2023 Review - North West

[johnloony]

A brilliant version which doesn't need any exclaves or detached parts

[Foggy]

It appears there are three wards in Macclesfield unaccounted for in John's, uh... 'audacious' plan above. That Northwich & Winsford seat isn't too bad though, and nor are some of the constituencies in the Manchester and Wirral areas.

[Deleted]

Preston split five ways 😳

[johnloony]

Feb 3, 2021 5:54:09 GMT Foggy said:

It appears there are three wards in Macclesfield unaccounted for in John's, uh... 'audacious' plan above. That Northwich & Winsford seat isn't too bad though, and nor are some of the constituencies in the Manchester and Wirral areas.

Oh piffle! I didn't notice the missing wards.

I was trying to follow my normal method of going round the edge and coiling inwards. This method inevitable means that bits at the edges occasionally get trapped in pockets, and have to be filled in with the colour before continuing round. Sometimes extra wards have to be added at one end in order to remove a ward at the other end in order to stay within the limit, or variations in the direction are needed. It obviously gets more and more difficult as one gets closer to the middle. Then, wards have to be swapped and rotated all over the place to squash everything into the limit.

If I feel bored or desperate enough I will start again from scratch and do another version. I sometimes fantasise about the Boundary Commission making a similar mistake and include one ward in two different constituencies (in which case the voters in that ward would vote in two elections and have two MPs) or leaving out a ward (in which case some people would have with no MP).

[johnloony]

Another attempt: instead of starting at the edge and coiling inwards, I started in the centre of Manchester and spiralled outwards (anti-clockwise). By the time I got to the far north-west corner of Cumbria, the final constituency has an electorate of 118k. So I allowed the excess to cascade southwards, with the next constituency to the south gobbling up as much as necessary of the constituency above it, just enough to get the first one reduced to within the limit. The overall effect of this process was that it ended up with a whole chain of constituencies, each just below the maximum limit, going as far south as necessary until there was no excess left over. It was quite fun swapping the wards like that because it was like doing a count of an STV election, with ever-decreasing surpluses transferring from one candidate to the next to the next to the next.

[sirbenjamin]

I had a go at doing Cheshire/Wirral and made the following work - no ward splitting and only one crossing of a LA. If only I knew how to post a picture.


Seats contained entirely within Wirral:

1 Wirral NW 76542 Yes
2 Wirral Central 70020 Yes
3 Wirral Riverside 75516 Yes


Seat that crosses Wirral and CW&C:


4 Wirral South and Ellesmere Port 70400 Yes


Seats contained entirely within CW&C:

5 Chester 70992 Yes
6 Northwich and Neston 75888 Yes
7 Eddisbury 76506 Yes


Seats contained entirely within Cheshire East:


8 Crewe 73683 Yes
9 Sandbach and Congleton 76213 Yes
10 Knutsford and Wilmslow 75603 Yes
11 Macclesfield 76178 Yes

[Khunanup]

Feb 4, 2021 3:18:27 GMT sirbenjamin said:

I had a go at doing Cheshire/Wirral and made the following work - no ward splitting and only one crossing of a LA. If only I knew how to post a picture.


Seats contained entirely within Wirral:

1 Wirral NW 76542 Yes
2 Wirral Central 70020 Yes
3 Wirral Riverside 75516 Yes


Seat that crosses Wirral and CW&C:


4 Wirral South and Ellesmere Port 70400 Yes


Seats contained entirely within CW&C:

5 Chester 70992 Yes
6 Northwich and Neston 75888 Yes
7 Eddisbury 76506 Yes


Seats contained entirely within Cheshire East:


8 Crewe 73683 Yes
9 Sandbach and Congleton 76213 Yes
10 Knutsford and Wilmslow 75603 Yes
11 Macclesfield 76178 Yes

You could list the wards for your three Wirral MBC seats & the cross authority one.

Northwich & Neston sounds, erm, interesting... 😁

[sirbenjamin]

Feb 4, 2021 4:31:59 GMT Khunanup said:

Feb 4, 2021 3:18:27 GMT sirbenjamin said:

I had a go at doing Cheshire/Wirral and made the following work - no ward splitting and only one crossing of a LA. If only I knew how to post a picture.


Seats contained entirely within Wirral:

1 Wirral NW 76542 Yes
2 Wirral Central 70020 Yes
3 Wirral Riverside 75516 Yes


Seat that crosses Wirral and CW&C:


4 Wirral South and Ellesmere Port 70400 Yes


Seats contained entirely within CW&C:

5 Chester 70992 Yes
6 Northwich and Neston 75888 Yes
7 Eddisbury 76506 Yes


Seats contained entirely within Cheshire East:


8 Crewe 73683 Yes
9 Sandbach and Congleton 76213 Yes
10 Knutsford and Wilmslow 75603 Yes
11 Macclesfield 76178 Yes

You could list the wards for your three Wirral MBC seats & the cross authority one.

