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Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 8, 2022 9:58:49 GMT
Thank you Pete Whitehead for the maps.. this is by far the best set of London proposals we’re going to get with the 5% rule, just think back to the last 2 reviews. Beggars and choosers ect ect Yes I'm pretty happy with the proposals in London. Naturally I'd have preferred some of my own suggestions in Middlesex to have been adopted again but what we've got is pretty good and I was OK with what they had planned in East and South London to start with. I'm also very happy overall with what they've done in the East of England (apart from the Luton/Dunstable area) and in the South East (though again disappointed they didn't take on board my suggestions for a unified Maidstone). The South West is the worst job from what I've seen but I've not looked in detail at all the northern regions. West Midlands looks to be pretty much as per the initial proposals and is OK apart from the mess in Sandwell and the continued gerrymander in Coventry. My main beef in the North is around nomenclature for seats such as 'Headingly' which should be 'Leeds NW' and 'Mid Cheshire' which should be 'Northwich'. |
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Post by edgbaston on Nov 8, 2022 10:23:52 GMT
Thank you Pete Whitehead for the maps.. this is by far the best set of London proposals we’re going to get with the 5% rule, just think back to the last 2 reviews. Beggars and choosers ect ect Yes I'm pretty happy with the proposals in London. Naturally I'd have preferred some of my own suggestions in Middlesex to have been adopted again but what we've got is pretty good and I was OK with what they had planned in East and South London to start with. I'm also very happy overall with what they've done in the East of England (apart from the Luton/Dunstable area) and in the South East (though again disappointed they didn't take on board my suggestions for a unified Maidstone). The South West is the worst job from what I've seen but I've not looked in detail at all the northern regions. West Midlands looks to be pretty much as per the initial proposals and is OK apart from the mess in Sandwell and the continued gerrymander in Coventry. My main beef in the North is around nomenclature for seats such as 'Headingly' which should be 'Leeds NW' and 'Mid Cheshire' which should be 'Northwich'. Just looking at the Leeds proposals really awful and so avoidable |
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Post by minionofmidas on Nov 8, 2022 14:09:30 GMT
Is that seat really called Croydon and S Norwood?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2022 14:24:03 GMT
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 8, 2022 14:28:55 GMT
Is that seat really called Croydon and S Norwood? Croydon West & South Norwood - transcription error on my part |
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Post by johnloony on Nov 8, 2022 14:44:49 GMT
Is that seat really called Croydon and S Norwood? QTWTAIN |
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Post by johnloony on Nov 8, 2022 14:45:40 GMT
AIWYMN* * (Nswers N Hich Es Eans O) |
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Post by minionofmidas on Nov 8, 2022 15:46:42 GMT
Is that seat really called Croydon and S Norwood? QTWTAIN nah, that's "do you want sugar or artificial sweetener with your coffee?" Had that conversation today. She really meant it as an either-or question. |
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Post by islington on Nov 8, 2022 17:14:27 GMT
I agree with comments to the effect that any changes proposed at this stage should be as limited as possible without knock-on consequences.
In that spirit, although I'm generally happy with the proposals in London north of the Thames and west of the Lee, I'm not happy with the split right through the middle of Kentish Town.
This can be rectified by switching Kentish Town S ward from Holborn & St Pancras to Ham & High, balanced by moving Primrose Hill the other way. Since Primrose Hill stretches all the way to include part of Parkway, this also has the merit of moving the boundary from the heart of Camden Town.
In this configuration, H&H 73805 and H&StP 75892 so it's all legal.
