2023 Review - North East

[La Fontaine]

Feb 5, 2021 20:46:02 GMT Andrew_S said:

Considering whether to try putting Stockton into one seat instead of splitting it north/south plus other areas.

You can make a respectable seat from core Stockton plus Thornaby and Norton. Leaves a semi-doughnut of Ingleby Barwick and Billingham though.

[islington]

This is not my preferred plan, but here's an option with two seats that cross the southern border of Durham UA but on the other hand, the three Thornaby wards are kept together as are the two Ingleby Barwicks, while Teesdale and Weardale are kept apart as seems to be the general preference. It also gets rid of the ophan ward in Washington I had in my plan yesterday, but at the expense of ever bigger bites out of S Shields; so maybe this is a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

[John Chanin]

Having read through the thread (which is thankfully shorter than many others), I note that others have concentrated on not crossing the Durham - Northumberland boundary. As I have commented on other regions, the pattern you come up with depends on where you start and finish.  I always therefore try and start in 2 separate places.  When I tried to start in Durham, or in Gateshead, I ran into problems so my solution was based on starting in Newcastle/N Tyneside.  Obviously you can get 8 seats into the northern section at an average of 74,600, by crossing the Tyne/Wear and Northumberland border twice.  Although definitely not Berwick and Hexham please. And 12 seats at 71,800 for the southern section (assuming you don't take Sedgefield into Stockton) shouldn't in principle be a problem despite the awkward ward shapes and sizes, although you still need to cross the Tyne/Wear and Durham border at least twice (unless you go for the awkward Hebburn and Washington seat).  But I don't personally see there's a hard boundary between Durham and Northumberland.  And I don't like crossing the South Shields - Sunderland border which looks a lot harder to me.   

I will have a look at whether linking Blaydon with Consett or Chester-le-Street instead of crossing the border with Northumberland works.  However I am happy with the arrangement as I have it in the southern part of Tyne & Wear, and there simply aren't enough voters in the 5 Gateshead wards (Blaydon) + Durham (less Seaham) to fit in 6 seats, so a redraw in Sunderland/S Tyneside/Gateshead would be required to release more voters into Durham (or take less voters into Blaydon depending on how you look at it). I rejected linking Houghton with Chester-le-Street, which I did look at, as having nasty knock on consequences.  (For the zombie review I linked Washington with Chester-le-street, but there are too many voters for this to work now). 

[mattb]

Feb 7, 2021 12:42:25 GMT John Chanin said:

Obviously you can get 8 seats into the northern section at an average of 74,600, by crossing the Tyne/Wear and Northumberland border twice.  Although definitely not Berwick and Hexham please. And 12 seats at 71,800 for the southern section (assuming you don't take Sedgefield into Stockton) shouldn't in principle be a problem despite the awkward ward shapes and sizes, although you still need to cross the Tyne/Wear and Durham border at least twice (unless you go for the awkward Hebburn and Washington seat).

My plan on p1 has just one seat crossing the Northumberland boundary and also just a single seat crossing the Durham UA boundary. And no Washington-Hebburn link.

[islington]

Feb 7, 2021 13:00:56 GMT mattb said:

Feb 7, 2021 12:42:25 GMT John Chanin said:

Obviously you can get 8 seats into the northern section at an average of 74,600, by crossing the Tyne/Wear and Northumberland border twice.  Although definitely not Berwick and Hexham please. And 12 seats at 71,800 for the southern section (assuming you don't take Sedgefield into Stockton) shouldn't in principle be a problem despite the awkward ward shapes and sizes, although you still need to cross the Tyne/Wear and Durham border at least twice (unless you go for the awkward Hebburn and Washington seat).

My plan on p1 has just one seat crossing the Northumberland boundary and also just a single seat crossing the Durham UA boundary. And no Washington-Hebburn link.

Yes, mine too: see maps posted on 9 Jan (northern part) and yesterday and today (southern part).

