2023 Review - North West

[East Anglian Lefty]

Whilst we're considering St Helens, has anybody looked at separating Widnes from Runcorn and putting the former in with Merseyside? You'd still need to split St Helens, but it might give you more options for how to do so. I haven't been able to get it to work, but I suspect there is a decent option there for a more radical remap if anybody is looking for a project to keep themselves occupied.

[Foggy]

Jan 12, 2021 21:30:56 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Whilst we're considering St Helens, has anybody looked at separating Widnes from Runcorn and putting the former in with Merseyside? You'd still need to split St Helens, but it might give you more options for how to do so. 

Yes, see a couple of pages back. And I called St Helens North simply 'St Helens' because I renamed South to Haydock Park, but the borough was still split. It does have considerable knock-on effects in Cheshire, mind. The resulting Runcorn seat effectively becomes the successor to Warrington South rather than Weaver Vale as you'd expect, but there might be a way to avoid that which I haven't yet spotted. 

[greenhert]

Jan 12, 2021 21:25:43 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I'm not wild about Middleton & Blackley, because Hopwood Hall is a mixture of bits of Heywood and bits of Middleton. But I have to admit that it's probably preferable to a seat stretching from Crumpsall almost to the centre of Oldham.

The better option is to pair Middleton with Prestwich again (not ideal, but it will be very difficult to keep Heywood and Middleton paired together even though theoretically it only needs to lose one ward), pair Radcliffe with most of Bolton South East to recreate Radcliffe-cum-Farnworth, and recreate Heywood & Royton (mostly). This way, Oldham East & Saddleworth also stays intact.

[andrewteale]

Jan 9, 2021 21:17:23 GMT andrewteale said:

Jan 9, 2021 20:49:06 GMT mattb said:

OK here's my attempt at NW. I tried to fix both Cheshire and Wigan etc by taking adding one ward to Warrington N.
There are a couple of compromises but overall I'm reasonably happy with all this. The only big downside is the butchering of Salford. (not sure whether it is better in the end to solve the Cheshire problem by transferring electors from Lancs as others have proposed).

On the contrary, what you've done to Salford is perfectly reasonable. The only real downside is Claremont being in a Swinton-based seat but that's certainly arguable - it's a continuous urban area. Kersal and Prestwich have a lot in common; Boothstown and Astley have good communication links. A Warrington seat with Cadishead should also include Rixton and Woolston because that's where the road goes, but otherwise there's not much to nitpick.

Been having another play at this. You can get seats out of Wigan+Bolton+Salford-Cadishead closer to the current map by going:

SALFORD (72169): the core Salford wards, Swinton Park and Pendlebury. Relative to the current seat, gains Broughton and loses Eccles and Swinton Park.
ECCLES AND WALKDEN (74203): Irlam, Eccles, Swinton/Wardley, Walkden, Lickle Hulton. A real leftovers seat. The split of Swinton is not great.
BOLTON SOUTH EAST (71334): loses Great Lever and Rumworth, gains Atherton and Tyldesley and probably needs a name change. (Farnworth and Tyldesley?)
BOLTON WEST (71607): loses Atherton, gains Rumworth.
BOLTON NORTH EAST (76808): gains Great Lever.

There are also solutions with a Bury South including Little Lever, but they involve splitting Lickle Hulton from Walkden and rather less nice boundaries.

Overall I'm with EAL on this: displace part of St Helens rather than Cadishead.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Jan 12, 2021 22:59:53 GMT greenhert said:

Jan 12, 2021 21:25:43 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I'm not wild about Middleton & Blackley, because Hopwood Hall is a mixture of bits of Heywood and bits of Middleton. But I have to admit that it's probably preferable to a seat stretching from Crumpsall almost to the centre of Oldham.

The better option is to pair Middleton with Prestwich again (not ideal, but it will be very difficult to keep Heywood and Middleton paired together even though theoretically it only needs to lose one ward), pair Radcliffe with most of Bolton South East to recreate Radcliffe-cum-Farnworth, and recreate Heywood & Royton (mostly). This way, Oldham East & Saddleworth also stays intact.

