2023 Review - North East

[greatkingrat]

No boundary changes in final report

Four name changes
Gateshead and Whickham -> Gateshead Central and Whickham
Jarrow -> Jarrow and Gateshead East
Berwick and Morpeth -> North Northumberland
Washington -> Washington and Gateshead South

[Pete Whitehead]

Awful name changes

[iain]

Jun 28, 2023 11:14:54 GMT greatkingrat said:

Berwick and Morpeth -> North Northumberland

[The Bishop]

Jun 28, 2023 11:15:31 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Awful name changes

This seems to be a general theme doesn't it, they really should listen less to self important local busybodies.

[jamie]

Jun 28, 2023 11:14:54 GMT greatkingrat said:

Washington -> Washington and Gateshead South

The constituency includes half a ward of Gateshead. The Lamesley ward name doesn’t allude to it including any of Gateshead, the current Blaydon constituency doesn’t allude to it, so why does this new constituency need to? It’s not like the people of Birtley will have been demanding this change, is it?

[wysall]

‘Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West’. Fuck off.

[carlton43]

Jun 28, 2023 11:15:50 GMT iain said:

Jun 28, 2023 11:14:54 GMT greatkingrat said:

Berwick and Morpeth -> North Northumberland

I prefer it.

[La Fontaine]

Jun 28, 2023 12:03:17 GMT jamie said:

Jun 28, 2023 11:14:54 GMT greatkingrat said:

Washington -> Washington and Gateshead South

The constituency includes half a ward of Gateshead. The Lamesley ward name doesn’t allude to it including any of Gateshead, the current Blaydon constituency doesn’t allude to it, so why does this new constituency need to? It’s not like the people of Birtley will have been demanding this change, is it?

Meanwhile, Royal Mail continues to allot Birtley to "Chester-le-Street". 

[Davıd Boothroyd]

The North East is reduced by two seats. The two old constituencies which are not the base constituency for any new constituency are Blaydon and North Tyneside.

Two constituencies are unchanged: Hartlepool and Sunderland Central.

The Index of Change for each changed seat is:

Constituency	Index of change
Darlington CC	5.6
Redcar BC	7.4
North Durham CC	9.1
South Shields BC	11.0
Houghton and Sunderland South CC	11.5
Stockton North CC	13.1
Easington CC	14.2
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland BC	16.6
Hexham CC	18.5
Tynemouth BC	19.7
Jarrow and Gateshead East BC	30.2
City of Durham CC	30.7
North Northumberland CC	30.8
Middlesbrough and Thornaby East BC	31.0
Washington and Gateshead South BC	32.1
Stockton West CC	37.3
Gateshead Central and Whickham BC	50.6
Bishop Auckland CC	52.9
Blyth and Ashington CC	72.1
Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor CC	72.3
Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West BC	73.8
Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend BC	82.8
Blaydon and Consett CC	99.2
Cramlington and Killingworth CC	102.8
Newcastle upon Tyne North BC	125.2

[nyx]

Would like to point out, considering that the Commission has done a good job here, that I think they may well have only been able to do so thanks to luck with the numbers. Had the number of quotas only just been 26 instead of 27 (it was close to the border between the two in reality), you'd have been left with Teesside as it's own unit no longer being viable, and with Darlington and Hartlepool not being places you want to split, there would have probably had to have been a "Billingham and Peterlee" seat, with knock on effects of ugly seats with a lot of change across Durham.

So we really did get lucky.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Aug 27, 2023 7:11:21 GMT nyx said:

Would like to point out, considering that the Commission has done a good job here, that I think they may well have only been able to do so thanks to luck with the numbers. Had the number of quotas only just been 26 instead of 27 (it was close to the border between the two in reality), you'd have been left with Teesside as it's own unit no longer being viable, and with Darlington and Hartlepool not being places you want to split, there would have probably had to have been a "Billingham and Peterlee" seat, with knock on effects of ugly seats with a lot of change across Durham.

So we really did get lucky.

I don't think this is true, actually. With 26 seats, you can keep 8 seats north of the Tyne. In Gateshead, you can only remove a couple of wards rather than all five of the Blaydon wards, but there are still feasible options there. For the Teesside-Durham seat, there's no need to head north to Peterlee when you can just head westwards towards Newton Aycliffe, which there's historical precedent for.

[nyx]

Aug 28, 2023 11:36:47 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Aug 27, 2023 7:11:21 GMT nyx said:

Would like to point out, considering that the Commission has done a good job here, that I think they may well have only been able to do so thanks to luck with the numbers. Had the number of quotas only just been 26 instead of 27 (it was close to the border between the two in reality), you'd have been left with Teesside as it's own unit no longer being viable, and with Darlington and Hartlepool not being places you want to split, there would have probably had to have been a "Billingham and Peterlee" seat, with knock on effects of ugly seats with a lot of change across Durham.

So we really did get lucky.

I don't think this is true, actually. With 26 seats, you can keep 8 seats north of the Tyne. In Gateshead, you can only remove a couple of wards rather than all five of the Blaydon wards, but there are still feasible options there. For the Teesside-Durham seat, there's no need to head north to Peterlee when you can just head westwards towards Newton Aycliffe, which there's historical precedent for.

A Billingham and Newton Aycliffe seat feels like it would have far fewer natural links than a Billingham and Peterlee one, but I suppose it's possible.

Thing is that there are a lot of natural seats- keeping Darlington together, keeping Hartlepool together, keeping Durham (city) together- and it's not very easy to satisfy all of them. I've tried messing around with a 26-seat map quite a bit and I can't manage to make one that doesn't have at least one or two pretty poor seats in it.

[East Anglian Lefty]

I think City of Durham is the trickier bit, because it's centrally located and that means it's likely to be affected by any large scale movement of electors. Everything else is easier to accommodate, and sometimes even better - with an extra seat you're more or less forced to put Eston into a Middlesborough seat where it belongs anyway, and with Billingham going with bits of County Durham you end up with a very nice-looking seat comprised solely of Thornaby and Stockton town.

[mattb]

Something like this?
this needs just 1 split ward to even up the Gateshead seats - no doubt 1 or 2 in Durham could also tidy things up but apart from the Sedgefield/Billingham seat this has far less change from current seats across County Durham.

[nyx]

Huh, you're right. Pretty good work there.