sirbenjamin
IFP
True fame is reading your name written in graffiti, but without the words 'is a wanker' after it.
Posts: 4,979 
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Post by sirbenjamin on Jul 31, 2021 21:41:10 GMT
This isn't all that different from my plan really - and if I allowed myself split wards it would be even more similar. I don't have a problem with that configuration of W&L - it's the including bits of Rugby and the knock-on Bulkington Effect that I wanted to resolve.
I'd prefer a split ward over an additional LA crossing - so how about we split off the southern bit of Poplar ward into Nuneaton (it only needs to be about 1500 electors) along with Bulkington? The only issue I'd have here is that the canal feels like a 'natural' boundary. Collycroft would be another option, but I'm guessing you feel strongly this should be in the same seat as Bedworth.
It comes down to BCE reluctance to split wards - which isn't as strict as it once was, but is probably still an issue.
I refer to my earlier point about community ties - if a configuration with *more* LA crossings creates better community ties than one with fewer LA crossings then this is a strong indicator that the LA boundaries are sub-optimal, and therefore the joined up solution is to change these first, then come up with new seats.
As a district, North Warwickshire was never a brilliant idea in the first place and like Solihill it feels like 'leftovers' of Brum and Cov. It probably should've been one bigger LA to begin with, with Nuneaton as the administrative centre. Then again, I'd have made Cov a bit bigger, certainly to the East and West. Ryton, Brandon, Balsall common etc. really ought to have been included.
Aren't you worrying about the wrong end of Warwks?
If you want Rugby district to have a seat to itself, then in the north of the county your only concern is what to do with Bulkington, which slots neatly into either Nuneaton or N Warwks (whichever you prefer), leaving the other one unchanged. It's in the south that your real difficulty lies, because Warwick and Stratford districts, together, are only just big enough for three seats. It can be done, even without ward splits, but it's messy. You really need to find some more voters from somewhere, which the BCE has done by including two wards from Rugby. If you don't like that approach, my suggestion is to find them from Solihull.
?!? I don't want additional LA crossings at either end of the county. That is, by some distance, my priority, as it would be with any plan for any part of the country. I don't want to bring in extra electors from Solihull or anywhere else. I want minimal LA crossings, and as many seats as possible comprised of wards within a single LA.
I have a plan that has two LA splits and two LA crossings in Warwickshire. The BCE plan has five LA splits and four LA crossings.
So, to my mind the status quo is the very definition of 'messy' whereas my solution is as 'tidy' as it's possible to be.
I get that other people have different priorities, and I suggest that these are altogether misguided because when, where and if there is a problem with the LA boundaries, the priority should be to get them fuckers fixed *before* devising the new constituencies.
My view on this matter extends to constituency naming, in that I like seat names to reference LAs consistently and absolutely. My favourite three seats on current boundaries are probably Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham; and Hammersmith. For that very reason.
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,112
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Post by ilerda on Aug 1, 2021 13:05:55 GMT
In that case I can only apologise for misjudging you, and for the pain you have suffered as a CCFC fan! Personally I place no priority on any of the 'rules' over any others. I don't fetishise not splitting wards or not crossing districts or not having orphan wards. For me the priority it getting constituencies that best reflect community ties within the quota. That's what matters more to constituents, and I don't care if it makes the job a little bit harder for the electoral services officers. That's what they're paid to do after all. I would disagree profoundly on the Whitnash question. I think it has far greater claim to be in the Warwick and Leamington seat than Budbrooke or even Bishop's Tachbrook. The BCE's alternative option of splitting Bishop's Tachbrook ward so the village itself leaves Warwick and Leamington but the suburban bits around Heathcote stay in seems very sensible to me. In terms of the north of the county, I agree entirely on matching Rugby to the district and ending the orphan Bulkington situation. And that can be done without splitting Bedworth in two. But your choice to cut it down to just one cross-district seat I think leads to unduly negative effects for community representation for Bedworth. At the moment having cross-border Nuneaton and North Warwickshire seats isn't causing problems, so I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed to continue given that the alternative is significantly worse. You also say you went for minimal change in the south of the county even though you prefer the alternative, but in the north you've gone against minimal change because you prefer the alternative. In terms of my own alternative: Nuneaton: as present (possibly plus Bulkington)* North Warwickshire: as present (possibly plus Bulkington)* Rugby: coterminous with Rugby district Warwick and Leamington: Leamington wards x5, Warwick wards x3, Whitnash, Polling District WAB from Bishop's Tachbrook ward (part of the new Heathcote development) Stratford upon Avon: as your second plan Kenilworth and Arden: remaining wards from Stratford and Warwick districts *I have no strong view on whether Bulkington would be better in Nuneaton or North Warwickshire. The numbers work for both, and pre-1974 it was part of the Bedworth Urban District, whereas now it shares its county councillor with part of Nuneaton proper. I'd leave it up to locals to choose.
