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Post by minionofmidas on Jan 26, 2021 4:59:39 GMT
Not entirely true. You can mathematically fit 4 seats in there. You can actually do it with a perfectly reasonable Weston just below the limit and an acceptable N Somerset. The difficulty is that the wards round Bath are just slightly the wrong size to work and solving that produces all manner of unholy outcomes. EDIT: This is the least terrible way I could find to accomplish it: Weston 76978 N Somerset 76934 Midsomer and Bath SW 76744 Bath & Keynsham 75074 Bath is too genteel for pitchforks, right? Still bad enough that BaNES should accept the loss of Radstock and Midsomer Norton to a Frome constituency. It would not be the first time either, since Midsomer Norton and Radstock were in the 1918-50 constituency of Frome. or else a ward split...
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Post by π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ on Jan 26, 2021 9:15:17 GMT
Still bad enough that BaNES should accept the loss of Radstock and Midsomer Norton to a Frome constituency. It would not be the first time either, since Midsomer Norton and Radstock were in the 1918-50 constituency of Frome. I don't see anything bad about that at all β if anything it's a positive to obliterate Avon a bit more. But that's a bit backwards with the 1918-1950 set-up β the constituency called Frome then largely corresponded to the present North East Somerset, dipping down to include Frome MB and most of Frome RD. The 1950 boundary changes saw Frome lose Frome (to Wells) and get rebranded as North Somerset (the core of which then formed Wansdyke in 1983, which then became North East Somerset after the silly 1974 names bit the dust).
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 26, 2021 11:06:51 GMT
Still bad enough that BaNES should accept the loss of Radstock and Midsomer Norton to a Frome constituency. It would not be the first time either, since Midsomer Norton and Radstock were in the 1918-50 constituency of Frome. or else a ward split... Yes, I'm fairly sure you could find a relatively easy split of Bathavon South based on parishes, though I'd be very surprised if anybody feels strongly enough about keeping Somerset separate from BANES and N Somerset to propose it.
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Post by greenhert on Jan 26, 2021 22:39:46 GMT
Yes, I'm fairly sure you could find a relatively easy split of Bathavon South based on parishes, though I'd be very surprised if anybody feels strongly enough about keeping Somerset separate from BANES and N Somerset to propose it. The other issue is that removing Midsomer Norton and Radstock from the equation also makes it easier to draw sensible new constituencies in the rest of Somerset, especially if you plan to hive off rural western wards to Devon to make redrawing easier there (and to avoid unnecessary problems in Dorset).
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 27, 2021 15:11:06 GMT
Odd how South Hams is below quota when at the general election it had an electorate of about 73,600. Probably already noted on this thread somewhere.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 28, 2021 0:09:35 GMT
Odd how South Hams is below quota when at the general election it had an electorate of about 73,600. Probably already noted on this thread somewhere. The local authority is just within quota, but treating it as one seat causes a load of knock-on problems elsewhere. The Totnes constituency is marginally below the quota due to ward boundary changes (Loddiswell and Aveton Gifford is now split between it and Devon South West). Having gone to check this, I've just noticed that my own plan for Devon contains a Devon Central seat with wards from 5 districts, including an orphan ward. Oh well, back to the drawing board...
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 28, 2021 0:11:16 GMT
Odd how South Hams is below quota when at the general election it had an electorate of about 73,600. Probably already noted on this thread somewhere. The local authority is just within quota, but treating it as one seat causes a load of knock-on problems elsewhere. The Totnes constituency is marginally below the quota due to ward boundary changes (Loddiswell and Aveton Gifford is now split between it and Devon South West). Having gone to check this, I've just noticed that my own plan for Devon contains a Devon Central seat with wards from 5 districts, including an orphan ward. Oh well, back to the drawing board... Thanks for the information about South Hams. A constituency with wards from 5 districts isnt necessarily a bad seat IMO though the boundary commission will probably disagree.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 28, 2021 0:36:06 GMT
The local authority is just within quota, but treating it as one seat causes a load of knock-on problems elsewhere. The Totnes constituency is marginally below the quota due to ward boundary changes (Loddiswell and Aveton Gifford is now split between it and Devon South West). Having gone to check this, I've just noticed that my own plan for Devon contains a Devon Central seat with wards from 5 districts, including an orphan ward. Oh well, back to the drawing board... Thanks for the information about South Hams. A constituency with wards from 5 districts isnt necessarily a bad seat IMO though the boundary commission will probably disagree. You're welcome. I've now changed it and have 13 seats for that county each with wards from a maximum of 3 districts (in fact, a majority of that baker's dozen are only located within one local authority), but with greater deviation from the current map which the Commission will probably not enjoy. Frustratingly, there are still two orphan wards as part of the revised plan. That said, feel free to have a go at making a map for Devon with South Hams as a standalone seat.
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 28, 2021 9:32:32 GMT
Thanks for the information about South Hams. A constituency with wards from 5 districts isnt necessarily a bad seat IMO though the boundary commission will probably disagree. That said, feel free to have a go at making a map for Devon with South Hams as a standalone seat. You canβt. South Hams completely surrounds Plymouth
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Post by Foggy on Jan 28, 2021 9:52:13 GMT
That said, feel free to have a go at making a map for Devon with South Hams as a standalone seat. You canβt. South Hams completely surrounds Plymouth Well, true that it can't be a map of just Devon, although the Tamar and the sea border the city on two sides. So a South Hams constituency would necessitate a particularly nasty Devonwall seat...
