andrewp
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Post by andrewp on Jun 23, 2021 8:12:32 GMT
Would it work numbers wise to swap Milverton and Monument wards?
I can see that there might be some comment about Monument which is named after Wellington Monument being in a different seat from the town, but some of the villages in that ward like Bradford and West Buckland are in the Taunton commuter area more than Milverton is.
More than One or two of the Somerset West and Taunton wards are rubbish wards and are having a knock on to this process.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 23, 2021 8:49:54 GMT
The numbers would work yes as I'd tried that. Both versions look a bit awkward on the map and that one I thought more so but whatever works best on the ground I guess
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andrewp
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Post by andrewp on Jun 23, 2021 9:09:48 GMT
The numbers would work yes as I'd tried that. Both versions look a bit awkward on the map and that one I thought more so but whatever works best on the ground I guess They do, and on reflection I think I would stick with your plan and keep Monument with Wellington. Both versions are significantly better than the commissions plan. Are you planning to make a submission on the South West.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 23, 2021 9:25:02 GMT
The numbers would work yes as I'd tried that. Both versions look a bit awkward on the map and that one I thought more so but whatever works best on the ground I guess They do, and on reflection I think I would stick with your plan and keep Monument with Wellington. Both versions are significantly better than the commissions plan. Are you planning to make a submission on the South West. I think I might. I hadn't planned to - I was just going to make some very minor suggestions for the East of England and propose some more major redrawing in North West and Central London (these being the two regions I have most interest in). The more I've looked at the South West the more I've concluded this is one of their worst set of proposals but obviously I need to see what time is available to work on a submission, especially as it would be a fairly comprehensive one in this region. I'm more exercised about the arrangements in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire than in Somerset and Devon but need to propose this alternative here to facilitate the non-crossing of the BANES/S Glos boundary
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jun 23, 2021 9:30:16 GMT
Would that plan work with crossing in to North Somerset rather than BANES? With a small ward split you could then have two seats entirely in the latter authority.
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Post by islington on Jun 23, 2021 9:50:36 GMT
Having had another play around with Somerset I've come to the conclusion that a crossing between Devon and Somerset is desirable, not for Devon's sake but for Somerset's (for the reasons described above). This is also the conclusion that the BCE reached evidently but they utilised too much of Somerset for the task forcing an unnecessary crossing between North East Somerset and South Gloucestershire (with all the horrors that follow from that). Of course it is possible with this plan also to adopt islington 's old school Plymouth arrangement which avoids an unnecessary ward split as well. Well, if I were in the BCE's shoes I'd be guided by local opinion about a 'Deverset' seat. I'm guessing that there will be stiff resistance to it.
A ten-seat Somerset is perfectly workable, despite the admittedly tight boundary around Bridgwater. It also allows Mendip and S Somerset districts to be treated together for three seats, which means that no seat need extend into more than two LAs.
But my main reservation about Pete's plan above is the seat linking Tavistock with areas on the other side of Dartmoor. The plan I suggested back on 18 Jan (top of p6) shows a way of avoiding this, which also allows us to keep a W Devon seat more or less intact apart from the loss of a few wards. That approach certainly works with a 13-seat Devon - what I'm not sure of is whether it is consistent with a 'Deverset' arrangement. I've tried to find a way of doing it, but the solutions I've found need too many electors to be taken out of Somerset.
And this highlights a problem with 'Deverset': Somerset by itself (with the two UAs) has an entitlement of 9.96. On these numbers, it doesn't need to be paired with anywhere, and unless any bite you take out of it is a pretty small one, you're going to leave too few voters for ten seats. The BCE's answer is to keep the numbers up by taking a corresponding bite out of S Glos, but of course that's exactly what we're trying to avoid.
