2023 Review - North West

[YL]

Jan 13, 2021 20:11:11 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

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

LOL

[Deleted]

Conclusions after seven pages of the NW.

1. Tightness.
It appears that the combined forces of population shift, the 5% rule, and our awareness of how the BCE likes to keep wards together in stark contrast to overbearing fathers in 19th century novels, the North West region is going to be quite hard this time around. Things are tight. Wirral, Lancashire, and Cumbria particularly so; the western parts of Greater Manchester likely so. 

2. Cumbria's clockface.
If you're going to start at the top and work down, start at the corner and work around. Barrow seems to be the right size to keep most of it and Furness barely changed. Move north to take West Cumbria/Cumberland into one seat and then the fun starts. Penrith can probably stay connected to the Border/Solway, but what happens to the Lakes is stumping most of us. Do you dare cross some of the least passable pathways in England for the sake of numbers? Is Lancashire "Over Sands" about to be re-united after nigh-on 50 years?

3. Red Rose Shouty
As ever with Lancashire, the East isn't too bad to play with because population shift isn't that pronounced. Over in the West, the tightness throbs like the sound of a nightclub from the taxi rank outside. Ah, remember nightclubs? Remember being allowed to dance? Crazy times. Our grandchildren won't believe that pubs used to be allowed, all that demon drink and mixing within women who weren't relatives or betrothed. Where was I? Oh yeah, Blackpool. The West might hinge, counter-intuitively, on the South, with Wigan possibly unlocking the secret of how to keep Lancashire from collapsing into a chaos of mammoth rural constituencies and multi-authority urban sprawl. Wyre and Preston North is guaranteed to be sacrificed. Ribble Valley has to join with somewhere. And everything else is a great unknown.

4. Crosby, Stills and Bash
The problem with St Helens is the numbers don't quite work for a Merseyside which doesn't cause severe headaches elsewhere. Sefton is probably the easy part. Liverpool might need some difficult decisions made, with its borders with Knowsley, St Helens, and even Halton up for crossing numerous times. Over the Mersey to Wirral and the notoriously tight mathematics seem to render the possibilities to barely any at all: Birkenhead will likely merge with Wallasey, which could cause some people to dust off their Kirkdale and Wallasey maps in readiness for the arguments ahead.

5. FC United of Manchester
Stockport, Oldham, Tameside, and even Bury/Rochdale seem to fall into place pretty easily. Not so easy where the population numbers have ballooned: namely Manchester, Salford, and Trafford. The potential jigsaw puzzles across the Irwell are numerous. Will Salford have to "meld" with Manchester again? Could "Moss Side", "Openshaw" and/or "Ardwick" return to the constituency map? Could Bolton be divided up to the four corners of its Lancastrian (and "Lancastrian") neighbours? And is this the end for "...and Eccles South"? The only certainty with Greater Manchester is the sheer amount of uncertainty. 
 

[Pete Whitehead]

I actually tried constructing a Wallasey & Kirkdale seat, partly for the LOLs, partly to see if it would help in the rest of the Wirral - it didn't (which is a good thing). Liverpool isn't very problematic anyway and only requires one border crossing with Knowsley (no border with St Helens)

[YL]

Here's my attempt at Greater Manchester. The west is as in East Anglian Lefty 's plan.



Let's go through this by borough.

Wigan: Wigan is unchanged, while Makerfield and Leigh exchange the Hindley and Lowton wards.

Bolton: Bolton West is unchanged, still containing Atherton in Wigan. North East gains Great Lever, becoming Bolton East, and South East loses all the Levers and gains three Salford wards, becoming Bolton South & Walkden.

Bury: Unsworth moves from South to North, and South gains Little Lever & Darcy Lever in Bolton. I think Bury and Prestwich & Radcliffe are now better names, if they weren't already.

Salford: The Walkden and Little Hulton wards move to a Bolton-based seat, but the Manchester crossing disappears, so the other two seats move east, with names simplified to Worsley & Eccles and Salford.

Trafford: Altrincham & Sale West, Stretford & Urmston and Wythenshawe & Sale East (obviously partly in Manchester) are all unchanged.