That conspicuously fails to solve the problem with Hopwood Hall and also connects the two separate groupings most of us have been trying to divide GM into. I think it might still work by continuing with a Manchester-Salford seat, but at the cost of dividing up the city centre between seats.

[greenhert]

My finalised plan for Greater Manchester (two ward splits were needed, unfortunately).

1. Cheadle (73,775). Unchanged.
2. Hazel Grove (72,941). Adds Manor ward.
3. Stockport (74,769). Loses Manor ward, gains both Reddish wards.
4. Denton & Hyde (72,657). Succeeds Stalybridge & Hyde. Loses Stalybridge wards, Dukinfield Stalybridge and Mossley, gains all Denton wards and Dukinfield.
5. Ashton & Stalybridge (71,134). Succeeds Ashton-under-Lyne. Loses both Droylsden wards in Tameside and both Failsworth wards in Oldham, gains Dukinfield Stalybridge, Mossley, and both Stalybridge wards in Tameside.
6. Stretford & Urmston (73,212). Unchanged.
7. Altrincham & Sale West (73,934). Unchanged.
8. Wythenshawe & Sale East (76,971). Unchanged.
9. Manchester Withington (71,614). Loses Burnage ward.
10. Manchester Gorton (71,450). Loses Whalley Range ward, gains Burnage ward.
11. Manchester Central (approx. 74,000). Contains the wards of Ancoats & Beswick, Ardwick, Cheetham (part) Deansgate, Hulme, Moss Side, Piccadilly, and Whalley Range.
12. Openshaw & Droylsden (74,443). New seat. Contains the Manchester wards of Clayton & Openshaw, Harpurhey, Miles Platting & Newton Heath, and Moston, and the Tameside wards of Audenshaw, Droylsden East, and Droylsden West.
13. Salford & Blackley (approx. 76,000). Succeeds Blackley & Broughton. Contains the Manchester wards of Charlestown, Cheetham (part), Crumpsall, and Higher Blackley, and the Salford wards of Blackfriars & Trinity, Broughton, Kersal & Broughton Park, Ordsall, and Quays.
14. Eccles (76,246). Succeeds Salford & Eccles. Loses Blackfriars & Trinity, Ordsall and Quays wards, gains Barton & Winton ward.
15. Worsley (approx. 75,600). Succeeds Worsley & Eccles South. Loses Barton & Winton ward in Salford, gains the Wigan ward of Astley Mosley Common and part of Tydesley ward.
16. Leigh (approx. 76,500). Gains Atherton ward, loses Astley Mosley Common ward and part of Tydesley ward.
17. Makerfield (74,400). Unchanged.
18. Wigan (75,607). Unchanged.
19. Bolton West (72,125). Loses the Wigan ward of Atherton, gains the Bolton ward of Hulton.
20. Bolton East (76,731). Succeeds Bolton North East. Loses Breightmet ward, gains Great Lever and Rumworth wards.
21. Farnworth & Radcliffe (75,794). Succeeds Bolton South East. Loses Great Lever, Hulton, and Rumworth wards in Bolton, and gains the Bolton ward of Breightmet and all the Radcliffe wards in Bury.
22. Bury (75,652). Succeeds Bury North. Gains Unsworth ward.
23. Middleton & Prestwich (73,478). Succeeds Bury South in practice. Loses all the Radcliffe wards and Unsworth in Bury, gains all the Middleton wards in Rochdale (West, South, North, East).
24. Heywood & Royton (72,853). Succeeds Heywood & Middleton. Loses all Middleton wards in Rochdale, and gains the Rochdale ward of Spotland & Fallinge and both Royton wards in Oldham.
25. Rochdale (71,697). Loses Spotland & Fallinge ward.
26. Oldham East & Saddleworth (72,997). Unchanged.
27. Oldham West (73,746). Succeeds Oldham West & Royton. Loses both Royton wards and gains both Failsworth wards.

Denton & Reddish disappears; as many as seven seats were left unaltered.

Notionally changed from Con to Lab: Bolton North East [Bolton East].

