2023 Review - West Midlands

[islington]

It was interesting how keen the LibDems are - here and elsewhere - to avoid ward splits.

They also freely acknowledged that they have lifted ideas from submissions by members of the public.

I'm surprised and puzzled by the general reluctance to consider crossing the Warwks/Solihull boundary, especially when adding a single Solihull ward to Warwks allows better boundaries in both the borough and the county (besides allowing Brum to be treated by itself).

[YL]

Here's that Lib Dem proposal mapped:



(Areas not coloured are as per BCE)

1. Halesowen & Warley
2. Smethwick & Rowley Regis
3. West Bromwich
4. Wednesbury & Darlaston
5. Walsall West & Brownhills
6. Walsall East & Aldridge
7. Wolverhampton Central & Willenhall
8. Wolverhampton North West
9. Wolverhampton South East
10. Birmingham Edgbaston
11. Birmingham Northfield
12. Birmingham Hall Green
13. Birmingham Sparkbrook
14. Birmingham Ladywood

(names as per emidsanorak 's post)

[YL]

Mar 3, 2022 21:38:18 GMT islington said:

It was interesting how keen the LibDems are - here and elsewhere - to avoid ward splits.

They also freely acknowledged that they have lifted ideas from submissions by members of the public.

I think it's good that they lifted from submissions and acknowledged them, but I thought they overdid the ward split thing myself. They have proposed one of their own in the East Riding, however.

I'm surprised and puzzled by the general reluctance to consider crossing the Warwks/Solihull boundary, especially when adding a single Solihull ward to Warwks allows better boundaries in both the borough and the county (besides allowing Brum to be treated by itself).

It would be the obvious way for the Greens to solve their Chelmsley Wood concerns, wouldn't it? I thought it was odd that they criticised the BCE so heavily about that area but didn't present a solution.

[greenchristian]

Mar 3, 2022 21:59:52 GMT YL said:

I'm surprised and puzzled by the general reluctance to consider crossing the Warwks/Solihull boundary, especially when adding a single Solihull ward to Warwks allows better boundaries in both the borough and the county (besides allowing Brum to be treated by itself).

It would be the obvious way for the Greens to solve their Chelmsley Wood concerns, wouldn't it? I thought it was odd that they criticised the BCE so heavily about that area but didn't present a solution.

It's partly because our submission was put together from local party comments somewhat at the last minute. But since we're a long way from mounting a serious challenge for one of the Solihull Westminster seats, it's not a massive priority for us.

Also, this time around I didn't volunteer to put everything together and incorporate the best bits of what this forum has worked out with the suggestions from local parties, which almost certainly would have included such a proposal.

[YL]

Mar 3, 2022 22:03:56 GMT greenchristian said:

Mar 3, 2022 21:59:52 GMT YL said:

It would be the obvious way for the Greens to solve their Chelmsley Wood concerns, wouldn't it? I thought it was odd that they criticised the BCE so heavily about that area but didn't present a solution.

It's partly because our submission was put together from local party comments somewhat at the last minute. But since we're a long way from mounting a serious challenge for one of the Solihull Westminster seats, it's not a massive priority for us.

Also, this time around I didn't volunteer to put everything together and incorporate the best bits of what this forum has worked out with the suggestions from local parties, which almost certainly would have included such a proposal.

I meant that given that they'd gone to the effort of getting somebody to the hearing and preparing slides with maps showing Smith's Wood as part of the overall Chelmsley Wood development I'd have expected them to look for an alternative, whether one of their own or one borrowed from somebody else like the Lib Dems did.

[islington]

Inspired initially by the LibDems' plan for a non-split Black Country (although in the end departing quite widely from it) but unable to support their very messy Wolverhampton, I came up with the plan below. Under this arrangement, only two Black Country wards are joining Staffs, instead of the three in most schemes, thus making things even tighter in the latter county.

Walsall and Wolverhampton (5 seats)

Bilston and Willenhall - 76094. This is the only seat straddling the W/W boundary. I acknowledge that the inclusion of Spring Vale isn't great but there is a road link and it's less messy than the LibDems' W'ton scheme. Other arrangements are available if you don't mind crossing the W/W boundary twice.

Walsall North - 76571. Both Walsall seats as per the BCE.

Walsall South - 71237.

Wolverhampton East - 70040.

Wolverhampton West - 75592. As per the BCE.

Staffs, Stoke, Dudley, Sandwell (18 seats)

Burton - 70182. As others have had it. Given the unavoidable creation of some above-average seats in Dudley and Sandwell, the imperative in Staffs and Stoke is to keep seats small.

Cannock - 71875. Hence the regrettable exclusion of Rawnsley ward from this seat.