I like mattb 's plans for Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland and Pete Whitehead for Stockton / Darlington. For Durham / Sunderland / S Tyneside I'm sticking to the plan I posted yesterday and for everything north of that, the version posted back on 9 Jan.

[John Chanin]

Feb 7, 2021 13:00:56 GMT mattb said:

Feb 7, 2021 12:42:25 GMT John Chanin said:

Obviously you can get 8 seats into the northern section at an average of 74,600, by crossing the Tyne/Wear and Northumberland border twice.  Although definitely not Berwick and Hexham please. And 12 seats at 71,800 for the southern section (assuming you don't take Sedgefield into Stockton) shouldn't in principle be a problem despite the awkward ward shapes and sizes, although you still need to cross the Tyne/Wear and Durham border at least twice (unless you go for the awkward Hebburn and Washington seat).

My plan on p1 has just one seat crossing the Northumberland boundary and also just a single seat crossing the Durham UA boundary. And no Washington-Hebburn link.

Yes that's clever, but it does have a miserable South Shields South & Sunderland North seat. 

[mattb]

Feb 7, 2021 13:21:00 GMT John Chanin said:

Feb 7, 2021 13:00:56 GMT mattb said:

My plan on p1 has just one seat crossing the Northumberland boundary and also just a single seat crossing the Durham UA boundary. And no Washington-Hebburn link.

Yes that's clever, but it does have a miserable South Shields South & Sunderland North seat. 

Sunderland N & Boldon. It's not ideal but I would argue all the core of South Shields is in the South Shields & Jarrow seat. Along with the division of Thornaby it is the price for an overall scheme that works well in my view.

[Pete Whitehead]

Feb 7, 2021 13:18:18 GMT islington said:

Feb 7, 2021 13:00:56 GMT mattb said:

My plan on p1 has just one seat crossing the Northumberland boundary and also just a single seat crossing the Durham UA boundary. And no Washington-Hebburn link.

Yes, mine too: see maps posted on 9 Jan (northern part) and yesterday and today (southern part).

I like mattb 's plans for Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland and Pete Whitehead for Stockton / Darlington. For Durham / Sunderland / S Tyneside I'm sticking to the plan I posted yesterday and for everything north of that, the version posted back on 9 Jan.

I have posted two different plans in the Middlesbrough/Cleveland area. The one on this page is a minimum change plan with Redcar just gaining a ward and essentially maintaining the existing Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland. The fact that this is an awful seat with an awful name does not alter the fact that it is an 'established' arrangement. My plan on page 1 sought to come up with a better arrangement by linking Redcar with East Cleveland and redrawing Middlesbrough along East/West lines as others have done but I changed this on my revisit to the region as I felt a minimum change arranegment would be an easier sell

[islington]

I commented some way upthread that it didn't seem possible to keep Thornaby together whilst treating the Teesside UAs separately.

I was wrong (not a novel experience, I admit). It's not pretty, but:

Darlington - 70446. The current seat plus Heighington.

Stockton North - 70181. The current seat less Newtown ward and plus two Darlington wards.

Stockton South - 71725. Loses the three Thornaby wards; gains Newtown ward from Stockton N (it can take Town Centre instead if preferred) and Stainton and Hemlington.

Middlesbrough - 69976. Includes all three Thornaby wards. If preferred, it can swap Hemlington and Trimdon with the previous seat. Such a swap means Coulby Newham would look less isolated but Trimdon surely belongs in this seat and Coulby Newham has good northward road links so I think I prefer it as mapped.

Ormesby - 69977. All right, I may be indulging myself a little with the name. This and the previous seat could be Middlesbrough E & W.

Redcar - 71068.

[YL]

1. Redcar (71,331). Gains Saltburn.
2. Middlesbrough South & Cleveland (69,967). Loses Saltburn, and realigned to new ward boundaries.
3. Middlesbrough West & Thornaby (71,669). Also includes Yarm and Ingleby Barwick.
4. Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge (70,119). Includes Billingham and part of eastern Stockton.
5. Stockton West (69,841). The rest of Stockton, all north of the Tees, and two wards of Darlington.
6. Darlington (70,446). The rest of Darlington.