This isn't all that different from my plan really - and if I allowed myself split wards it would be even more similar. I don't have a problem with that configuration of W&L - it's the including bits of Rugby and the knock-on Bulkington Effect that I wanted to resolve.
I'd prefer a split ward over an additional LA crossing - so how about we split off the southern bit of Poplar ward into Nuneaton (it only needs to be about 1500 electors) along with Bulkington? The only issue I'd have here is that the canal feels like a 'natural' boundary. Collycroft would be another option, but I'm guessing you feel strongly this should be in the same seat as Bedworth.
It comes down to BCE reluctance to split wards - which isn't as strict as it once was, but is probably still an issue.
I refer to my earlier point about community ties - if a configuration with *more* LA crossings creates better community ties than one with fewer LA crossings then this is a strong indicator that the LA boundaries are sub-optimal, and therefore the joined up solution is to change these first, then come up with new seats.
As a district, North Warwickshire was never a brilliant idea in the first place and like Solihill it feels like 'leftovers' of Brum and Cov. It probably should've been one bigger LA to begin with, with Nuneaton as the administrative centre. Then again, I'd have made Cov a bit bigger, certainly to the East and West. Ryton, Brandon, Balsall common etc. really ought to have been included.
But I'm not proposing to include bits of Rugby anywhere else, or use Bulkington in Rugby. I'm suggesting the two northern districts for 2 seats, Rugby district for 1 seat, and the two southern districts for 3 seats. I would agree with you that the current LA boundaries are flawed in the north of the county, and that the bits of the North Warwickshire district that are currently in Nuneaton constituency would be better off in the Nuneaton and Bedworth district. But that isn't a change that the BCE has the power to make, and tbh I can't see the Government caring enough about it to bring about the sort of widespread changes necessary to correct these flaws across the country. So in the absence of the ability to change LA boundaries, surely the best thing to do is to reflect community ties as much as possible and not worry too much about the consequences that has on LA-crossings etc? It seems to be the BCE's position to only agree to split a ward when the alternatives are substantially worse. I do not think having two LA-crossing constituencies in the north of the county is substantially bad enough to make splitting a ward in either borough acceptable. In the south of the county, however, the weird configuration that would be required to get 3 seats out of 2 districts with no other border crossings and no ward splits is so illogical, and the split actually improves community ties, so it makes sense to split a ward there. And the only alternatives are to use some Rugby wards (which we're both against) or to cross the county boundary (which for me is not ideal and for you is probably a cardinal sin). I also would like to see sensible changes to LA boundaries in Warwickshire, and elsewhere for that matter. But it's a pointless thing to discuss at the moment because it's at best hypothetical and at worst completely fanciful. The two northern districts have such close ties that for most purposes they function as one large community, so I don't see the problem in both seats there crossing the border. I know from experience that the two MPs there work very closely and do lots of shared work because so many of the stakeholders and institutions in that part of the county cover both districts. I haven't yet seen a convincing reason why splitting Bedworth in two with part of it going in Nuneaton would be better than just having two cross boundary seats that both reflect community ties very well. Putting a standalone village like Hartshill in Nuneaton is to me a much better reflection of community ties than taking a chunk of Bedworth town to stick on the side of it instead. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 1, 2021 13:34:02 GMT
More broadly, more people in Bedworth will tell you they live in the town of Bedworth than in the local authority of Nuneaton & Bedworth. That tells you which way you should go when you have a to choose whether to split a town or a local authority.
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,112
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Post by ilerda on Feb 7, 2022 15:30:04 GMT
There's been a clearly co-ordination effort (I presume by the Labour Party) to send in identical comments supporting the move of Lower Stoke in Coventry South, despite all the logic that says it's a stupid thing to propose. I can only imagine it's an attempt to prevent the far more logical changes counter-proposed by many others that would remove St Michael's from Coventry South and therefore make it far more Tory-leaning.
The fact that each one begins "On behalf of myself [and my organisation], I am writing to support the initial proposals set out by the Boundary Commission for England for Coventry" is a bit of a giveaway.