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YL
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Post by YL on Jun 23, 2021 14:14:37 GMT
I agree that there are some compromises necessary to treat Somerset and Devon separately. However I think on balance I prefer that to the cross-border options, so I'm intending to submit something treating Somerset, Devon and Wiltshire separately, and Gloucestershire and Bristol together. It'll probably be pretty similar to islington's plan but there will be a few differences.
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Post by islington on Jun 23, 2021 15:31:51 GMT
Right, here's a Deverset plan that avoids a cross-Dartmoor seat. (The rest of Somerset would be as Pete Whitehead has it.)
On the positive side, the arrangement in Plymouth and SW Devon is quite tidy and has the merit of not requiring a ward split. I wanted to keep the C Devon seat east of Dartmoor and also to ensure that it did not extend into no more than three LAs. This meant that unfortunately the Tiverton/Wellington seat had to borrow a couple of wards from N Devon to keep the numbers up without taking too many electors from Somerset.
We are looking at some very small seats to make this work. In this plan, C Devon, Tiverton & Wellington and Wells are all below 70,000.
I can see the case for Deverset but on balance I think I still prefer to treat Somerset and Devon separately.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 23, 2021 18:38:36 GMT
Would that plan work with crossing in to North Somerset rather than BANES? With a small ward split you could then have two seats entirely in the latter authority. I don't like this much but it ticks a few boxes. No constituency in more than 2 districts. Banes 2 seats, Mendip/South Somerset 3, Taunton etc/Sedgemoor/North Somerset 5. No county crossing. The position of Bridgwater is the main drawback but I find the Sedgemoor seat somehow unsatisfactory (and not just the name) as well.
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YL
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Post by YL on Jun 24, 2021 16:40:44 GMT
If you want to keep King's Isle and North Petherton (the two wards outside of the obvious Bridgwater group most tied to the town) out of the "Sedgemoor" constituency then you could do something like this: The "Sedgemoor" constituency loses those two wards and extends to take a handful of Mendip district wards. Bridgwater & West Somerset loses some territory to Taunton, and ends up with an electorate exactly on the upper limit at 77062. But then areas just east of Taunton have to go into a constituency mainly in South Somerset district, here the darker blue constituency ("Chard"?). It seems to me that those wards are less tied to Taunton than North Petherton and King's Isle are to Bridgwater, and anyway Taunton as a larger town is more prone to having peripheral areas excluded. But on the minus side there's less respect to the district boundaries (which the other map does a very good job with) and the Yeovil seat is more heavily redrawn. (That last point could be avoided, as you could split South Somerset north/south instead of east/west, but I didn't like the northern seat much in that option.) The Street salient of the Chard seat is also a bit odd, but as already discussed I think the way South Quantock ward protrudes into the B & WS seat is less of a problem than at first sight once you look at where the communication lines are.
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Post by islington on Jun 24, 2021 17:53:53 GMT
Or this even ...?
I must admit that a seat at the absolute maximum rather appealed to me, so I started with the Bridgwater seat suggested by YL and took it from there. As with his plan, the new seat is based on Chard, but I've stopped it from spilling into Mendip; I'd call it S Somerset on this configuration.
Further north, this is arguably more respectful of the existing map in that Frome remains within a seat stretching into the central part of the county, while the Wells seat still extends to the Bristol Channel (and into three authorities, unfortunately). In fact, despite the fact that a tenth seat has been squeezed in, each of the existing nine seats has a more-or-less recognizable successor.