Manchester: Gets four seats to itself, but to be honest the northern two are a bit ugly. Manchester Withington loses Burnage to Gorton, which loses Gorton itself; I'm calling the result Manchester Rusholme. Manchester Ardwick is really the successor to Central, but the centre itself goes into Manchester Central & Blackley. Wythenshawe remains in its cross-border seat, and the other border crossing sees Gorton & Abbey Hey and Clayton & Openshaw grouped with Tameside wards.

Tameside: Those two Manchester wards join the Droylsden and Denton areas in Denton & Gorton. Stalybridge & Hyde is unchanged. The Ashton wards and Dukinfield join with four wards of Oldham, including Failsworth, to form Oldham South & Ashton under Lyne

Oldham: Four southern wards join that cross-border seat with Ashton. The Saddleworth seat extends further into Oldham and loses Shaw & Crompton, becoming Oldham Central & Saddleworth. The rest -- Chadderton, Royton and Shaw & Crompton -- are joined by two Rochdale wards in Milnrow, Shaw & Chadderton (other names are available, obviously). You could keep OE&S unchanged with a bit of rejigging, but I preferred this version of the cross-border seat which doesn't use any of the "Oldham proper" wards.

Rochdale: Rochdale loses two southern wards to that cross-border seat with Oldham, and gains Norden from Heywood & Middleton.

Stockport: The only borough with no border crossings. Cheadle is unchanged, and Stockport takes on the Reddish wards but loses Manor to Hazel Grove.

Even with the possibility of split wards the electorates in the boroughs would make it hard to avoid this sort of number of border crossings, I think. You could try to treat Bury on its own, but it'd be a challenge for the Wigan-Bolton-Salford group to absorb the extra electorate. Another challenge would be to get 8 seats out of the Tameside-Oldham-Rochdale group and 7 out of Trafford-Manchester.

[Pete Whitehead]

Jan 14, 2021 7:49:50 GMT YL said:

Oldham: Four southern wards join that cross-border seat with Ashton. The Saddleworth seat extends further into Oldham and loses Shaw & Crompton, becoming Oldham Central & Saddleworth. The rest -- Chadderton, Royton and Shaw & Crompton -- are joined by two Rochdale wards in Milnrow, Shaw & Chadderton (other names are available, obviously). You could keep OE&S unchanged with a bit of rejigging, but I preferred this version of the cross-border seat which doesn't use any of the "Oldham proper" wards.

I'd call that seat simply 'Royton'. Do the numbers work if you swapped the three Chadderton wards for the three Saddleworth wards?

[YL]

Jan 14, 2021 8:52:08 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Jan 14, 2021 7:49:50 GMT YL said:

Oldham: Four southern wards join that cross-border seat with Ashton. The Saddleworth seat extends further into Oldham and loses Shaw & Crompton, becoming Oldham Central & Saddleworth. The rest -- Chadderton, Royton and Shaw & Crompton -- are joined by two Rochdale wards in Milnrow, Shaw & Chadderton (other names are available, obviously). You could keep OE&S unchanged with a bit of rejigging, but I preferred this version of the cross-border seat which doesn't use any of the "Oldham proper" wards.

I'd call that seat simply 'Royton'. Do the numbers work if you swapped the three Chadderton wards for the three Saddleworth wards?

Yes.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Jan 14, 2021 7:49:50 GMT YL said:

Here's my attempt at Greater Manchester. The west is as in East Anglian Lefty 's plan.



Let's go through this by borough.

Wigan: Wigan is unchanged, while Makerfield and Leigh exchange the Hindley and Lowton wards.

Bolton: Bolton West is unchanged, still containing Atherton in Wigan. North East gains Great Lever, becoming Bolton East, and South East loses all the Levers and gains three Salford wards, becoming Bolton South & Walkden.

Bury: Unsworth moves from South to North, and South gains Little Lever & Darcy Lever in Bolton. I think Bury and Prestwich & Radcliffe are now better names, if they weren't already.

Salford: The Walkden and Little Hulton wards move to a Bolton-based seat, but the Manchester crossing disappears, so the other two seats move east, with names simplified to Worsley & Eccles and Salford.

Trafford: Altrincham & Sale West, Stretford & Urmston and Wythenshawe & Sale East (obviously partly in Manchester) are all unchanged.