[YL]

I tried to update my 20 seat map for Lancashire and Cumbria based on the December electorates, and this is what I ended up with. It's pretty similar to islington 's plan, but there are a few differences.


(obviously not all of Cumbria is shown, but that bit is the same as already posted by others)

Carlisle (75,868).
North Lakeland (73,862). Workington, but without Workington, merged with Penrith & the Border, without either Penrith or the Border.
Whitehaven & Workington (75,438).
Westmorland & Penrith (75,211).
Barrow & Furness (74,699). I thought it was better to keep Grange and Cartmel together. It is not quite connected by road, but the railway can help out.

Morecambe & Sedbergh (76,040). Just three South Lakeland wards here. This allows the next few seats to fall into place nicely.
Lancaster & Wyre (74,992). Lancaster city, including Skerton, plus the more rural east of Wyre district.
Blackpool North & Fleetwood (75,396).
Blackpool South (76,071).
Fylde (75,114).

Preston OuterWalton-le-Dale & Longridge (76,893). Most of the South Ribble Preston suburbs, Preston's northern and eastern fringes, and some of western Ribble Valley. Like most doughnuts or near doughnuts, not an easy seat to name in a way which actually indicates where it is. Alternatively you can have a Preston sandwich, with Fulwood and other northern parts of Preston joining the Ribble Valley areas and Walton-le-Dale and Penwortham joining central Preston. Comments doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ ?
Preston (74,586). Most of the Preston built up area is here.
Pendle & Bowland (76,798)
Burnley (75,436). Gains Brierfield and part of Nelson, the split of the latter due to the new Pendle ward boundaries. Personally I'd consider splitting Pendle wards to fix this problem, though it might not work on these numbers.
Accrington (76,315). Extends a little into Ribble Valley.
Rossendale & Darwen (74,593). Essentially unchanged.
Blackburn (70,586). Also essentially unchanged.
South Ribble (76,023). Some meddling south of Preston to make the numbers work: exchanges Penwortham for Bamber Bridge.
Chorley (74,561). Loses Euxton.
Ormskirk & Skelmersdale (75,458). Gains Rufford. Of course the existing name will be retained, but I don't like it.

[Pete Whitehead]

I found adding Bold to the Widnes seat worked well - just one other ward moved across 'county' boundaries namely Up Holland to Makerfield




43 St Helens North 76082 Yes

44 St Helens South & Prescot 70107 Yes

45 Liverpool Garston 70742 Yes

46 Huyton 70126 Yes

47 Liverpool Wavertree 72911 Yes

48 Liverpool Kirkdale 70221 Yes

49 Liverpool West Derby 75830 Yes

50 Liverpool Walton & Kirkby 75311 Yes

51 Bootle 74512 Yes

52 Crosby 70767 Yes

53 Southport 71037 Yes

The Wirral and the rest of Cheshire is the same as mattb 's plan (ie. shamelessly plagiarised)

Edit: I also developed islington's theme of rejigging Bootle and Crosby but in this case I kept Maghull together - moving Victoria back to Crosby is enough to justify a name change (what was I saying earlier?). Obviously not going to happen

[Pete Whitehead]

Greater Manchester

I know Littleborough & Saddleworth isn't universally popular but I wanted to make more coherent seats around Rochdale and Oldham so it was more a way of doing that (some of the plans I've seen have three constituencies converging on the centre of Oldham when the whole of the old county borough fits in one seat). Also to keep Salford together which is almost achieved. My Gorton seat is a bit weird - probably needs a different name given its mostly Tameside