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Post by islington on Jul 6, 2021 10:38:03 GMT
I don't entirely disapprove of islington 's putting Highworth in with the Cotswold seat but do disapprove of the Commission's plan to merge a whole swathe of North Wiltshire with that part of Gloucestershire. However now we have seen that the Commission have shown a refreshing willingness to split wards I think a split ward solution is the answer to Wiltshire and only two are needed, one in each of the UAs In Swindon Covingham & Dorcan would need to be carefully divided (unfortunately I don't have figures) with basically Covingham staying in North and Dorcan in South, with the boundary being fixed wherever necessary to make those numbers work. Wiltshire (plus Ridgeway) is even simpler. Split Amesbury East & Bulford between its two named components and along the current boundary between Salisbury and Devizes. I know I have suggested this before but it makes absolute sense to split a ward like this to avoid disruption elsewhere. This leads to minimum change throughout the county with just Corsham and Box & Colerne swapping places between Chippenham and North Wiltshire, Ridgeway going from Swindon South to Devizes and otherwise more or less just realigning with new ward boundaries. This also enables a sensible solution in Gloucestershire/South Gloucestershire/Bristol for 14 seats and by extension Somerset (including the two UAs) for 10. Yes this is going to involve a seat crossing between Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire (quite logically) and this is going to involve separating Dursley and Cam from Stroud but I suspect like most others here I don't regard the nakedly partisan interests of one forum member in one constituency to be worth making a shambles of the other 30 in this area I'm in the course of working up a submission for the South West and in Wilts and Swindon I'm going to more or less steal the plan suggested by Pete Whitehead above.
Regarding the split of Covingham & Dorcan ward in Swindon, unfortunately I can't find any online PD maps - can anyone help? We have PD numbers, so in default of maps I'm going to assume that CDE (1583 electors) is the part of the ward currently in Swindon S, and CDB (1993 electors), which votes at Nythe Community Centre, is the part of the ward west of Dorcan Way (B4006). Putting these two PDs into the South seat shifts 3576 electors, which is just enough (Swindon N 76900, Swindon S 75953).
Regarding the split of Amesbury E & Bulford, as Pete says the obvious thing is to split to two named elements along the Bulford parish boundary, but unfortunately the BCE's Excel file does not contain breakdowns of parishes and PDs for wards in Wilts, so does anyone know where I can get the numbers? It matters because if Bulford does not account for at least 1846 of the ward's total of 4206, the Salisbury seat will be too big. There's a Plan B in this event, which is to leave the whole of this ward in Salisbury and instead split Till Valley to include the Shrewton area in Devizes. This ought to work because there are lots of nice small parishes in this ward so it should be possible to fine-tune the numbers. But it's a less satisfactory solution, and in any case, it would make a more convincing submission if I could provide definite numbers.
If anyone can help, either in Wilts with a breakdown of numbers by parish in Amesbury E and Till Valley wards, or in Swindon with a map pf PDs in Covingham & Dorcan, I'd be extremely grateful.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 6, 2021 11:12:59 GMT
Not in a position to check at the moment but I did look at the figures in Amesbury and Bulford from the LGBCE site and while the relevant PDs weren't an exact match I'm pretty sure I was able to ascertain that the numbers did work there. Meanwhile in Swindon where the numbers were much tighter (both seats being very close to the maximum) I believe YL may have found some parish boundaries and figures which indicated this would work and posted up thread. I will have a look later to see if I can find more detail but very happy for you to 'steal' my plan here. I may well make the same submission so if you do find the relevant numbers before I do let me know.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 6, 2021 20:20:42 GMT
