2023 Review

[minionofmidas]

Dec 5, 2022 22:52:57 GMT greenhert said:

Just over an hour left now to submit your comments to the BCE. Speak now or for the next decade at least hold your peace with the revised proposals.

i shall do neither

[John Chanin]

Dec 6, 2022 7:18:14 GMT minionofmidas said:

Dec 5, 2022 22:52:57 GMT greenhert said:

Just over an hour left now to submit your comments to the BCE. Speak now or for the next decade at least hold your peace with the revised proposals.

i shall do neither

Now now, sulking is never a good look.

[YL]

Dec 5, 2022 23:31:14 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I am at peace with them. I was delighted that the initial proposals in Hertfordshire exactly matched what I would have done there myself and the revised proposals only changed the name of Three Rivers/South West Herts (which I also would have done, and suggested in the first consultation.)
I am irritated by what they've done in the Luton area but I've done what I can there.
I'm very happy with the revised proposals in North London (the initial proposals were a mess) and suggest no changes there.
The one region where I am quite unhappy with the overall plan is the South West but this is a region I have very limited connections to and I can live with that if they've got Hertfordshire and Middlesex broadly right.
I haven't paid too much attention to the Northern regions but from what I've seen most of the proposals look satisfactory there and I do not share this forum's obsession with the details of the boundaries in Leicestershire

Likewise I am happy with the proposals in my own area, and was hugely relieved when the original proposals came out, remembering the absurd contortions of the zombie reviews. The revised proposals have also fixed a couple of areas of Yorkshire where I thought the initial proposals were poor. The other areas I've lived are generally OK as well.

I still don't particularly like the cross county seats, and if I were the Commission I'd be trying harder to avoid them, though of course the 5% rule forces some. And there are obviously a few places where I'd have done something different.

I think there are a few things in Wales and Scotland which need fixing; in particular adding Gleneagles and Auchterarder to an already somewhat awkward match of western Clackmannanshire and northern Falkirk is an atrocity.

[Crimson King]

for the benifit of those of us who havent committed the detail to memory (ok me) what are the timescales now and when does the next one start? 😉

[islington]

Dec 5, 2022 23:31:14 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I am at peace with them. I was delighted that the initial proposals in Hertfordshire exactly matched what I would have done there myself and the revised proposals only changed the name of Three Rivers/South West Herts (which I also would have done, and suggested in the first consultation.)
I am irritated by what they've done in the Luton area but I've done what I can there.
I'm very happy with the revised proposals in North London (the initial proposals were a mess) and suggest no changes there.
The one region where I am quite unhappy with the overall plan is the South West but this is a region I have very limited connections to and I can live with that if they've got Hertfordshire and Middlesex broadly right.
I haven't paid too much attention to the Northern regions but from what I've seen most of the proposals look satisfactory there and I do not share this forum's obsession with the details of the boundaries in Leicestershire

Sacrilege!

[John Chanin]

Dec 5, 2022 23:31:14 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I am at peace with them. I was delighted that the initial proposals in Hertfordshire exactly matched what I would have done there myself and the revised proposals only changed the name of Three Rivers/South West Herts (which I also would have done, and suggested in the first consultation.)
I am irritated by what they've done in the Luton area but I've done what I can there.
I'm very happy with the revised proposals in North London (the initial proposals were a mess) and suggest no changes there.
The one region where I am quite unhappy with the overall plan is the South West but this is a region I have very limited connections to and I can live with that if they've got Hertfordshire and Middlesex broadly right.
I haven't paid too much attention to the Northern regions but from what I've seen most of the proposals look satisfactory there and I do not share this forum's obsession with the details of the boundaries in Leicestershire

Or with Teesside.….

[Adam Gray]

I proposed changes to:

*the three constituencies in Enfield with Wood Green

*the two constituencies in Hounslow west of Chiswick, plus Twickenham, to keep all three Heston wards together;

*Queens Park and Little Venice to put all of Harlesden in Willesden and keep Brondesbury Park with the two other Brent-Kilburn wards

*the four constituencies in North East Essex to get rid of that awful T-shaped Harwich and North Essex

...and changes to a bunch of constituency names - mainly compass-point names

Oh, and obviously Chelsea and Fulham should be Fulham and Chelsea. About time that horrific misnaming was corrected.

[Deleted]

I put in two comments, supporting Preston; and requesting a name change from Manchester Central to Manchester Central and Failsworth.

[East Anglian Lefty]

I just did proposals for Northampton, for north east Essex and for a general tidy-up in Norfolk and Suffolk. I considered putting in a submission for Teesside, but as my best prospect with a single ward-split was still somewhat flawed and I didn't think a crossing into North Yorkshire was viable, I decided I couldn't be bothered.

[Pete Whitehead]

Dec 6, 2022 16:49:41 GMT Adam Gray said:

I proposed changes to:

*the three constituencies in Enfield with Wood Green

*the two constituencies in Hounslow west of Chiswick, plus Twickenham, to keep all three Heston wards together;

*Queens Park and Little Venice to put all of Harlesden in Willesden and keep Brondesbury Park with the two other Brent-Kilburn wards

*the four constituencies in North East Essex to get rid of that awful T-shaped Harwich and North Essex

...and changes to a bunch of constituency names - mainly compass-point names

Oh, and obviously Chelsea and Fulham should be Fulham and Chelsea. About time that horrific misnaming was corrected.

This would be much better, but presumably required a ward split?

[Adam Gray]

All three London counter proposals do (but the Essex one gets rid of the split in Colchester). I'm hoping that, now the vast majority of the constituency pattern is set, the Commission will be more open to looking at splits which yield a better overall outcome.