[Adrian]

My first go at North East plans ukelect.wordpress.com/tag/north-east/

[East Anglian Lefty]

I've been looking at the North East region again with an eye to what the BCE might come up with. It's fair to say that their initial proposals for the region since 2010 have mostly been abominable, but if they've learned from this and cut down the amount of glue they've been huffing, then we can look at the criteria that their reports identify and use those to suggest approaches that might appeal to them.

Since 2010, reports have emphasised the following features:

• Sub-regions with an integer number of seats
• Seats remaining entirely unchanged
• Keeping settlements together (not always in the initial proposals, but usually by the final proposals)
• Eliminating additional crossings of local authority boundaries (not always in the initial proposals, but usually by the final proposals)

In addition, prior to the new rules they were also very keen on minimum change. With a reduction from 650 seats to 600 that became less meaningful, but with the size of the Cmmons remaining unchanged that's probably likely to return as a factor.

In terms of sub-regions, there are five plausible groupings:

• Northumberland, Newcastle, North Tyneside: 8 seats
• Gateshead: 2 seats
• South Tyneside, Sunderland, County Durham: 10 seats
• Hartlepool: 1 seat
• Darlington, Stockton, Middlesborough, Redcar & Cleveland: 6 seats

My initial effort put Sedgefield in with the Tees Valley, but realistically I can't see the BCE going for that. I think it's very unlikely we'll see a plan that isn't based upon these sub-regions.

In terms of seats that can remain unchanged after re-alignment to new ward boundaries, there are only four that are currently in quota: Stockton South (77001), Hartlepool (71228), North West Durham (74015) and Sunderland Central (72688). The Tees Valley group is undersized for 6 seats and without Stockton South donating territory to a neighbour, there aren't enough electors left for five more legal seats, so that's likely to have to change. Hartlepool will definitely stay unchanged. The remaining two seats might stay unchanged, but it would make things awkward for their neighbours.

To go beyond that in concrete terms, we probably need to look at what possible maps you can draw in the sub-regions and how that works out in terms of keeping towns together and minimising the number of electors moved. Starting off with the Tees Valley, because it's there the geographical constraints are most obvious:

Darlington, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland - 423,373 electors (6 seats at an average of 70,562)

In addition to the very low average seat size, there's a geographical constraint in that there are only so many places it's feasible to cross the Tees. Things get even trickier when you calculate the electorates of the eastern and western sets of boroughs:

Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland: 201094 (at least 8078 electors needed to get to three seats)
Stockton and Darlington: 222279 (can lose a maximum of 13107 electors whilst still having enough for 3 seats)

This means that Billingham, Thornaby and Ingleby Barwick are all too large to be moved in their entirety, so you're going to end up splitting a town (assuming you don't cross the Middlesbrough-Stockton boundary twice.)

Thornaby is much the easiest to split, on the basis of both geographical position and the fact that Mandale & Victoria ward plus one other is right in the sweet spot for not unduly limiting your range of electorates.

Working on the basis of a Thornaby split, I've got two minimum-change maps I think are plausible:

Option A (fewest electors moved)



Redcar 71331 - gains Saltburn
Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland 70785 - loses Saltburn, gains Longlands & Beechwood
Middlesbrough North & Thornaby 70924 - loses Longlands & Beechwood, gains Mandale & Victoria and Stainsby Hill
Stockton North 70189 - loses Hardwick & Salters Lane, gains Heighington & Coniscliffe and Sadberge & Middleton St George (from Sedgefield)
Stockton South 70251 - loses Mandale & Victoria and Stainsby Hill, gains Hardwick & Salters Lane
Darlington 69893 - gains Hurworth (from Sedgefield)

Total electors moved: 40262

Stockton North's western protrusion here is rather unfortunate, but only 8 wards have to be moved in total.

