Ealing North

[batman]

And finally I remember Neville Sandelson's crestfallen face when the leader of the Labour Group asked if the council canteen would do for lunch for them.

[Pete Whitehead]

Actually could have moved Hobbayne rather than Ravenor. That would have made more sense as it would reunite Hanwell and avoid splitting Greenford

[Pete Whitehead]

I'm trying to find a map of the old wards. I'm using my minds eye at the moment

[Davıd Boothroyd]

With the electorate of Ealing Acton being much smaller than the other two constituencies in the borough, the Commission initially proposed to shuffle the boundaries round - moving Ravenor and West End wards (Greenford and Northolt) from Ealing North to Ealing Southall, moving Northfield and Walpole from Southall to Acton, and then Hanger Lane ward from Acton to Ealing North. That made three seats all with electorates in the 66-69,000 area.

The report notes "A number of those present introduced party politics into the discussions at the inquiry and we considered this to be unfortunate as it could have tended to lead some to suppose that such matters were a consideration taken into account during the review". But someone came up with a counterproposal which involved just moving Pitshanger ward (around and below Pitshanger Park) from Ealing North to Acton. Although it didn't achieve electoral equality (Ealing North had only 62,000 voters and Southall nearly 73,000) the Commissioner liked its simplicity and changed the recommendations.

There was then a big public campaign objecting to the revised recommendations and demanding a second local inquiry which the Commission seems to have taken against as they were "petitions and standard letters of objection, which people had signed as the result of organised campaigns to make us change our minds without advancing reasoned arguments". One objector "also complained that the assistant Commissioner's conduct of the local inquiry had denied ordinary people the opportunity to make their views known" which the Commission countered by reading the transcript in which the same objector thanked the assistant commissioner for creating "a splendid atmosphere".

[Pete Whitehead]

It looks like this is what was proposed then



I think this may have been the optimum



What actually occurred