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 28, 2021 9:57:38 GMT
You canβt. South Hams completely surrounds Plymouth Well, true that it can't be a map of just Devon, although the Tamar and the sea border the city on two sides. So a South Hams constituency would necessitate a particularly nasty Devonwall seat... Actually linking Saltash with north Plymouth isnβt too bad, and one of the options I toyed with for the zombie review.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 28, 2021 9:59:52 GMT
Well, true that it can't be a map of just Devon, although the Tamar and the sea border the city on two sides. So a South Hams constituency would necessitate a particularly nasty Devonwall seat... Actually linking Saltash with north Plymouth isnβt too bad, and one of the options I toyed with for the zombie review. Oh, my sister and brother-in-law live in Plymouth so I'm aware there's a bridge and commuter links, no doubt. Luckily the current electorate numbers and the retention of a 650-seat Commons make such things unnecessary this time.
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 28, 2021 10:25:26 GMT
When they decided to introduce unitary authorities in various areas, often comprising wards with large electorates, they probably didnt take into account how difficult it would make drawing parliamentary constituencies compared to the previous wards that usually had much smaller electorates. Bath&NES and North Somerset are much more difficult to deal with now when many of the wards have around 10,000 electors. You often go from too small to too large with the addition of a single ward.
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Post by bjornhattan on Jan 28, 2021 10:28:56 GMT
When they decided to introduce unitary authorities in various areas, often comprising wards with large electorates, they probably didnt take into account how difficult it would make drawing parliamentary constituencies compared to the previous wards that usually had much smaller electorates. Bath&NES and North Somerset are much more difficult to deal with now when many of the wards have around 10,000 electors. You often go from too small to too large with the addition of a single ward. It would be less of an issue if it wasn't for the strict 5% tolerance - even just changing that to "ideally 5% but allow up to 7.5%" would make life much easier.
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 28, 2021 10:32:42 GMT
When they decided to introduce unitary authorities in various areas, often comprising wards with large electorates, they probably didnt take into account how difficult it would make drawing parliamentary constituencies compared to the previous wards that usually had much smaller electorates. Bath&NES and North Somerset are much more difficult to deal with now when many of the wards have around 10,000 electors. You often go from too small to too large with the addition of a single ward. It would be less of an issue if it wasn't for the strict 5% tolerance - even just changing that to "ideally 5% but allow up to 7.5%" would make life much easier. Yes its the combination of unitary wards and the 5% limit. As others have probably found the obvious boundaries for Bath comes up with 500 too many voters and its a nightmare trying to switch the wards/electoral divisions around. Edit: see post below.
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Post by π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ on Jan 28, 2021 10:49:13 GMT
It would be less of an issue if it wasn't for the strict 5% tolerance - even just changing that to "ideally 5% but allow up to 7.5%" would make life much easier. Yes its the combination of unitary wards and the 5% limit. As others have probably found the obvious boundaries for Bath comes up with 500 too many voters and its a nightmare trying to switch the wards/electoral divisions around. Only if it's obvious that Peasedown should be a detached part.
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 28, 2021 10:54:09 GMT
Yes its the combination of unitary wards and the 5% limit. As others have probably found the obvious boundaries for Bath comes up with 500 too many voters and its a nightmare trying to switch the wards/electoral divisions around. Only if it's obvious that Peasedown should be a detached part. Thanks, didnt zoom in far enough on that part of the map.
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Post by YL on Jan 28, 2021 11:34:57 GMT
When they decided to introduce unitary authorities in various areas, often comprising wards with large electorates, they probably didnt take into account how difficult it would make drawing parliamentary constituencies compared to the previous wards that usually had much smaller electorates. Bath&NES and North Somerset are much more difficult to deal with now when many of the wards have around 10,000 electors. You often go from too small to too large with the addition of a single ward. Except that in most areas with unitaries, including the Somerset ones, the unitaries and the big wards existed before the 5% rule did, so there was no great problem: if you ran into problems with uneven sizes caused by using big wards as building blocks, you just accepted the uneven sizes. (For example, look at the existing map in Leeds: some constituencies were drawn big, with five wards, and some were drawn small, with four wards. And big cities like Leeds have had giant wards for much longer than the 1990s unitaries.) The combination of the 5% rule, big wards, and a strong presumption against splitting wards does cause problems, although I don't think they're at their most serious in Somerset. In the case of Bath, I would say the obvious boundaries are actually the existing ones, but the problem is that that makes it slightly too small, and then the obvious addition of Bathavon North makes North East Somerset too small. But Bathavon North isn't really that big a ward (look at Headingley & Hyde Park in Leeds if you think it is) and the problem here is as much to do with trying to squeeze two seats into a council area which is at the lower end of the allowable size for them as the size of its wards. You could split Bathavon North -- the numbers will work if you put the parishes of Charlcombe, Swainswick, Batheaston and St. Catherine into Bath and keep the rest in North East Somerset -- but otherwise accept that BANES is borderline for working for two seats with the 5% rule and cross the border somewhere.
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 29, 2021 0:42:39 GMT
Spent all day on Somerset and cant make it work. Infuriating. Maybe have a go at a different region and come back to it later.
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 29, 2021 9:46:21 GMT
Spent all day on Somerset and cant make it work. Infuriating. Maybe have a go at a different region and come back to it later. I have found this helpful as looking at it with a fresh eye often makes the scales fall from the eyes. Somerset isnβt that difficult though - I found 3 schemes without any great amount of work, even though Taunton is in the wrong place....
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