Option B (neater but more electors moved)



Redcar 71331 - gains Saltburn
Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland 70785 - loses Saltburn, gains Longlands & Beechwood
Middlesbrough North & Thornaby 70924 - loses Longlands & Beechwood, gains Mandale & Victoria and Stainsby Hill
Stockton North 69779 - loses Western Parishes, gains Parkfield & Oxbridge
Stockton South 70108 - loses Mandale & Victoria, Stainsby Hill and Parkfield & Oxbridge, gains Hurworth and Sadberge & Middleton St George (from Sedgefield) and Western Parishes
Darlington 70446 - gains Heighington & Coniscliffe (from Sedgefield)

Total electors moved: 43789

In order for Stockton South to gain rural bits of Darlington borough, an extra ward needs to be shifted relative to option A, but rural Darlington fits better with Yarm and Eaglescliffe than with Billingham in any case, so I'd suggest it's enough of an improvement to justify the extra movement of electors.

[J.G.Harston]

Apr 28, 2021 21:34:22 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I - and many others - would argue that the Ormsby Triangle is in the wrong local authority, so would see absolutely nothing wrong with crossing the council boundary there to put it in the same constituency as south Middlesbro'. Can you do that? My first though is a three way rotation Ormsby, Longlands, Brambles, but Brambles really is part of Midd.

hobbyhorse.... That 'Redcar' boundary you've got really shopuld be the North Yorkshire boundary.

[islington]

Apr 28, 2021 22:48:08 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Apr 28, 2021 21:34:22 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I - and many others - would argue that the Ormsby Triangle is in the wrong local authority, so would see absolutely nothing wrong with crossing the council boundary there to put it in the same constituency as south Middlesbro'. Can you do that? My first though is a three way rotation Ormsby, Longlands, Brambles, but Brambles really is part of Midd.

hobbyhorse.... That 'Redcar' boundary you've got really shopuld be the North Yorkshire boundary.

Surely not only Ormesby but South Bank, Eston, &c, are all really part of Middlesbrough. At least, that's the approach I took (see above, 26 Feb 5.02pm). Of course I acknowledge it may not commend itself to the BCE because it's a long way from minimum change; but on the plus side it gets rid of the current Middlesbrough S & Cleveland E seat, which is as awful as its convoluted name suggests.

Another point shown on my map of 26 Feb is that it is possible to keep all three Thornaby wards together in a Middlesbrough-based seat, but at the cost of a double-cross of the Middlesbrough-Stockton boundary. On balance, I thought it was a price worth paying but doubtless opinions will differ.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Apr 29, 2021 7:57:47 GMT islington said:

Apr 28, 2021 22:48:08 GMT J.G.Harston said:

I - and many others - would argue that the Ormsby Triangle is in the wrong local authority, so would see absolutely nothing wrong with crossing the council boundary there to put it in the same constituency as south Middlesbro'. Can you do that? My first though is a three way rotation Ormsby, Longlands, Brambles, but Brambles really is part of Midd.

hobbyhorse.... That 'Redcar' boundary you've got really shopuld be the North Yorkshire boundary.

Surely not only Ormesby but South Bank, Eston, &c, are all really part of Middlesbrough. At least, that's the approach I took (see above, 26 Feb 5.02pm). Of course I acknowledge it may not commend itself to the BCE because it's a long way from minimum change; but on the plus side it gets rid of the current Middlesbrough S & Cleveland E seat, which is as awful as its convoluted name suggests.

Another point shown on my map of 26 Feb is that it is possible to keep all three Thornaby wards together in a Middlesbrough-based seat, but at the cost of a double-cross of the Middlesbrough-Stockton boundary. On balance, I thought it was a price worth paying but doubtless opinions will differ.

My view is that in an ideal world Eston et al would be part of Middlesbrough and the conurbation would be split east-west. There is actually a modification of your plan that avoids splitting Guisborough or Redcar at the cost of having both Cleveland seats cross into Middlesbrough*, but I just don't think the BCE are going to countenance that much change to avoid splitting Thornaby.