I'm seriously considering suggesting this.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 8, 2022 18:16:35 GMT
I agree with comments to the effect that any changes proposed at this stage should be as limited as possible without knock-on consequences. In that spirit, although I'm generally happy with the proposals in London north of the Thames and west of the Lee, I'm not happy with the split right through the middle of Kentish Town. This can be rectified by switching Kentish Town S ward from Holborn & St Pancras to Ham & High, balanced by moving Primrose Hill the other way. Since Primrose Hill stretches all the way to include part of Parkway, this also has the merit of moving the boundary from the heart of Camden Town. In this configuration, H&H 73805 and H&StP 75892 so it's all legal. I'm seriously considering suggesting this. It's unfortunate that Gospel Oak is just slightly too large to be included in H&H (it would result in an electorate of 11 over quota). A split ward would solve the problem - either Gospel Oak itself or preferably Primrose Hill (as that includes areas much closer to Camden town than Hampstead). I don't suppose they would consider that when it is not strictly necessary and I think their solution is only mildly sub-optimal based on your objection whereas yours is deeply sub-optimal |
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Post by John Chanin on Nov 9, 2022 12:19:43 GMT
Somewhat notable that in the same section of the report they say that aligning to new ward boundaries in Walthamstow isn't sufficient justification to split a ward. They also rejected a request to use the new ward boundaries for Newham so there'll be three split wards to complicate things for Electoral Services and potentially cause misallocation. It seems they are only willing to look at new ward boundaries when they have already decided that a ward split is desirable (if not strictly necessary). Havering is a problem, and one that generated loads of comments, so I can understand their decisions, which don’t affect anywhere else. |
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Post by evergreenadam on Nov 9, 2022 15:51:35 GMT
I agree with comments to the effect that any changes proposed at this stage should be as limited as possible without knock-on consequences. In that spirit, although I'm generally happy with the proposals in London north of the Thames and west of the Lee, I'm not happy with the split right through the middle of Kentish Town. This can be rectified by switching Kentish Town S ward from Holborn & St Pancras to Ham & High, balanced by moving Primrose Hill the other way. Since Primrose Hill stretches all the way to include part of Parkway, this also has the merit of moving the boundary from the heart of Camden Town. In this configuration, H&H 73805 and H&StP 75892 so it's all legal. I'm seriously considering suggesting this. It's unfortunate that Gospel Oak is just slightly too large to be included in H&H (it would result in an electorate of 11 over quota). A split ward would solve the problem - either Gospel Oak itself or preferably Primrose Hill (as that includes areas much closer to Camden town than Hampstead). I don't suppose they would consider that when it is not strictly necessary and I think their solution is only mildly sub-optimal based on your objection whereas yours is deeply sub-optimal How is Islington’s suggestion deeply sub-optimal? |
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Post by islington on Nov 10, 2022 14:36:46 GMT
While we are all pondering the answer to that question, I've been turning my attention as promised to south London. In Croydon, they've reunited Longthornton with Mitcham (good) and got rid of the planned split of Waddon ward (also good) but we now have a very strange Croydon W seat which spills right over to the eastern side of the borough, hence 'S Norwood' is added to the name. It does include the ward of that name, but that ward covers only part of the S Norwood area and although this is partly rectified by a split of Woodside ward, that split makes very little sense on the ground and means that there are still substantial parts of S Norwood not in the proposed seat. And there's an easy fix available. All you need to do is put S Norwood and the whole of Woodside into Croydon E, and exchange the Addiscombe wards the other way. I acknowledge Addiscombe is rather far to the east to be included is a Croydon W seat (it's really more 'Croydon C & W' but I prefer to avoid such clumsy names) - but it makes a lot more sense than the BCE revised proposal. And it only affects these two seats, which in this arrangement come in at: Croydon E 70110; Croydon W 76048. I'm toying with suggesting this, unless of course Pete Whitehead tells me I shouldn't.
I'm also mulling a five-ward rotation in Lambeth and Southwark: Larkhall into Vauxhall; Camberwell Green into Peckham (which in this case could retain 'Camberwell & Peckham); Nunhead into Lewisham W & E Dulwich (which would now include much less Dulwich content so I suggest 'Lewisham W & Nunhead'); Goose Green into Dulwich & W Norwood; Coldharbour into Lambeth C (which would then much better be called 'Clapham & Brixton'). Compared with the revised BCE scheme, this arrangement has the drawback of leaving Newington as an orphan ward but on the other hand, it gets the bulk of Brixton in one seat and Dulwich likewise.