Manchester: Gets four seats to itself, but to be honest the northern two are a bit ugly. Manchester Withington loses Burnage to Gorton, which loses Gorton itself; I'm calling the result Manchester Rusholme. Manchester Ardwick is really the successor to Central, but the centre itself goes into Manchester Central & Blackley. Wythenshawe remains in its cross-border seat, and the other border crossing sees Gorton & Abbey Hey and Clayton & Openshaw grouped with Tameside wards.

Tameside: Those two Manchester wards join the Droylsden and Denton areas in Denton & Gorton. Stalybridge & Hyde is unchanged. The Ashton wards and Audenshaw join with four wards of Oldham, including Failsworth, to form Oldham South & Ashton under Lyne

Oldham: Four southern wards join that cross-border seat with Ashton. The Saddleworth seat extends further into Oldham and loses Shaw & Crompton, becoming Oldham Central & Saddleworth. The rest -- Chadderton, Royton and Shaw & Crompton -- are joined by two Rochdale wards in Milnrow, Shaw & Chadderton (other names are available, obviously). You could keep OE&S unchanged with a bit of rejigging, but I preferred this version of the cross-border seat which doesn't use any of the "Oldham proper" wards.

Rochdale: Rochdale loses two southern wards to that cross-border seat with Oldham, and gains Norden from Heywood & Middleton.

Stockport: The only borough with no border crossings. Cheadle is unchanged, and Stockport takes on the Reddish wards but loses Manor to Hazel Grove.

Even with the possibility of split wards the electorates in the boroughs would make it hard to avoid this sort of number of border crossings, I think. You could try to treat Bury on its own, but it'd be a challenge for the Wigan-Bolton-Salford group to absorb the extra electorate. Another challenge would be to get 8 seats out of the Tameside-Oldham-Rochdale group and 7 out of Trafford-Manchester.

If you're going with that arrangement, you can make the two north Manchester wards a little bit less squirrely by swapping Hulme for Moston. It's still ugly and I still prefer putting Blackley in with Middleton, but it's a little better.

[islington]

Jan 14, 2021 7:49:50 GMT YL said:

Here's my attempt at Greater Manchester. The west is as in East Anglian Lefty 's plan.



Let's go through this by borough.

Wigan: Wigan is unchanged, while Makerfield and Leigh exchange the Hindley and Lowton wards.

Bolton: Bolton West is unchanged, still containing Atherton in Wigan. North East gains Great Lever, becoming Bolton East, and South East loses all the Levers and gains three Salford wards, becoming Bolton South & Walkden.

Bury: Unsworth moves from South to North, and South gains Little Lever & Darcy Lever in Bolton. I think Bury and Prestwich & Radcliffe are now better names, if they weren't already.

Salford: The Walkden and Little Hulton wards move to a Bolton-based seat, but the Manchester crossing disappears, so the other two seats move east, with names simplified to Worsley & Eccles and Salford.

Trafford: Altrincham & Sale West, Stretford & Urmston and Wythenshawe & Sale East (obviously partly in Manchester) are all unchanged.

Manchester: Gets four seats to itself, but to be honest the northern two are a bit ugly. Manchester Withington loses Burnage to Gorton, which loses Gorton itself; I'm calling the result Manchester Rusholme. Manchester Ardwick is really the successor to Central, but the centre itself goes into Manchester Central & Blackley. Wythenshawe remains in its cross-border seat, and the other border crossing sees Gorton & Abbey Hey and Clayton & Openshaw grouped with Tameside wards.

Tameside: Those two Manchester wards join the Droylsden and Denton areas in Denton & Gorton. Stalybridge & Hyde is unchanged. The Ashton wards and Dukinfield join with four wards of Oldham, including Failsworth, to form Oldham South & Ashton under Lyne

Oldham: Four southern wards join that cross-border seat with Ashton. The Saddleworth seat extends further into Oldham and loses Shaw & Crompton, becoming Oldham Central & Saddleworth. The rest -- Chadderton, Royton and Shaw & Crompton -- are joined by two Rochdale wards in Milnrow, Shaw & Chadderton (other names are available, obviously). You could keep OE&S unchanged with a bit of rejigging, but I preferred this version of the cross-border seat which doesn't use any of the "Oldham proper" wards.

Rochdale: Rochdale loses two southern wards to that cross-border seat with Oldham, and gains Norden from Heywood & Middleton.