Northwich & Neston sounds, erm, interesting... 😁

N&N is a strange shape admittedly, but the places have already been bundled together along with all the stuff in between at Authority level, and it avoids splitting Ellesmere Port between seats. Not saying it can' t be improved upon, mind.

Northwich & Neston:

E05012216 Gowy Rural 7407
E05012220 Helsby 4246
E05012215 Frodsham 7631
E05012234 Sandstone 4159
E05012235 Saughall and Mollington 4281
E05012247 Willaston and Thornton 4233
E05012223 Little Neston 4251
E05012226 Neston 4279
E05012232 Parkgate 4124
E05012225 Marbury 10387
E05012230 Northwich Winnington and Castle 6679
E05012229 Northwich Leftwich 3686
E05012231 Northwich Witton 3741
E05012219 Hartford and Greenbank 6784

Wirral NW:

E05000975 West Kirby and Thurstaston 10439
E05000963 Hoylake and Meols 10723
E05000966 Moreton West and Saughall Massie 10850
E05000964 Leasowe and Moreton East 11076
E05000974 Wallasey 11898
E05000962 Heswall 10981
E05000969 Pensby and Thingwall 10575

Wirral Riverside:

E05000965 Liscard 11350
E05000972 Seacombe 10178
E05000956 Birkenhead and Tranmere 10164
E05000971 Rock Ferry 10003
E05000957 Bromborough 12094
E05000967 New Brighton 11454
E05000955 Bidston and St James 10273

Wirral Central:

E05000968 Oxton 11140
E05000973 Upton 12521
E05000970 Prenton 11123
E05000954 Bebington 11993
E05000959 Claughton 11575
E05000961 Greasby, Frankby and Irby 11668

Wirral South and Ellesmere Port:

E05000958 Clatterbridge 11467
E05000960 Eastham 11135
E05012222 Ledsham and Manor 7758
E05012227 Netherpool 4214
E05012238 Sutton Villages 8257
E05012237 Strawberry 4284
E05012245 Whitby Groves 3778
E05012244 Westminster 3457
E05012210 Central and Grange 8129
E05012246 Whitby Park 4139
E05012253 Wolverham 3782

[sirbenjamin]

I can't get Liverpool to work with the leftover bit of Halton without a split ward. Which I'd personally rather have than a Halton seat that doesn't include a bridge joining the two halves together.

[YL]

If you're going to put Neston in a seat which squeezes between Ellesmere Port and Chester, rather than with one of them, then I think it's better to put it with the "Eddisbury" area and put Winsford with Northwich, but that still gives you a sprawling seat where Neston is very much out on a limb. The alternative is to remove a couple of peripheral wards from either Ellesmere Port or Chester.

[owainsutton]

Feb 3, 2021 15:34:24 GMT johnloony said:

Another attempt: instead of starting at the edge and coiling inwards, I started in the centre of Manchester and spiralled outwards (anti-clockwise). By the time I got to the far north-west corner of Cumbria, the final constituency has an electorate of 118k. So I allowed the excess to cascade southwards, with the next constituency to the south gobbling up as much as necessary of the constituency above it, just enough to get the first one reduced to within the limit. The overall effect of this process was that it ended up with a whole chain of constituencies, each just below the maximum limit, going as far south as necessary until there was no excess left over. It was quite fun swapping the wards like that because it was like doing a count of an STV election, with ever-decreasing surpluses transferring from one candidate to the next to the next to the next.

You know that you're going to have to come up with names for these 'creations', too?!

[John Chanin]

Here are my thoughts before reading everyone else's

Cumbria is straightforward dropping 2 wards into Lancashire.  I thought Lancashire would be a problem, as a high average electorate is required, but in fact it's very simple.  Lancaster/Blackpool/Wyre/Fylde makes 5 seats (I added Preston Rural concerned about numbers).  West Lancashire/Chorley are aligned to new ward boundaries, with the spare wards as now going into "South Ribble" (better Leyland).  The bits and pieces seat remains bits and pieces, with spare wards from Preston, South Ribble, and Ribble Valley ("Ribble Valley").  Blackburn and Rossendale/Darwen are aligned to new ward boundaries. The spare Rossendale ward goes into Hyndburn along with Whalley.  Burnley adds the 2 Brierfield wards from Pendle, and finally Pendle links with Clitheroe.  

Merseyside is also easy.  Sefton is unchanged.  St Helens takes Whiston as now, and a couple of wards are swapped to bring them in quota.  That leaves you 14 Knowsley wards and 30 Liverpool wards.  9 Knowsley wards for a seat, leaves you to find 3 x 7 Liverpool wards, plus one 5 Liverpool + 2 Knowsley (existing Garston & Halewood), plus one 4 Liverpool + 3 Knowsley in the NE if it works.  It does - just over quota.  Because Riverside ward is so large it has to link with small wards to keep it under maximum size so a little bit of rearranging is required, but that's all. 