I'm less sure about this one because of its greater complexity so at the moment I'm just throwing it out there for any comments.
Numbers: Clapham & Brixton 75356; Vauxhall 71891; Camberwell & Peckham 70243; Lewisham W & Nunhead 70592; Dulwich & W Norwood 72767. |
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Post by johnloony on Nov 10, 2022 15:07:20 GMT
While we are all pondering the answer to that question, I've been turning my attention as promised to south London. In Croydon, they've reunited Longthornton with Mitcham (good) and got rid of the planned split of Waddon ward (also good) but we now have a very strange Croydon W seat which spills right over to the eastern side of the borough, hence 'S Norwood' is added to the name. It does include the ward of that name, but that ward covers only part of the S Norwood area and although this is partly rectified by a split of Woodside ward, that split makes very little sense on the ground and means that there are still substantial parts of S Norwood not in the proposed seat. And there's an easy fix available. All you need to do is put S Norwood and the whole of Woodside into Croydon E, and exchange the Addiscombe wards the other way. I acknowledge Addiscombe is rather far to the east to be included is a Croydon W seat (it's really more 'Croydon C & W' but I prefer to avoid such clumsy names) - but it makes a lot more sense than the BCE revised proposal. And it only affects these two seats, which in this arrangement come in at: Croydon E 70110; Croydon W 76048. I'm toying with suggesting this, unless of course Pete Whitehead tells me I shouldn't. You shouldn’t. A big problem with the initial recommendations was that Addiscombe West and Woodside were separated from each other. They should be kept together. The revised recommendations fix that. Ideally the Conservatives would want Addiscombe West and Woodside to be in a version of Croydon North, and ideally Labour would want them to be in a version of Croydon East (or Central) but nobody wants them separate from each other. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 10, 2022 15:09:03 GMT
No need for that sort of cattiness or sarcasm. I said clearly up thread that I was unhappy with the proposals in Croydon and at best ambivalent about those in the Lewisham area and with the proposed Lambeth Central seat. Obviously you don't need my approval or otherwise to make whatever suggestions you want to the commission, however fuckwitted they may be but equally I have every right to comment when I think they are.
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Post by islington on Nov 10, 2022 15:36:36 GMT
No need for that sort of cattiness or sarcasm. I said clearly up thread that I was unhappy with the proposals in Croydon and at best ambivalent about those in the Lewisham area and with the proposed Lambeth Central seat. Obviously you don't need my approval or otherwise to make whatever suggestions you want to the commission, however fuckwitted they may be but equally I have every right to comment when I think they are. All right, Pete, I plead guilty to sarcasm and I apologize. It wasn't your disagreeing with me about my Camden suggestion that bothered me - it was the fact that you didn't give any reasons. I've often disagreed, sometimes strongly, with other contributors' suggestions but I hope I've always said why. Anyway, moving on, I have reservations about the point made by johnloony just above. I admit I'm more of a north London person but I'm not entirely unfamiliar with Croydon and it's certainly my impression that the eastern part of Woodside ward - Portland Road and the streets either side of it - is part and parcel of South Norwood. And just from looking at the map, this area must contain well over half the electors.
Edited to add: The SE25 postal area, basically.
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Post by johnloony on Nov 10, 2022 15:54:54 GMT
No need for that sort of cattiness or sarcasm. I said clearly up thread that I was unhappy with the proposals in Croydon and at best ambivalent about those in the Lewisham area and with the proposed Lambeth Central seat. Obviously you don't need my approval or otherwise to make whatever suggestions you want to the commission, however fuckwitted they may be but equally I have every right to comment when I think they are. All right, Pete, I plead guilty to sarcasm and I apologize. It wasn't your disagreeing with me about my Camden suggestion that bothered me - it was the fact that you didn't give any reasons. I've often disagreed, sometimes strongly, with other contributors' suggestions but I hope I've always said why. Anyway, moving on, I have reservations about the point made by johnloony just above. I admit I'm more of a north London person but I'm not entirely unfamiliar with Croydon and it's certainly my impression that the eastern part of Woodside ward - Portland Road and the streets either side of it - is part and parcel of South Norwood. And just from looking at the map, this area must contain well over half the electors. Edited to add: The SE25 postal area, basically.