Stockport: The only borough with no border crossings. Cheadle is unchanged, and Stockport takes on the Reddish wards but loses Manor to Hazel Grove.

Even with the possibility of split wards the electorates in the boroughs would make it hard to avoid this sort of number of border crossings, I think. You could try to treat Bury on its own, but it'd be a challenge for the Wigan-Bolton-Salford group to absorb the extra electorate. Another challenge would be to get 8 seats out of the Tameside-Oldham-Rochdale group and 7 out of Trafford-Manchester.

Hmm... A three-way rotation of Milnrow, Castleton and Norden wards would work and might be preferable.

But I agree with EAL that overall the Middleton / north Manchester link is preferable. It's true that it hives off a peripheral housing estate on the north side of Middleton but it's a better scheme overall and there's always collateral damage somewhere.

[The Bishop]

Jan 13, 2021 20:17:00 GMT YL said:

LOL

The only appropriate response to that really

[East Anglian Lefty]

Possible arrangement of seats in Cumbria and Lancashire that removes the current split of Haslingden by putting Burnley in with Bacup:




W Lancashire 75458
Leyland & Bamber Bridge 76010
Chorley 74561
Blackburn 70586
Rossendale & Darwen 75667
Accrington 74946
Burnley & Bacup 74959
Pendle 76422
Fulwood & Clitheroe 76815
Preston & Penwortham 75825
Blackpool S 76071
Fylde 75114
Blackpool N & Fleetwood 75396
Lancaster & Wyre 74992
Morecambe & Lonsdale 76040
Kendal & Penrith 74846
Barrow & Furness 75046
Workington & Whitehaven 75438
Cockermouth 73682
Carlisle 75868

At best I think this is something of a curate's egg. I'm pretty happy with Cumbria and north Lancashire, bar the unfortunate (but hard to avoid) protrusion of Penrith. Splitting Carleton from Poulton-le-Fylde is also not ideal, but probably a reasonable sacrifice given the tightness of the numbers. And I'm quite pleased with Leyland and Bamber Bridge, if not on its effects on other seats.

However, Preston & Penwortham is not pretty; nor is Pendle's arm into Ribble Valley; the two bits of Rossendale and Darwen still aren't well connected to each other and Burnley and Bacup don't really have much in common with one another. An interesting experiment, but probably best confined to the drawing board.

[Deleted]

Fulwood & Clitheroe 76815Preston & Penwortham 75825

Well. 

[Deleted]

From top to bottom:

Morecambe Bay
Lancaster and Bowland
Pendle and Clitheroe
Burnley
Blackburn
Hyndburn
Rossendale and Darwen

[The Bishop]

Sorry, but that Lancaster seat is an abomination

[Andrew_S]

Jan 24, 2021 11:13:20 GMT The Bishop said:

Sorry, but that Lancaster seat is an abomination

How many miles is it from top to bottom...

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2021 11:13:20 GMT The Bishop said:

Sorry, but that Lancaster seat is an abomination

 But it means I've got East Lancashire in quota for the first time all month 

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2021 11:19:40 GMT Andrew_S said:

Jan 24, 2021 11:13:20 GMT The Bishop said:

Sorry, but that Lancaster seat is an abomination

How many miles is it from top to bottom...

 Google tells me Lancaster to Great Harwood is 40 miles by car.

[YL]

I'm not sure if anyone else has made this observation, but I note that if you treat the unitary authorities of Halton and Warrington with Lancashire and Lancastrian Merseyside, then the rest of Cheshire (i.e. the two big unitaries) together with the Wirral has fairly sensible numbers for 11 constituencies. You can even respect the border between the two big unitaries, though when you've seen the map below which does you might decide you don't want to...

Even after detaching Sefton, that leaves an unwieldy "sub"region stretching from the Mersey to the Scottish border and including nine top level authorities, with an allocation of 32 seats. To make it a little more manageable, I suggest thinking of it in two parts, one consisting of Cumbria, Blackpool, Lancaster, Fylde and Wyre (10 seats) and one containing everything else (22 seats).