1 Oldham 74143 Yes

2 Rochdale 71747 Yes

3 Royton & Littleborough 72922 Yes

4 Heywood & Middleton 72969 Yes

5 Ashton Under Lyne 76381 Yes

6 Stalybridge & Hyde 73028 Yes

7 Manchester Gorton 77019 Yes

8 Manchester Blackley 76435 Yes

9 Manchester Piccadilly 72819 Yes

10 Stretford & Urmston 73212 Yes

11 Altrincham & Sale West 73934 Yes

12 Wythenshawe & Sale East 76971 Yes

13 Manchester Withington 71614 Yes

14 Manchester Rusholme 70397 Yes

15 Stockport 74769 Yes

16 Cheadle 73775 Yes

17 Hazel Grove 72941 Yes

18 Bury 75652 Yes

19 Prestwich & Radcliffe 76935 Yes

20 Salford 72169 Yes

21 Eccles & Worsley 76915 Yes

22 Bolton East 76773 Yes

23 Farnworth 76234 Yes

24 Bolton West 73149 Yes

25 Leigh 76978 Yes

26 Wigan 75607 Yes

27 Makerfield 69958 Yes

[Pete Whitehead]

..and my new Lancashire looks very like the post above but also similar to mattb's - i've kept Haslingden together at the cost of slightly annoying boundaries there (I wanted to add Padiham to Hyndburn but there's not room for that and Haslingden without splitting one of them)




54 Chorley 74568 Yes

55 Lancashire West 75201 Yes

56 South Ribble 75506 Yes

57 Preston 72946 Yes

58 Ribble Valley 76576 Yes

59 Rossendale & Darwen 74593 Yes

60 Blackburn 70586 Yes

61 Accrington 74651 Yes

62 Burnley 75436 Yes

63 Clitheroe & Colne 76168 Yes

64 Fylde 75114 Yes

65 Blackpool South 76071 Yes

66 Blackpool North 75396 Yes

67 Morecambe & Lunesdale 75858 Yes

68 Lancaster 74992 Yes

[andrewp]

Out of interest, I’ve always thought Rossendale and Darwen doesn’t look like a great constituency on the map, with no East/ West road link, but it has survived for the last 2 reviews and I note most maps currently being produced keep it more or less in tact.

Is it a better constituency than I think it is, or is just a not great constituency that survives because the alternative is chaos for other East Lancashire seats?

[Pete Whitehead]

Jan 13, 2021 19:30:23 GMT andrewp said:

Out of interest, I’ve always thought Rossendale and Darren doesn’t look like a great constituency on the map, with no East/ West road link, but it has survived for the last 2 reviews and I note most maps currently being produced keep it more or less in tact.

Is it a better constituency than I think it is, or is just a not great constituency that survives because the alternative is chaos for other East Lancashire seats?

Yes I think it's the latter - some of us have learned out lesson from previous reviews and discussions that arose from them. My first draft for Lancashire did link Chorley with Darwen which isn't exactly ideal itself but it then forced Rossendale to take rural wards from Burnley which are barely any better connected

[YL]

Jan 13, 2021 19:30:23 GMT andrewp said:

Out of interest, I’ve always thought Rossendale and Darren doesn’t look like a great constituency on the map, with no East/ West road link, but it has survived for the last 2 reviews and I note most maps currently being produced keep it more or less in tact.

Is it a better constituency than I think it is, or is just a not great constituency that survives because the alternative is chaos for other East Lancashire seats?

My take would be that it's not great but doing anything about it is not easy, and not encouraged by the rules.

I think the two parts are at least reasonably similar, though Darwen didn't give me the creeps when I visited it, unlike Bacup.

[East Anglian Lefty]

This was supposed to be a St Helens N & Skem map, but I couldn't make the numbers work. I was going to give up when I realised that with a few minor alterations it works as a Merseyside and Cheshire map:



Liverpool Riverside 70157
Walton & Kirkby 76072
Liverpool Wavertree 73281
Liverpool Garston 70372
Liverpool West Derby 75133
Knowsley 70755
Widnes & Whiston 72083 - includes Rainhill ward from St Helens
St Helens South - gains Parr and Windle. Would just St Helens be a better name?
Wallasey & Birkenhead E 75320
Ellesmere Port & Bromborough 71027
Wirral West 76312
Mid Wirral 69819
Chester & Neston 72327
Runcorn 70950
Eddisbury 70123
Northwich 70415
Crewe 76364
Congleton 70114
Macclesfield 72435
Tatton 69842
Warrington South 74408
Warrington 70650 - plenty of alternative arrangements - an east-west split might actually be best
Newton-le-Willows 73268

The Wirral Cheshire seats are mostly identical or very similar to my earlier map, so most of the change is around the Mersey. Widnes & Whiston takes in three local authorities and is a little awkward in that respect, but does unify as much of Whiston in a single seat as is reasonably possible. Three seats crossing the CE-CWaC border is a bit much, but a) it doesn't mean much on the ground and b) the numbers are very tight, so I couldn't find another option.