That is an argument in favour of the BOundary Commission’s revised recommendations. - to split Woodside, to put the Portland Road area in with South Norwood, and to keep the rest of Woodside together with Addiscombe West. It is not an argument in favour of your proposal to have the whole of Woodside in one constituency and the whole of Addiscombe West in a different constituency. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Nov 10, 2022 16:12:52 GMT
No need for that sort of cattiness or sarcasm. I said clearly up thread that I was unhappy with the proposals in Croydon and at best ambivalent about those in the Lewisham area and with the proposed Lambeth Central seat. Obviously you don't need my approval or otherwise to make whatever suggestions you want to the commission, however fuckwitted they may be but equally I have every right to comment when I think they are. All right, Pete, I plead guilty to sarcasm and I apologize. It wasn't your disagreeing with me about my Camden suggestion that bothered me - it was the fact that you didn't give any reasons. I've often disagreed, sometimes strongly, with other contributors' suggestions but I hope I've always said why. Anyway, moving on, I have reservations about the point made by johnloony just above. I admit I'm more of a north London person but I'm not entirely unfamiliar with Croydon and it's certainly my impression that the eastern part of Woodside ward - Portland Road and the streets either side of it - is part and parcel of South Norwood. And just from looking at the map, this area must contain well over half the electors. Edited to add: The SE25 postal area, basically.
I hadn't seen evergreenadam's post yesterday as I had an unusually large number of notifications when I came on in the evening and was preoccupied with other matters (US elections, the PVI thread etc). Bacially my objection is to the shape of the map arising from your suggestion (and I think this is a consideration which is not given its due by a lot of people) - it causes both an ugly protrusion in the South East of the seat and creates an annoying salient of the Gospel Oak area. I think you get unnecesarily hung up on certain ward names and appear to think that an area begins and ends at the borders of whatever ward happens to bear the name at any given time. Would you object if the area being added was still in a ward called St Johns? The fact is Kentish Town North bleeds into Dartmouth Park which obviously links well with the Highgate ward. Kentish Town South likewise bleeds into Camden Town. It is also arguable that parts of the Kentish Town area are included in the Gospel Oak and Haverstock wards. It is inevitable and common that London districts find themselves divided between different constituencies - that has been Highhgate's fate afterall for nearly 200 years until now (and of course yes this is because it has been in different boroughs, parishes, but still - I don't think its a problem which needs fixing and I think your fix is worse (though note I did only say it was 'sub-optimal')). As I say if only we could remove the bit of Primrose Hill East of the Regents Canal then Primrose Hill and Gospel Oak could both go into Hampstead & Highgate and both 'Kentish Town' wards could stay in Holborn & St Pancras. |
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Post by islington on Nov 10, 2022 16:18:04 GMT
All right, Pete, I plead guilty to sarcasm and I apologize. It wasn't your disagreeing with me about my Camden suggestion that bothered me - it was the fact that you didn't give any reasons. I've often disagreed, sometimes strongly, with other contributors' suggestions but I hope I've always said why. Anyway, moving on, I have reservations about the point made by johnloony just above. I admit I'm more of a north London person but I'm not entirely unfamiliar with Croydon and it's certainly my impression that the eastern part of Woodside ward - Portland Road and the streets either side of it - is part and parcel of South Norwood. And just from looking at the map, this area must contain well over half the electors. Edited to add: The SE25 postal area, basically.
That is an argument in favour of the BOundary Commission’s revised recommendations. - to split Woodside, to put the Portland Road area in with South Norwood, and to keep the rest of Woodside together with Addiscombe West. It is not an argument in favour of your proposal to have the whole of Woodside in one constituency and the whole of Addiscombe West in a different constituency. That's not what they're proposing, though.