*The Middlesbrough seat as you have it; Redcar town (but not Marske-by-the-Sea or New Marske) into the pink seat; the purple seat grabs Hutton, Ormesby, Nunthorpe, Marton E & W and Ladgate.

[islington]

Yes, if you want to continue to link Saltburn, &c, with bits of south Middlesbrough that's a neat way of doing it, and as you say it has the benefit of not splitting off a big chunk of Guisborough.

I think I still prefer the mapped version, though.

I'm not suggesting for one moment that I think the BCE will actually go for any of this.

Edited to add: I completely agree with EAL's five groupings for the NE region.

[J.G.Harston]

Apr 29, 2021 7:57:47 GMT islington said:

Apr 28, 2021 22:48:08 GMT J.G.Harston said:

I - and many others - would argue that the Ormsby Triangle is in the wrong local authority, so would see absolutely nothing wrong with crossing the council boundary there to put it in the same constituency as south Middlesbro'. Can you do that? My first though is a three way rotation Ormsby, Longlands, Brambles, but Brambles really is part of Midd.

hobbyhorse.... That 'Redcar' boundary you've got really shopuld be the North Yorkshire boundary.

Surely not only Ormesby but South Bank, Eston, &c, are all really part of Middlesbrough.

Ormesby is the most egregious, and has causes decades of animosity between Middlesbrough and Redcar councils over Redcar blocking the completion of the East Midd bypass.

I would put South Bank and Eston etc. in Midd, but putting them in a Midd constituency would involve splitting the ward they're in. Teesside should be something like this.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Next, let's turn to consider the Durham group. South Tyneside, Sunderland and County Durham have an electorate of 716893 between them, which equates to ten seats at an average electorate of 71869. At present, there are eleven constituencies covering the area (with Jarrow and Sedgefield both extending outside the area), so effectively we're losing a seat here.

In terms of working out approaches, I think it makes sense to start out with South Tyneside and Sunderland, where the geographical constraints are somewhat tighter. The two authorities have 323360 electors, meaning you can remove up to 44464 electors and still have enough left for four legal seats. Durham has an electorate of 393533, meaning it needs to gain at least 24811 electors to be able to accomodate six seats.

As far as I can see, there are two plausible ways to draw Sunderland and South Tyneside. The first removes the four Houghton wards, the second removes the five Washington wards. Neither of those groups should be split up from one another if it's not absolutely necessary, and it's not so I think we can dismiss all plans that don't keep them intact.

If you're pairing Washington with County Durham, then it can only go with Chester-le-Street. If you're using Houghton, it can either go with Chester or with Seaham and depending on which you pick, that forces certain basic arrangements for north and east Durham.

The final decision to make is what territory to place with Bishop Auckland and Teesdale. The present seat picks Spennymoor, but I can't find a method of continuing that that doesn't produce a hideous seat somewhere. Two other alternatives, both of which easily produce a pattern of coherent seats, are Newton Aycliffe or Weardale. I know some people in this thread have expressed a dislike for the latter option on the basis that Teesdale and Weardale should be in different seats. I don't personally find this credible, as Bishop Auckland is in the Wear Valley anyway (and indeed had the headquarters of the old district council) and it's much easier to get from Tow Law to Bishop Auckland than from Tow Law to Consett. So I think either option is justifiable.

So we've got three sets of decisions, and the choices you make then affect the maps you'll end up with. But given that in each case either decision is defensible, realistically your best option is probably going to be drawing the maps and seeing what that means in terms of electors moved.

South Tyneside and Sunderland

Option Washington A - minimum change above all



South Shields 69725
Jarrow & Sunderland West 69762
Sunderland Central 71723
Houghton & Sunderland South 69928

This option starts by adding Cleadon & East Bold to South Shields, then gets Jarrow up to size by grabbing the three Sunderland wards currently in Washington & Sunderland West. Houghton & Sunderland South is currently too small, and the only way to fix that (short of crossing an extra LA boundary) is to swap out St Chad's ward.