I don't entirely disapprove of islington 's putting Highworth in with the Cotswold seat but do disapprove of the Commission's plan to merge a whole swathe of North Wiltshire with that part of Gloucestershire. However now we have seen that the Commission have shown a refreshing willingness to split wards I think a split ward solution is the answer to Wiltshire and only two are needed, one in each of the UAs In Swindon Covingham & Dorcan would need to be carefully divided (unfortunately I don't have figures) with basically Covingham staying in North and Dorcan in South, with the boundary being fixed wherever necessary to make those numbers work. Wiltshire (plus Ridgeway) is even simpler. Split Amesbury East & Bulford between its two named components and along the current boundary between Salisbury and Devizes. I know I have suggested this before but it makes absolute sense to split a ward like this to avoid disruption elsewhere. This leads to minimum change throughout the county with just Corsham and Box & Colerne swapping places between Chippenham and North Wiltshire, Ridgeway going from Swindon South to Devizes and otherwise more or less just realigning with new ward boundaries. This also enables a sensible solution in Gloucestershire/South Gloucestershire/Bristol for 14 seats and by extension Somerset (including the two UAs) for 10. Yes this is going to involve a seat crossing between Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire (quite logically) and this is going to involve separating Dursley and Cam from Stroud but I suspect like most others here I don't regard the nakedly partisan interests of one forum member in one constituency to be worth making a shambles of the other 30 in this area I'm in the course of working up a submission for the South West and in Wilts and Swindon I'm going to more or less steal the plan suggested by Pete Whitehead above. Regarding the split of Covingham & Dorcan ward in Swindon, unfortunately I can't find any online PD maps - can anyone help? We have PD numbers, so in default of maps I'm going to assume that CDE (1583 electors) is the part of the ward currently in Swindon S, and CDB (1993 electors), which votes at Nythe Community Centre, is the part of the ward west of Dorcan Way (B4006). Putting these two PDs into the South seat shifts 3576 electors, which is just enough (Swindon N 76900, Swindon S 75953). Regarding the split of Amesbury E & Bulford, as Pete says the obvious thing is to split to two named elements along the Bulford parish boundary, but unfortunately the BCE's Excel file does not contain breakdowns of parishes and PDs for wards in Wilts, so does anyone know where I can get the numbers? It matters because if Bulford does not account for at least 1846 of the ward's total of 4206, the Salisbury seat will be too big. There's a Plan B in this event, which is to leave the whole of this ward in Salisbury and instead split Till Valley to include the Shrewton area in Devizes. This ought to work because there are lots of nice small parishes in this ward so it should be possible to fine-tune the numbers. But it's a less satisfactory solution, and in any case, it would make a more convincing submission if I could provide definite numbers. If anyone can help, either in Wilts with a breakdown of numbers by parish in Amesbury E and Till Valley wards, or in Swindon with a map pf PDs in Covingham & Dorcan, I'd be extremely grateful. www.lgbce.org.uk/all-reviews/south-west/wiltshire/wiltshire-unitary-authority-uas3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lgbce/Reviews/South%20West/Wiltshire/Wiltshire/Division%20Arrangements/polling%20district/Polling%20Districts%20-%20Devizes%20and%20east.jpgAL and AM (described as Bulford part 1 and Bulford part 2) had a combined electorate (local government) of just over 2,500 in 2018 (projected over 3,000 in 2024). These I think exactly correspond with the area under discussion (as it is the whole parish). The AE1 PD (which roughly but not exactly corresponds to the part of Amesbury East within the ward) has around 2,200 on both sets of figures. Even allowing for any difference between local and parliamentary electorates I think we can be fairly confident that Bulford accounts for at least half of those 4,206 voters
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jul 6, 2021 20:36:13 GMT
In Swindon Covingham & Dorcan would need to be carefully divided (unfortunately I don't have figures) with basically Covingham staying in North and Dorcan in South, with the boundary being fixed wherever necessary to make those numbers work. There's a useful parish boundary here. As far as I can tell the polling districts CDB (electorate 1993) and CDE (electorate 1583) are in Nythe, Eldene & Liden CP while the rest of the ward is in either Covingham CP or Stratton St Margaret CP. Putting CDB and CDE in South (where CDE already is) gives South 75953, North 76900.
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Post by islington on Jul 7, 2021 10:04:59 GMT
There's a useful parish boundary here. As far as I can tell the polling districts CDB (electorate 1993) and CDE (electorate 1583) are in Nythe, Eldene & Liden CP while the rest of the ward is in either Covingham CP or Stratton St Margaret CP. Putting CDB and CDE in South (where CDE already is) gives South 75953, North 76900. Thanks Pete for this and for reminding me that YL had got there before me. I'm reassured that he had arrived at identical figures of 76900 and 75953 for the North and South seats.