In the BCE revised scheme, at least half of the eastern side of Portland Road, and the whole of the western side, still won't be in the Croydon W & SN seat. Just from a quick glance at Google Maps, the SN Primary School, SN Islamic Centre, SN Leisure Centre, SN Country Park, and half of Norwood Jcn railway station all won't be in the seat. If I walked along Portland Road and asked a hundred random passers-by for directions to South Norwood, I'd get a hundred variations of the theme "You've found it, mate".
I wouldn't support a ward split anyway, in the context of my proposal, because it's not necessary for the scheme to work. But even I did want a split, this one is in completely the wrong place.
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Post by islington on Nov 10, 2022 17:06:28 GMT
All right, Pete, I plead guilty to sarcasm and I apologize. It wasn't your disagreeing with me about my Camden suggestion that bothered me - it was the fact that you didn't give any reasons. I've often disagreed, sometimes strongly, with other contributors' suggestions but I hope I've always said why. Anyway, moving on, I have reservations about the point made by johnloony just above. I admit I'm more of a north London person but I'm not entirely unfamiliar with Croydon and it's certainly my impression that the eastern part of Woodside ward - Portland Road and the streets either side of it - is part and parcel of South Norwood. And just from looking at the map, this area must contain well over half the electors. Edited to add: The SE25 postal area, basically.
I hadn't seen evergreenadam 's post yesterday as I had an unusually large number of notifications when I came on in the evening and was preoccupied with other matters (US elections, the PVI thread etc). Bacially my objection is to the shape of the map arising from your suggestion (and I think this is a consideration which is not given its due by a lot of people) - it causes both an ugly protrusion in the South East of the seat and creates an annoying salient of the Gospel Oak area. I think you get unnecesarily hung up on certain ward names and appear to think that an area begins and ends at the borders of whatever ward happens to bear the name at any given time. Would you object if the area being added was still in a ward called St Johns? The fact is Kentish Town North bleeds into Dartmouth Park which obviously links well with the Highgate ward. Kentish Town South likewise bleeds into Camden Town. It is also arguable that parts of the Kentish Town area are included in the Gospel Oak and Haverstock wards. It is inevitable and common that London districts find themselves divided between different constituencies - that has been Highhgate's fate afterall for nearly 200 years until now (and of course yes this is because it has been in different boroughs, parishes, but still - I don't think its a problem which needs fixing and I think your fix is worse (though note I did only say it was 'sub-optimal')). As I say if only we could remove the bit of Primrose Hill East of the Regents Canal then Primrose Hill and Gospel Oak could both go into Hampstead & Highgate and both 'Kentish Town' wards could stay in Holborn & St Pancras. Thanks, Pete, that's helpful.
I agree that ward names can be an unreliable guide and all I can say is that I'm conscious of this and try not to be misled. And I also recognize, of course, that areas bleed gradually into one another, especially in built-up areas, so it's not always possible, except possibly with a large number of finicking ward splits (and maybe not even then), to get a constituency boundary in what locals might see as the 'right' place to distinguish one suburb from the next.
But what I think is worth trying to avoid is a constituency boundary running right through the middle of a well-recognized local area. Sometimes other factors mean it's not possible to achieve this: for instance, the borough boundary running down the A5 makes it very likely that Kilburn will be sliced in half. But in the case of Kentish Town, it's only a ward boundary so I feel the effort should be made to keep the two halves together, assuming this can be done without creating worse problems elsewhere.
I agree it would be better to put Gospel Oak in the Ham & High seat, not so much to eliminate the bulge but because of the improvement in communications between the eastern and western parts of the seat. But as you say, you can't simply swap Gospel Oak and KT S because the numbers don't work.
Another possibility would be to put Gospel Oak and both KT wards into Ham & High in exchange for Primrose Hill and Belsize. This works on the numbers and it keeps KT together whilst also improving east-west communications in Ham & High. On the other hand it does push Holborn & St P quite a long way into Hampstead. So I think on the whole I'd either leave it as the BCE now has it or swap KT S and Primrose Hill as I previously suggested, my preference still leaning to the latter option.
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