Here's the Essex one:

[Pete Whitehead]

I like the plan in Queens Park & Little Venice - wouldn't you suggest a name change there though? Not convinced about the Enfield scheme although for partisan reasons I should like Enfield & Cockfosters.
Agree with you re: Heston & Iselworth but I can't get on board with that Colchester plan

[Adam Gray]

I did propose a name change - just went with their names for that map. It could just be Queen's Park. I like brevity. There's an increasing absence of brevity in constituency names.

Their Southgate and Wood Green is an abomination. A Republican gerrymander in North Carolina would look less dodgy. Not suggesting there's any partisan motive behind the commission's proposal: simply that it looks terrible. Edge of Potters Bar to edge of Broadwater Farm estate. Absurd.

[Pete Whitehead]

Agreed. I think its the worst seat in London.

[greenhert]

Dec 6, 2022 18:22:40 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Agreed. I think its the worst seat in London.

That said, Southgate was in the now defunct Wood Green constituency from 1918 to 1950, when it gained its own constituency.

[nyx]

Dec 6, 2022 17:58:36 GMT Adam Gray said:

Here's the Essex one:

That’s a neat compact map, but surely you’d have to call the constituencies “Colchester West” and “Colchester East and Harwich”? Don’t see how you can justify excluding Colchester from the name of a constituency which has nearly half of its electorate in Colchester.

[Pete Whitehead]

Dec 6, 2022 23:14:29 GMT greenhert said:

Dec 6, 2022 18:22:40 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Agreed. I think its the worst seat in London.

That said, Southgate was in the now defunct Wood Green constituency from 1918 to 1950, when it gained its own constituency.

Yes but that seat looked a lot more like Adam's version (in other words it didn't stretch out all the way to Cockfosters and Hadley Wood~)

[Adam Gray]

Dec 7, 2022 0:14:55 GMT nyx said:

Dec 6, 2022 17:58:36 GMT Adam Gray said:

Here's the Essex one:

That’s a neat compact map, but surely you’d have to call the constituencies “Colchester West” and “Colchester East and Harwich”? Don’t see how you can justify excluding Colchester from the name of a constituency which has nearly half of its electorate in Colchester.

Yes. I did put in my counter proposal such a name as an alternative. I just disdain compass point titles so Wivenhoe was my preference, but if the commission was to go for anything resembling this they'll probably do as you suggest.  

[East Anglian Lefty]

Your regular reminder at this point that there is no road linking Brightlingsea and St Osyths. Even without that it's a pretty terrible arrangement, but I just can't fathom how it makes sense to resolve one seat with a detached part by creating another.

[Peter Wilkinson]

Dec 6, 2022 18:19:17 GMT Adam Gray said:

I did propose a name change - just went with their names for that map. It could just be Queen's Park. I like brevity. There's an increasing absence of brevity in constituency names.

Their Southgate and Wood Green is an abomination. A Republican gerrymander in North Carolina would look less dodgy. Not suggesting there's any partisan motive behind the commission's proposal: simply that it looks terrible. Edge of Potters Bar to edge of Broadwater Farm estate. Absurd.

Your Enfield and Cockfosters constituency may look better on a map than the BCE's Southgate and Wood Green but, to be honest, I think that anyone who knows the area would regard your Enfield and Cockfosters as the more absurd.

Despite some now-distant historical administrative connections, Cockfosters is far better connected to Southgate to its south than eastwards into Enfield. Apart from the A110 at its southern tip (and one bus route running along it between Enfield and Barnet via Oakwood, but not into Cockfosters itself) and Ferny Hill (which amounts to a country lane running across three miles of uninterrupted green belt), none of Cockfosters ward's transport links run into Enfield. A couple of local through routes and some side streets run into Barnet, but all other transport links run north to south, into Southgate and then mostly into Wood Green.

In particular, the Piccadilly line runs from Cockfosters through Oakwood and Southgate to Wood Green through the BCE's Southgate and Wood Green constituency, eventually leaving it at Turnpike Lane station, at its tripoint with Hornsey and Friern Barnet and with Tottenham (in which the station's main exit actually lies). The one other station in the ward, Hadley Wood, is on the mainline railway line northwards out of Kings Cross - south of Hadley Wood, it runs into Chipping Barnet constituency for a few miles, before becoming the western boundary of the BCE's Southgate and Wood Green at New Southgate, with stations on that section of the proposed constituency boundary at New Southgate itself and at Alexandra Palace, and running on into Kings Cross.

Oakwood ward, with the A110 as its northern boundary, has better transport connections than Cockfosters to Enfield (almost all, though, apart from a rather indirect connection running through Grange Park ward, running along the A110) but, particularly for the western half of the ward, the connections to Southgate (and mostly on into Wood Green) are better. And the shopping area around Southgate Circus (and station), while somewhat inferior to Enfield Town, is still closer and more accessible from the whole of Cockfosters ward and most of Oakwood ward than Enfield Town.

As a more minor point, I am also rather unhappy about your split in Carterhatch ward - not so much the split itself (which might be reasonable if required and the numbers agree - note that much of the southern half of Carterhatch ward is a collection of retail estates, with an associated lack of residents) as by the fact that community contacts for Bullsmoor and the northern half of Carterhatch wards are far more across Hertford Road than across the A10 arterial dual-carriageway.

Having said that, while I feel that Southgate and Wood Green, unlike Enfield and Cockfosters, would work as a constituency, this has far more to do with the connections between Cockfosters and Southgate that with connections between Southgate and the far more urban Wood Green. In fact, I feel that the Southgate and Barnet East constituency in the BCE's initial proposals worked better still, and indeed that the initial proposals worked better for outer north London than the revised proposals. I have suggested to the BCE that, in Barnet, Enfield and Haringey, it should revert to a slightly modified version of them.