Dudley - 71378.

Halesowen - 76527.

Leek - 71421. Maybe 'and Uttoxeter'. Or 'North (East) Staffs'.

Lichfield - 70376.

Newcastle under Lyme - 72514. Remarkably its modest electorate, well below the UK average of 73393, makes it the largest seat in Staffs/Stoke.

Smethwick - 73302. This keeps St Pauls in with Smethwick. 'Rowley Regis' might be added to the name.

Stafford - 72247. I suppose 'and Stone' is inevitable.

South Staffordshire - 70550. Includes only two Dudley wards (Gornal and Norton).

West Staffordshire - 69937. Yes, it's what was left over. But we've seen worse.

Stoke on Trent Central - 70350.

Stoke on Trent North - 71647.

Stoke on Trent South - 71323.

Stourbridge - 69728. Exceeds the minimum by 4. It is obviously undesirable to exclude the Norton ward; if this is absolutely unacceptable I have a fallback plan but it's messier elsewhere.

Tamworth - 70625.

Wednesbury and Sedgley - 75592.

West Bromwich - 71579.

[John Chanin]

I have to say that's impressive. I spent days trying to get Staffordshire to work with just 2 black country wards before giving up and accepting that there had to be three.

[islington]

Mar 4, 2022 11:11:18 GMT John Chanin said:

I have to say that's impressive. I spent days trying to get Staffordshire to work with just 2 black country wards before giving up and accepting that there had to be three.

Thanks John, but I have to acknowledge that I didn't start from scratch. I drew on ideas posted upthread, for instance the suggestion of Pete Whitehead that Uttoxter might be hived off from Burton and placed with Leek. I think my main contribution to Staffs plans has been the realization that Stafford and Stone don't necessarily have to be located in separate seats, as everyone else seemed to assume, but might work better if put together to form a strong and reasonably compact seat in the centre of the county (an area that is otherwise an absolute nightmare). 

Edited to add: If you can't bear to take Norton out of Stourport (a view with which I completely sympathize because it's plainly part of the town), you can leave Stourport as the BCE has it (69840). Then, compared with my plan above, Halesowen gains Cradley and loses Cradley Heath (76185); Smethwick gains Cradley Heath, loses Tividale (74479); W Brom gains Tividale, loses Friar Pk (71891). Up to this point everything is as per the LibDem scheme mapped by YL just upthread: for the rest, Wednesbury gains Friar Pk, loses Sedgley (74538); S Staffs gains Sedgeley and Wordsley, loses Norton and Gornal (70096); Dudley gains Gornal, loses Netherton (71627). I'm conscious that although at a first glance at the map this arrangement looks OK (-ish), the road pattern in Wordsley means the ward isn't a good fit with the S Staffs seat. I can't see a better alternative; the obvious option is to shift the two Kingswinford wards from Dudley to S Staffs in exchange for Sedgley and Wordsley, which is legal on the numbers and contiguous, but if you plot it on BA and look at the resulting Dudley seat you'll see why I'm not suggesting it.

[YL]

islington: are you going to make a submission for this region?

[islington]

Mar 4, 2022 21:21:05 GMT YL said:

islington: are you going to make a submission for this region?

I'm not sure. I'm seriously thinking about it.

[iainbhx]

You want to see pitchforks. Norton in Staffordshire which it has very poor links to except for the odd trip to Kinver is pitchforks. Norton in Worcestershire however, would be acceptable to many older residents. Norton in Staffordshire is 500 responses territory.

And it's Stourbridge, not Stourport. That's where the chavs from Dudley used to go for a Sunday out.

[islington]

Mar 5, 2022 6:24:10 GMT iainbhx said:

You want to see pitchforks. Norton in Staffordshire which it has very poor links to except for the odd trip to Kinver is pitchforks. Norton in Worcestershire however, would be acceptable to many older residents. Norton in Staffordshire is 500 responses territory.

And it's Stourbridge, not Stourport. That's where the chavs from Dudley used to go for a Sunday out.

Yes. Stourbridge. If I do make a submission it would probably be helpful to get things like that right.

I've come round to supporting the BCE version of Stourbridge (which includes Norton, of course), and if I do make a submission I'll back the LibDem scheme for Halesowen / Smethwick / W Brom. The main point I want to make is that if you shift three Dudley wards to be treated with Staffs, as both the BCE and LD schemes propose, you leave yourself very light on voters in the Black Country and this causes both these schemes to get jnto dificulties. Whereas, if you transfer only two Dudley wards, the Black Country works out fairly well.