I do wonder if the BCE treat these sorts of responses differently from the more organic ones written by individuals.
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Post by islington on Feb 11, 2022 12:54:31 GMT
In looking through responses I must commend no. 80763, which is the only one I have seen that advocates what is to my mind the obvious plan of linking Solihull with Warks and treating B'ham alone for ten whole seats. This was sent in by a member of the public in Birmingham and, while I had nothing to do with it, it's a submission after my own heart.
It contains a plan for a ten-seat Brum with no ward splits. I haven't checked back through the thread, but I don't think we've seen this particular configuration before.
Well done, submittor 80763, whoever you are.
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,112
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Post by ilerda on Feb 11, 2022 14:17:44 GMT
I’m not convinced this version of Birmingham is better than any cross-border or ward-splitting versions that I’ve seen. The orange and mauve constituencies are particularly unappealing.
I also don’t think the BCE has come up with the right answer by almost trying to pretend the Birmingham ward boundaries never changed and splitting wards to maintain existing constituencies.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Feb 11, 2022 14:59:15 GMT
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,112
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Post by ilerda on Feb 11, 2022 15:37:23 GMT
Absolutely agree. It's probably the best scheme for Birmingham I've seen tbh. One tolerable ward split and every constituency has an intrinsic coherence - quite a feat for somewhere as complex as Birmingham! The arguments made about Birmingham Selly Oak are absolutely correct, and the stupidity of pursuing minimal change for flawed existing constituencies is something that I've ranted about many times on this forum. |
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,112
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Post by ilerda on Feb 11, 2022 15:42:04 GMT
There also seems to be a lot of objection to the (distinctly undesirable) proposal to move Silhill out of Solihull and into Meriden. There’s no real alternative patter for Solihull town, so could this be an occasion where a small ward split is permitted in order to form significantly more sensible constituencies?
Swapping Silhill for Lyndon would only leave the new Solihull 10 voters short, so it could be a really tiny split.
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Post by John Chanin on Feb 11, 2022 18:44:27 GMT
Absolutely agree. It's probably the best scheme for Birmingham I've seen tbh. One tolerable ward split and every constituency has an intrinsic coherence - quite a feat for somewhere as complex as Birmingham! The arguments made about Birmingham Selly Oak are absolutely correct, and the stupidity of pursuing minimal change for flawed existing constituencies is something that I've ranted about many times on this forum. Richard Allen’s submission. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Feb 14, 2022 11:31:00 GMT
There also seems to be a lot of objection to the (distinctly undesirable) proposal to move Silhill out of Solihull and into Meriden. There’s no real alternative patter for Solihull town, so could this be an occasion where a small ward split is permitted in order to form significantly more sensible constituencies? Swapping Silhill for Lyndon would only leave the new Solihull 10 voters short, so it could be a really tiny split. Knowle ward has a couple of streets of electors north of the A41, so a tiny split is possible. That or a split of Lyndon. |
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Post by safc26 on Feb 23, 2022 21:26:24 GMT
In looking through responses I must commend no. 80763, which is the only one I have seen that advocates what is to my mind the obvious plan of linking Solihull with Warks and treating B'ham alone for ten whole seats. This was sent in by a member of the public in Birmingham and, while I had nothing to do with it, it's a submission after my own heart.
It contains a plan for a ten-seat Brum with no ward splits. I haven't checked back through the thread, but I don't think we've seen this particular configuration before.
Well done, submittor 80763, whoever you are.
This is actually my submission. Thank you for your comments-I'm glad it makes some sense to somebody other than me!
I would be very grateful to anyone who feels able to support it in their response to this second consultation.
I also welcome any feedback on my plan, as if I can improve it I will. I would also be interested in any argument that a version of the initial proposals (that is pairing Birmingham with Solihull) is preferable to my formulation.
I do feel very strongly that Birmingham should be treated together if at all possible. I would be more open to pairing with Solihull if it lead to substantially better boundaries, but it necessitates splitting Solihull Town Centre in half and still requires at least as many compromises. Even Richard Allen's, which is no doubt an improvement on the original proposal, requires splitting Yardley between two constituencies, and splitting Ward End and Alum Rock.
