A better option would be to add most of Brecon with Monmouth and then reconfigure the South to match. Brecon and Monmouth ends up with really nasty effects of its own that go all the way across South Wales (and you'll still end up working back trying to find an odd ward here and there to deal with Swansea being too small) – you're essentially adding in half a seat at the end where things work out to integer numbers. But feel free to try that and see what you can do with that. Neath and Brecon is actually sensible on the ground: it's where the main towns are – Neath, Ystradgynlais, and Brecon – along the T6 Traws-Cymru bus route. It doesn't make sense to put Ystradgynlais into Gwent or to do some carve-up of Brecknockshire that separates what are by far the county's two largest towns. I agree with putting Ystradgynlais area in Neath - but Brecon and Usk Valley is a more natural fit with northern Monmouthshire. I will play around with some options and see what I can come up with. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 12, 2020 13:08:43 GMT
Okay, if we're doing messy: Wirral + Cheshire West and Chester = 7.02 (7) Cheshire East = 4.12 (4, if that works with the ward sizes) Then the obvious thing to do to avoid having a half seat rounding up in Cheshire etc and a half seat rounding up in Lancashire etc is to group Halton and Warrington (3.48) northwards in some combination or other. I've had a quick look at this, and Cheshire East works numbers-wise, although it is seriously ugly. Macclesfield can remain unchanged at 76,216 (1.04). Then Tatton, having lost its CW&C wards needs to take Dane Valley, Brereton Rural, and Middlewich from Congleton for 76,076 (1.04). Then the momentarily discontiguous remains of Congleton need to take Haslington, Shavington, and Wybunbury from Crewe and Nantwich and Audlem from Eddisbury for a rather torpedo-like 73,671 (1.01). Then that leaves a Crewe and Nantwich shifted up to the inner Cheshire boundary at 75,577 (1.03). The upside is that this then generates a really nice Northwich constituency in CW&C. |
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