Getting down to detail, based on the various boundaries within the ward and location of polling stations I think we can work out how the PDs are configured. I suggest CDA (1523 electors) is the area north of Covingham Drive and east of the B4006; CDB (1993) is the part of the ward west of the B4006; CDC (2771) is Covingham CP; CDD (443) is the single housing estate south of Dorcan Brook that is in the current Swindon N seat; and CDE (1583) is the part of the ward currently in Swindon S. So putting CDB and CDE into Swindon S works on the numbers and makes sense on the ground. It would theoretically be possible to add CDD as well but its only road link runs through CDC so it is better to keep it in Swindon N.
Thanks too for your thoughts on Amesbury E and Bulford, which I'll go with if there's no way of getting the exact Parliamentary numbers.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jul 7, 2021 10:23:41 GMT
Given that the numbers will have been provided to the BCE by the local authority, it might be worth getting in touch with the Elections Office at Wiltshire UA to see if they're willing to share electorate numbers by parish? Usually when I've contacted local authorities about this they've been notably unhelpful, but sometimes they have provided me with some really useful datasets.
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Post by islington on Jul 10, 2021 9:29:59 GMT
This is just for fun, not for submission, but I thought Pete Whitehead and others might appreciate this 7-seat version of Wilts/Swindon with everything in range, no ward splits, and no town divided except Swindon.
Edited to add numbers -
Swindon North - 76077. Swindon South - 74342. This is exactly as per BCE, and easily the fewest electors. North Wiltshire - 75993. Or 'Malmesbury and Marlborough', possibly. Chippenham - 76439. Chippenham town is actually much better nested in this than in the current seat. West Wiltshire - 76638. Devizes - 77057. Only 5 short of the maximum, and a creation of real beauty. Salisbury - 76968. Or 'South Wiltshire'.
I'm actually perversely pleased with this, but I'll resist the temptation to submit it.
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Post by hallen8888 on Jul 15, 2021 19:51:53 GMT
Bristol North West - Henbury and Brentry, Southmead, Lockleaze, Horfield, Westbury-on-Trym and Henleaze, Bishopston and Ashley Down. Bristol West - Stoke Bishop, Clifton, Clifton Down, Redland, Cotham, Ashley (Split Ward), Central, and Hotwells and Harbourside. Bristol South - Hengrove and Whitchurch Park, Hartcliffe and Withywood, Bishopsworth, Bedminster, Southville, Windmill Hill. Bristol East - Knowle, Stockwood, Brislington West, Brislington East, Lawrence Hill, Easton, St George West, St George Central, St George Troopers Hill. Bristol North East - Eastville, Frome Vale, Hillfields, Staple Hill and Mangotsfield, New Cheltenham, Kingswood, Woodstock, Frenchay and Downend.
I can’t understand why Stoke Bishop was ever removed from Bristol West. Was always in Bristol West in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Post by greenhert on Jul 15, 2021 22:07:06 GMT
Bristol North West - Henbury and Brentry, Southmead, Lockleaze, Horfield, Westbury-on-Trym and Henleaze, Bishopston and Ashley Down. Bristol West - Stoke Bishop, Clifton, Clifton Down, Redland, Cotham, Ashley (Split Ward), Central, and Hotwells and Harbourside. Bristol South - Hengrove and Whitchurch Park, Hartcliffe and Withywood, Bishopsworth, Bedminster, Southville, Windmill Hill. Bristol East - Knowle, Stockwood, Brislington West, Brislington East, Lawrence Hill, Easton, St George West, St George Central, St George Troopers Hill. Bristol North East - Eastville, Frome Vale, Hillfields, Staple Hill and Mangotsfield, New Cheltenham, Kingswood, Woodstock, Frenchay and Downend. I can’t understand why Stoke Bishop was ever removed from Bristol West. Was always in Bristol West in the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike the city centre, and also Clifton and Cotham, Stoke Bishop is not an "integral part" of Bristol West, soon to become Bristol Central.
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