This is a very ugly map. The Boldons are split, west Sunderland has no natural ties to Jarrow and southern Sunderland is a mess. The only thing to be said for this plan is that it only moves 62593 electors between seats.

Option Washington B - South Shields N/S split



Jarrow & South Shields North 69911
South Shields South & Sunderland North 70643
Sunderland Central 70656
Houghton & Sunderland South 69928

Jarrow loses the Boldons but adds the northern half of South Shields; the southern half of the town goes with the Boldons and three wards north of the Wear. I picked them to minimise the movement of electors, but a neater (if more disruptive) arrangement would be to swap Southwick and St. Peter's for Redhill and Castle. You can also swap Hendon and St. Michael's at the cost of moving 500 extra electors.

This isn't pretty, but the seats are at least basically cohesive. 110472 electors are moved between seats.

Option Washington C - South Shields E/W split



Jarrow & South Shields West 69790
South Shields East & Sunderland North 70542
Sunderland West 70918
Houghton & Sunderland South 69928

This map is closely related to option B, but here the Boldons are kept with Jarrow. Getting both seats in range then requires moving the small West Park ward into Jarrow. You can do that from the south via Whiteleas and Cleadon Park wards, but coming in from the west looks a lot neater and only moves 200 more electors.

The arm into South Shields is still very ugly, but overall I would say that of the Washington options, this is perhaps the least worst option. 98514 electors are moved between seats.

Option Houghton A - South Shields N/S split



Jarrow & South Shields North 69911
South Shields South & Sunderland North 70381
Washington & Sunderland West 74129
Sunderland South 71158

South Tyneside as in Washington option B. Washington gains one ward from Houghton & Sunderland South, Sunderland Central takes the other three and reverts to the old name.

101925 electors are moved, so it's reasonably disruptive, but the seats in Sunderland are considerably prettier than under any of the Washington options.

Option Houghton B - keeping the Boldons



Jarrow & South Shields West 70502
South Shields South & Sunderland North 69790
Washington & Sunderland West 74129
Sunderland South 71158

Again, this is identical to Washington option C in South Tyneside. Identical to Houghton A in Sunderland. 74032 electors are moved.



So it looks like the least change option is Washington A, but then again it's horrific. In general the Houghton plans look far superior and B is much less disruptive than A. So certainly my preference in the abstract would be for Houghton B, but the difference in terms of electors moved between the Washington and Houghton plans is thin enough that it could be affected by knock-on consequences in County Durham.

This strikes me as a long enough post already, so I'll pick up on the options in County Durham later this weekend.

[East Anglian Lefty]

County Durham plus

Option Washington A - the return of Consett



Chester-le-Street & Washington 74486
Consett 70085
City of Durham 72182
Bishop Auckland 74563
Sedgefield 69840
Easington 74679

In the north of the county, Chester-le-Street looks a lot like its pre-1983 incarnation, as does the restored Consett (which is narrowly the successor to NW Durham, with N Durham officially being the abolished seat.) City of Durham's arm out Lanchester isn't wonderful, but Bishop Auckland maps pretty well on to the from districts of Teesdale and Wear Valley. Coxhoe ward would probably rather be in City of Durham but it fits well enough with Sedgefield, and similarly Trimdon is a good fit with Easington.

On the downside, 147344 electors are moved between seats, which is a little higher than you'd ideally want.

Option Washington B - a slight tweak



Chester-le-Street & Washington 74486
Consett 70085
City of Durham 72296
Bishop Auckland 70541
Sedgefield 73668
Easington 74679

Compared to option A, more of NW Durham ends up in Bishop Auckland (including some Durham satellite villages), Shildon and Spennymoor move to Sedgefield and City of Durham keeps Coxhoe and also adds Bishop Middleton.

This shifts 150079 electors, so it's a little more disruptive but not enough of a difference to really signify.