[John Chanin]

Greater Manchester I originally did for 27 seats.  Wigan/Bolton/Bury/Salford can be arranged into 10 seats (Farnworth & Radcliffe, Prestwich & Swinton, otherwise much as now).  Stockport stands happily for 3 on the new figures.  Trafford/Wythenshawe is within quota so why change it?  That leaves you Rochdale/Oldham/Tameside and the rest of Manchester for 11 seats.  Manchester is annoying because the average ward size is 11,500 which is exactly the wrong size, 6 wards being generally under quota and 7 wards being rather more over quota. There are 2 smaller wards in the city centre, but they are side by side, and on the western edge.  Withington is OK for 6 wards realigned to new boundaries.  But I found I had to cross the Manchester boundary 3 times - the north wards with Chadderton, the NE wards with Failsworth, and the east wards with Denton.  This meant only 2 seats wholly in Manchester (obviously a Central seat) which isn't ideal.  There may well be better arrangements but I parked this as I was concerned about Cheshire, and whether you can fit in 15 seats at an average of under 71,500.  To cut a long story short I couldn't, being 400 voters short on one seat and no way I could see of fixing it.  So I decided to take a ward out of Greater Manchester and go back to the drawing board. 

Normally you'd take a ward out of Stockport, but I was reluctant to mess with this.  Taking out Bowden rapidly looked horrible.  So I decided to take out Cadishead which links well enough with Warrington north of the Ship Canal.  Now I got Cheshire to work as I could drop 3 wards out of Warrington rather than 2.  Lymm goes with Wilmslow.  Macclesfield, Congleton, Crewe/Nantwich are recognisably the same with only small alterations.  I moved Penketh into Widnes, and the east Runcorn wards then link nicely with Northwich.  There is then an ugly seat stretching round the west and north of Crewe/Nantwich running from Audlem through Winsford to Middlewich.  In the west there is a nice compact Chester seat on the minimum size, and I have another ugly seat surrounding it, running from Neston to Farndon via Helsby and Frodsham.  Wirral + Ellesmere Port is good for 4 seats, but needs 2 ward splits if you are to avoid splitting Ellesmere Port.  I'm sure those of you who know the area better have plans with just 1 ward split, but hey ho. 

That means I had to revise my Greater Manchester plan.  Now I have to link Prestwich with Middleton, and cross the Manchester border with a seat approximating to the existing Blackley & Broughton.  The problem with this is that it cuts Rochdale in half.  However there is a silver lining in that the eastern half of Rochdale links with Oldham for exactly 3 seats.  I can retain the Denton & Gorton seat, and the rest of the south as before, and now I can fit 3 seats wholly in Manchester - as well as Withington and Central, a new seat in the NE (Openshaw?).

Sorry I still haven't got maps together.  I promise I will eventually, and when I do I will post them.

[J.G.Harston]

You know that you're going to have to come up with names for these 'creations', too?!

Bonus points if you get all four compass points in. Something like North-West Southampton East.

[Foggy]

Feb 4, 2021 12:44:42 GMT J.G.Harston said:

You know that you're going to have to come up with names for these 'creations', too?!

Bonus points if you get all four compass points in. Something like North-West Southampton East.

I now notice that in this region, John has also managed to restore Blackpool North & Fleetwood in amongst all the chaos (which some of our attempts at Lancashire have failed to do). 

[🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️]

Feb 4, 2021 12:44:42 GMT J.G.Harston said:

You know that you're going to have to come up with names for these 'creations', too?!

Bonus points if you get all four compass points in. Something like North-West Southampton East.

Bring back the old Stepney ward of St George in the East North West!

[No Offence Alan]

Feb 4, 2021 21:32:50 GMT 🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️ said:

Feb 4, 2021 12:44:42 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Bonus points if you get all four compass points in. Something like North-West Southampton East.

Bring back the old Stepney ward of St George in the East North West!

East Kilbride Central North and East Kilbride Central South say hello.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

West Bromwich East.

[minionofmidas]

It's ever a shame that the Irish Boundary Commission goes with "Meath West" rather than the much more accurate "Meath West and Westmeath East".

[John Chanin]

Having a read through the thread it is obvious that there are better arrangements around Wirral and Ellesmere Port, so long as you can make larger seats.  But that means taking more voters out of Greater Manchester which is tricky, or as looked at by several people, trying to extend into Merseyside, which is very messy.  And you start calling on Lancashire to provide extra voters, which makes things even more complicated.  

I think I will look at whether it's possible to take a ward out of Wigan into Warrington (it has to be one or both of the Lowton wards) , and still come up with an acceptable GM solution.  I really don't want to mess with the simple Merseyside and Lancashire arrangements.