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Post by greenhert on Feb 23, 2022 23:28:41 GMT
Solihull has to be paired with another authority, though, as both of its constituencies are over the electorate limit and it does not have electors to be entitled to a third constituency. Pairing it with the rest of Warwickshire is plausible but will probably attract more objections than pairing up Castle Bromwich with Birmingham.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Feb 24, 2022 17:33:39 GMT
Solihull has to be paired with another authority, though, as both of its constituencies are over the electorate limit and it does not have electors to be entitled to a third constituency. Pairing it with the rest of Warwickshire is plausible but will probably attract more objections than pairing up Castle Bromwich with Birmingham. There appear to be 218 comments from Castle Bromwich ward. I think it's not hard to imagine the general gist of them. |
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Post by John Chanin on Feb 24, 2022 18:54:40 GMT
There’s no real objection geographically to linking Castle Bromwich with Birmingham. My beef was with splitting Chelmsley Wood, and removing part of the core of Solihull town (Silhill), when both can be avoided by linking Shirley West with Birmingham (the boundary is indistinguishable on the ground), and you can then produce a number of perfectly reasonable Birmingham schemes with those two additional wards without any ward splits. Both ward splits proposed by BCE are ridiculous.
I wish now I’d got it together to make a submission, but I’ve been ground down and very depressed by the coronavirus.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Feb 24, 2022 20:16:27 GMT
There’s no real objection geographically to linking Castle Bromwich with Birmingham. My beef was with splitting Chelmsley Wood, and removing part of the core of Solihull town (Silhill), when both can be avoided by linking Shirley West with Birmingham (the boundary is indistinguishable on the ground), and you can then produce a number of perfectly reasonable Birmingham schemes with those two additional wards without any ward splits. Both ward splits proposed by BCE are ridiculous. I wish now I’d got it together to make a submission, but I’ve been ground down and very depressed by the coronavirus. You can still submit now, though whether wholly new proposals as opposed to modifications of those already made have much chance I don't know. I think the Castle Bromwich comments are basically standard pitchforkery and may well not get anywhere, though if I were arguing for a 10 seat Birmingham and a Solihull/Warwickshire link I'd probably refer to them. (I'm not; I'm not making any comment on this region.) |
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Post by islington on Feb 25, 2022 11:45:37 GMT
In looking through responses I must commend no. 80763, which is the only one I have seen that advocates what is to my mind the obvious plan of linking Solihull with Warks and treating B'ham alone for ten whole seats. This was sent in by a member of the public in Birmingham and, while I had nothing to do with it, it's a submission after my own heart. It contains a plan for a ten-seat Brum with no ward splits. I haven't checked back through the thread, but I don't think we've seen this particular configuration before.
Well done, submittor 80763, whoever you are.
This is actually my submission. Thank you for your comments-I'm glad it makes some sense to somebody other than me! I would be very grateful to anyone who feels able to support it in their response to this second consultation. I also welcome any feedback on my plan, as if I can improve it I will. I would also be interested in any argument that a version of the initial proposals (that is pairing Birmingham with Solihull) is preferable to my formulation.
I do feel very strongly that Birmingham should be treated together if at all possible. I would be more open to pairing with Solihull if it lead to substantially better boundaries, but it necessitates splitting Solihull Town Centre in half and still requires at least as many compromises. Even Richard Allen's, which is no doubt an improvement on the original proposal, requires splitting Yardley between two constituencies, and splitting Ward End and Alum Rock.
I'm feeding back as requested on the plan submitted by safc26 to say that I really like his Northfield and Moseley seats in the south of the city. I've attached a plan below that retains these seats, but in the south east of the city I've done a three-way swap, compared with his plan, of Acock's Gn, Small Heath and Sparkbrook wards, which I think improves his Hall Gn seat and also avoids dividing Balsall Heath. This works equally well on the numbers and I hope he doesn't mind my tinkering with his scheme in this manner. The difficulty with his scheme is that having two relatively large seats in the south, satisfactory though they are in themselves, leaves us slightly short of voters in the rest of the city. Keeping the seats small is a real challenge and his Aston seat is testament to that. My map below incorporates a different solution but it's not much better and arguably worse. Some time ago I posted four non-split Brum maps all of which had a small Northfield seat that is certainly, in itself, less satisfactory than safc26's version but maybe helps elsewhere in the city. I'll dredge this up and report it, and I'd welcome his thoughts on all these schemes.