Here's Cheshire:


Wirral and CWaC

1. West Wirral (76,312). The Wirral seats are in the configuration due to ricmk .
2. Birkenhead West & Bebington (69,819). Or whatever you want to call it.
3. Birkenhead Riverside & Wallasey (75,320).
4. Ellesmere Port & Bromborough (71,027).
5. Chester (74,920). No room for Great Boughton.
6. Northwich (72,926). Basically the towns of Northwich and Winsford and their immediate hinterlands.
7. Eddisbury (75,490). Basically rural west Cheshire, the Frodsham/Helsby area, and one Chester ward. You can go for something closer to the current Northwich/Eddisbury border, but I thought it left Gowy Rural ward a bit isolated.

Cheshire East

8. Macclesfield (75,881). Unchanged.
9. Tatton (75,900). Treating Cheshire East on its own creates some strange shapes.
10. Congleton (76,213). Looks weird, but it's basically the towns in the current seat, except Middlewich, plus some areas lost by Crewe & Nantwich in its westward shuffle.
11. Crewe & Nantwich (73,683). Shuffles westwards to fit the shape of the south-western border of the UA.

[YL]

Now south and east Lancashire, Halton, Warrington and Lancastrian Merseyside (two maps):





East Lancs

1. Rossendale & Darwen (74,593). Re-aligned to new ward boundaries.
2. Blackburn (70,586). Re-aligned to new ward boundaries.
3. Accrington (71,145). Boundaries unchanged.
4. Burnley (70,152). No need to split Nelson.
5. Pendle & Bowland (71,985). The exact arrangement is up for debate, but I don't think the numbers make sense for it to take Clitheroe town.


Preston area

6. Ribble Valley (74,206). I think enough is retained from the current seat to keep the name. Takes in areas from the abolished Wyre & Preston North.
7. Preston (72,946). Which wards are detached is up for debate.
8. South Ribble (71,402). Shifts a bit east, losing most West Lancs wards.
9. Chorley (72,390). Loses Euxton area.
10. Ormskirk (71,347). West Lancs loses Skelmersdale and gains Euxton and rural areas from South Ribble.

Knowsley, St Helens, Halton and Warrington, plus a few Liverpool wards and Skelmersdale

11. St Helens North & Skelmersdale (70,416). Crossing the Lancashire/Merseyside border.
12. Kirkby & Fazakerley (75,311). Name to be pronounced in a Scouse accent, of course.
13. Huyton (70,126). Entirely within Knowsley.
14. St Helens South & Prescot (69,898).
15. Widnes & Great Sankey (72,406). It's possible to maintain the current Halton seat and only cross the Warrington/Halton boundary once, but I decided to show the version which uses the Mersey as a boundary here.
16. St Helens East & Birchwood. I think St Helens drew a bit of a short straw in this map.
17. Runcorn & Lymm (75,722). Pitchforks?
18. Warrington Central (76,744).

Most of Liverpool

19. Liverpool Garston (70,742). Sheds Knowsley wards, gains Childwall.
20. Liverpool Wavertree (72,094). Loses Childwall, gains a short Mersey shoreline.
21. Liverpool West Derby (75,830). Loses Croxteth, gains Clubmoor and Anfield.
22. Liverpool Riverside (71,038). Loses south end and gains Everton, but still Riverside enough for the name, I think.

[YL]

Meanwhile, the rest of Lancashire and Cumbria can be exactly as I had it before. I won't repost the map, but here are the seats and electorates:

Jan 13, 2021 19:09:06 GMT YL said:

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).

[Pete Whitehead]

Jan 27, 2021 13:26:51 GMT YL said:

I'm not sure if anyone else has made this observation, but I note that if you treat the unitary authorities of Halton and Warrington with Lancashire and Lancastrian Merseyside, then the rest of Cheshire (i.e. the two big unitaries) together with the Wirral has fairly sensible numbers for 11 constituencies. You can even respect the border between the two big unitaries, though when you've seen the map below which does you might decide you don't want to...

I don't want to but it works well by not doing so as well.
Move Marbury and Shakerley from Northwich to Knutsford.
Weaver & Cuddington and Tarporley to Northwich
Audlem, Bunbury, Wrenbury and Wybunbury from Crewe to Eddisbury.
Shavington and Haslington from Congleton to CRewe & Nantwich
Brereton Rural and Middlewich to Congleton

Call it minimum change