Option Washington C - the Aycliffe option



Chester-le-Street & Washington 74486
Consett 70085
North West Durham 71666
Bishop Auckland 71733
City of Durham 73106
Easington 74679

The first two seats and Easington are the same, but Bishop Auckland grabs Newton Aycliffe, City of Durham grabs the rest of Sedgefield and this time North West Durham survives, reaching right up to the edges of the city. Consett then becomes the successor to North Durham and Sedgefield is the abolished seat. Personally I think this is a little unnatural looking, but YMMV.

154459 electors shifted, so it's slightly worse again.

Option Washington D - the Pelton option



Chester-le-Street & Washington 73348
Consett 71581
City of Durham 71744
Bishop Auckland 74563
Sedgefield 69840
Easington 74679

This one tweaks things by adding Pelton ward to Chester-le-Street, with Sacriston going into Consett and Lumley into City. Otherwise it's largely the same as option A.

141259 electors are shifted, so it's the best Washington option on that metric.

Next, we turn to consider options pairing Houghton with Chester-le-Street.

Option Houghton-Chester A



Chester-le-Street & Houghton-le-Spring 70045
Consett 70085
City of Durham 72182
Bishop Auckland 74563
Sedgefield 69840
Easington 74679

This is exactly the same as option Washington A in County Durham, with the only change being the Sunderland wards used. Again, 147344 electors are moved.

Option Houghton-Chester B



Chester-le-Street & Houghton-le-Spring 70045
Consett 70085
City of Durham 72296
Bishop Auckland 70541
Sedgefield 73668
Easington 74679

And this is the same as Washington B. 150079 electors.

Option Houghton-Chester C



Chester-le-Street & Houghton-le-Spring 70045
Consett 70085
North West Durham 71666
Bishop Auckland 71733
City of Durham 73106
Easington 74679

Same again. 154459 electors.

The Pelton option doesn't work with Houghton, so we're then on to the Houghton-Seaham combinations:

Option Houghton-Seaham A - a curate's egg



Houghton & Seaham 73008
North Durham 73327
North West Durham 70300
Bishop Auckland 71733
City of Durham 72907
Sedgefield 70039

North Durham gains Burnopfield & Dipton; NW Durham gains the outskirts of Durham; Bishop Auckland gains Aycliffe; Houghton gains Seaham. All of those work fairly naturally, but the combination of City of Durham with Spennymoor is a bit forced and Peterlee doesn't have very good links to Sedgefield.

So I'm not that keen on this seat, but it only moves 130365 electors so on those terms it's an improvement.

Option Houghton-Seaham B - not getting any less ugly



Houghton & Seaham 71599
North Durham 73327
North West Durham 73723
Bishop Auckland 70879
City of Durham 70942
Sedgefield 70844

Making this work requires putting Horden in the Seaham seat, when ideally it should be kept with Peterlee. However, there is actual physical separation between the two settlements, so I guess it's just about tolerable. The Consett to Spennymoor seat is considerably less tolerable.

This moves 123880 electors, so it's good on those terms, but not on very many others.

Option Houghton-Seaham C - tweaked for acceptability



Houghton & Seaham 71599
North Durham 73327
North West Durham 70300
Bishop Auckland 74302
City of Durham 70942
Sedgefield 70844

Compared to option B, this swap Spennymoor for Weardale. Horden is still unsatisfactory, but otherwise this could be worse.

This shifts 95519 electors, so it's clearly superior to B and if you can tolerate Horden, it's probably your best minimum-change option for Durham (depending on what you do with Sunderland and South Tyneside.)

I could at this point combine the various combinations for Durham and for Sunderland & South Tyneside, but I thought it better to hear your opinions on these various options first. (And obviously, various of these have likely been done by somebody else already - speak up if I have nicked yours without acknowledging it.)

[islington]

Well, I'd vote for the 'curate's egg' of Houghton-Seaham A, maybe because so far as Durham UA is concerned (not the rest) I posted the the exact same scheme back on 6 Feb. The Durham seat, although not ideal, isn't as bad as all that; and elsewhere it works pretty well.