Turning to Warks/Solihull, I think it works out quite nicely for 8 seats. If you leave out Blythe ward, the remaining Solihull wards fall quite well into two seats, keeping Silhill in the Solihull seat which I agree is important. Warwks + Blythe needs a little more adjustment to the current seat pattern than Warks by itself: but if you put Bulkington in N Warwks, Dunsmore and Leam Valley in Rugby, Blythe into Stratford, and Budbrooke, Snitterfield, Ettington and Brailes into Kenilworth & Southam (renaming it S Warwks), that's only seven wards shifted in the county (plus Blythe in Solihull) and this doesn't seem an excessive number.
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Post by islington on Feb 25, 2022 11:52:45 GMT
Of course the separation of Pype Hayes from Erdington is the weak point of this scheme. But it’s just as bad taking Gravelly Hill out (I do have a scheme that does this), and Pype Hayes and Castle Vale link much better with the core Hodge Hill wards than Nechells and Gravelly Hill. There are no perfect schemes - compromises always have to be made and it is subjective which compromise is best.I looked at taking Castle Bromwich into Birmingham, which is the obvious ward to shift from Solihull. This doesn’t really help in Birmingham, but I have a scheme which does this, and takes Meriden into Warwickshire. You then have to move Lyndon and Elmdon into whatever you rename the Meriden seat as. This isn’t good, and Shirley is indistinguishable on the ground from Hall Green, so I see no fundamental objection to linking them. Ultimately what you think the best scheme is, is subjective. The one I posted is my favourite of 6 for this part of the West Midlands. Quoted to say that in the bits in bold John Chanin is 100% on the money. In which spirit, and given my (subjective) view that it's best to avoid crossing the Birmingham boundary, here's a handy side-by-side comparison of four perfectly workable ways of doing it. I'm not saying these are the only possible 10-seat Brum schemes, far from it, but I like these the best of what we've seen so far.
The top two schemes, let's call them A and B, are both worked up using a plan by East Anglian Lefty as a starting-point, so my thanks to him. Schemes C and D are my own work, but obviously have features in common with other posted schemes.
The point is, of course, that each of these schemes has its good and bad points; none is perfect. For instance, if your main concern is the treatment of the Erdington area, and avoiding an eastern crossing of the M6, you'll probably prefer scheme D despite its drawbacks elsewhere. If you're more concerned about a logical, compact seat in the city centre, then it's scheme A for you.
I think I've developed a preference for one of these schemes, but it's very slight; there are merits in all of them (and flaws, of course).
Note that Sutton Coldfield and Northfield, at opposite ends of the city, are the same in all four plans. It's the eight seats in the middle that get hacked about.
 Here are the four plans I posted nearly a year ago. They all feature a 'small Northfield' so as to avoid soaking up too many voters from the rest of the city. I have a slight preference for Scheme A but they all have pluses and minuses. |
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Post by islington on Feb 25, 2022 12:23:58 GMT
There’s no real objection geographically to linking Castle Bromwich with Birmingham. My beef was with splitting Chelmsley Wood, and removing part of the core of Solihull town (Silhill), when both can be avoided by linking Shirley West with Birmingham (the boundary is indistinguishable on the ground), and you can then produce a number of perfectly reasonable Birmingham schemes with those two additional wards without any ward splits. Both ward splits proposed by BCE are ridiculous. I wish now I’d got it together to make a submission, but I’ve been ground down and very depressed by the coronavirus.John, I'm very sorry to hear this and I hope you're getting over it.
I contracted the lurgi myself back in November and was really unwell for several weeks. The especial highlight, or lowlight, was being carted off by ambulance to A&E at four in the morning.
Overall I find myself unable to recommend the experience.
Take care of yourself, and I hope you're able to make a submission in the second phase (which is now open, of course, and runs until 4 Apr).
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Post by emidsanorak on Mar 3, 2022 18:08:56 GMT
New counterproposals for the West Midlands announced at the lead hearing in Birmingham:
Green Party counterproposal
Bromsgrove 72990
Droitwich & Evesham 76516
Redditch 70065
Liberal Democrat counterproposals:
Halesowen & Warley 76185
Smethwick & Rowley Regis 74479
Wednesbury & Darlaston 74817
West Bromwich 71891
Wolverhampton Central & Willenhall 69727
Wolverhampton North West 70773
Wolverhampton South East 70982
Walsall East & Aldridge 71806
Walsall West & Brownhills 76182
Birmingham Edgbaston 73763
Birmingham Hall Green 74128
Birmingham Ladywood 75570
Birmingham Northfield 75634
Birmingham Sparkbrook 74393
Coventry East 76175
Coventry North West 71012
Coventry South 70631
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