That still leaves the problem of getting 20 seats into 20.5 quotas in Lancashire and Cumbria, but as this thread has shown there's plenty of feasible ways of accomplishing that.

[andrewp]

Jan 13, 2021 19:35:32 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Jan 13, 2021 19:30:23 GMT andrewp said:

Out of interest, I’ve always thought Rossendale and Darren doesn’t look like a great constituency on the map, with no East/ West road link, but it has survived for the last 2 reviews and I note most maps currently being produced keep it more or less in tact.

Is it a better constituency than I think it is, or is just a not great constituency that survives because the alternative is chaos for other East Lancashire seats?

Yes I think it's the latter - some of us have learned out lesson from previous reviews and discussions that arose from them. My first draft for Lancashire did link Chorley with Darwen which isn't exactly ideal itself but it then forced Rossendale to take rural wards from Burnley which are barely any better connected

I thought that. It looks like Rossendale might be a bit better linked to Burnley but that would cause chaos. And Darwen doesn’t link really with anywhere except Blackburn, so that’s a problem wherever it goes unless it goes in a pre 1983 style Blackburn outer type seat but I don’t imagine that’s very feasible either. 

[andrewteale]

Jan 13, 2021 19:30:23 GMT andrewp said:

Out of interest, I’ve always thought Rossendale and Darwen doesn’t look like a great constituency on the map, with no East/ West road link, but it has survived for the last 2 reviews and I note most maps currently being produced keep it more or less in tact.

Is it a better constituency than I think it is, or is just a not great constituency that survives because the alternative is chaos for other East Lancashire seats?

Very much the latter. If you're going to split the seat up the logical way to do it is to link Rossendale with wards in the Irwell valley to the south and to link Darwen with Blackburn down the hill to the north. However, the first of these runs up against the barrier of the Greater Manchester boundary, while the second messes up a perfectly good Blackburn constituency. Any other option is worse than leaving the seat alone.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Jan 13, 2021 19:37:04 GMT YL said:

Jan 13, 2021 19:30:23 GMT andrewp said:

Out of interest, I’ve always thought Rossendale and Darren doesn’t look like a great constituency on the map, with no East/ West road link, but it has survived for the last 2 reviews and I note most maps currently being produced keep it more or less in tact.

Is it a better constituency than I think it is, or is just a not great constituency that survives because the alternative is chaos for other East Lancashire seats?

My take would be that it's not great but doing anything about it is not easy, and not encouraged by the rules.

I think the two parts are at least reasonably similar, though Darwen didn't give me the creeps when I visited it, unlike Bacup.

You can group Rossendale, Blackburn and Hyndburn for 3 seats, but it's hard to argue that splitting both Blackburn and Accrington is superior to splitting Haslingden and having one seat with poor internal connections.

[Deleted]

YL

That reminds me of Preston Rural District. It might just work though I'll have to have a peruse.

[Pete Whitehead]

I'm pretty sure 'Blackburn East & Accrington' and 'Blackburn South and Darwen' have made an appearance in previous discussions (and that kind of answers the question).

[Pete Whitehead]

Talking of previous discussions, I remember previously advancing a compact urban West Cumbrian seat with my Penrith & Cockermouth seat taking the rural south of Copeland. Chris Whiteside said it was ridiculous - I don't suppose this option is any less so really?




69 Barrow & Furness 74699 Yes

70 Kendal & Appleby 76051 Yes

71 Whitehaven & Workington 73768 Yes

72 Penrith & Cockermouth 74694 Yes

73 Carlisle 75868 Yes