It's true that this means that Staffs and Stoke are then low on numbers for 12 seats but this is a more manageable problem because of the larger area involved and the fact that wards are smaller and more variable in size compared with the bigger and more uniform wards in the Black Country.

[YL]

I don't understand Black Country internal geography well enough to make submissions in this area, but with that caveat the Lib Dem proposal looks quite good to me except in some parts of Wolverhampton, especially the city centre; is that fair comment?

Is it a ridiculous idea to take the Lib Dem proposal, swap Fallings Park and St Peter's wards of Wolverhampton between their Wolves NW and Wolves C & Willenhall constituencies, and then split a ward to get the former back up to size? Looking at the very small scale map of Wolverhampton polling districts on the LGBCE site, the obvious polling district would be HTA in Heath Town ward, 1474 electors, which gets the numbers right. The latter constituency would then presumably become Wolverhampton East & Willenhall or Wednesfield & Willenhall. Obviously that would mean the proposal would no longer avoid split wards, but at least to this non-local it looks substantially tidier if that ward split works.

[ilerda]

I can’t remember if the numbers work, but would putting Tory-voting Tettenhall from Wolverhampton in with South Staffs be less pitchforky than using the Kingswinfords or other bits of Dudley MBC?

[iainbhx]

Mar 5, 2022 10:10:17 GMT ilerda said:

I can’t remember if the numbers work, but would putting Tory-voting Tettenhall from Wolverhampton in with South Staffs be less pitchforky than using the Kingswinfords or other bits of Dudley MBC?

The Kingswinfords aren't very pitchforky to be honest, Sedgley would be a bit pitchforky. Wordsley looks more to Stourbridge but will go along with Kingswinford, Gornal gets pitchforky if left on its own, never mind with anyone else. There's a lot more links between parts of South Staffs and Kingswinford/Wall Heath than anywhere else in the borough except Kinver/Stourbridge and the answer there is Kinver into a Stourbridge seat rather than part of Stourbridge in with Wombourne and Perton. But that's a greater degree of disruption and causes problems with Staffordshire.

Also the two Tettenhall wards are enough, you'd need another and that would have to be Penn (which looks weird) or Gornal really unless you want to split the two Kingswinford wards (which isn't as bad as it sounds either).

[islington]

Mar 5, 2022 11:05:49 GMT iainbhx said:

Mar 5, 2022 10:10:17 GMT ilerda said:

I can’t remember if the numbers work, but would putting Tory-voting Tettenhall from Wolverhampton in with South Staffs be less pitchforky than using the Kingswinfords or other bits of Dudley MBC?

The Kingswinfords aren't very pitchforky to be honest, Sedgley would be a bit pitchforky. Wordsley looks more to Stourbridge but will go along with Kingswinford, Gornal gets pitchforky if left on its own, never mind with anyone else. There's a lot more links between parts of South Staffs and Kingswinford/Wall Heath than anywhere else in the borough except Kinver/Stourbridge and the answer there is Kinver into a Stourbridge seat rather than part of Stourbridge in with Wombourne and Perton. But that's a greater degree of disruption and causes problems with Staffordshire.

Also the two Tettenhall wards are enough, you'd need another and that would have to be Penn (which looks weird) or Gornal really unless you want to split the two Kingswinford wards (which isn't as bad as it sounds either).

That's right. W'ton wards tend to be smaller than Dudley wards so you need three, which is what I'm trying to avoid. Also, you then forgo one of the best things about the BCE scheme, which is the assigning of five whole seats to W'ton/Walsall (not that I agree with the way they've done it).

So it has to be two Dudley wards, and purely from the point of view of the S Staffs seat I agree that the Kingswinford wards are the logical ones to take. But this leaves us with Wordsley ward, which can't go into Stourbridge because of the numbers so it has to go into a Dudley seat in which, without Kingswinford, it is totally out on a limb. It's because this looks such a bad solution that I'm inclining to keep the Kingswinford wards in the Dudley seat and unload Wordsley ward and one other, presumably Sedgley, into S Staffs - although I agree it's far from an ideal arrangement so I'm open to other suggestions. 

Regarding the proposal by YL , just upthread, I expect it would work but if we want a ward split plan we already have one, courtesy BCE. One of the merits of the LD's Black Country scheme is its eschewal of ward splits and I'd like to maintain that.

[sirbenjamin]

Feb 23, 2022 21:26:24 GMT safc26 said:

Feb 11, 2022 12:54:31 GMT islington said:

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 like this configuration a lot, mainly because it's self-contained with no ward splits, but also because of the little dog in the middle.

I'll have to check that any knock-on effects in surrounding areas aren't too horrible, but in principle I'd be happy to add a comment/endorsement to the commission in support of this counter-proposal.

[islington]

I think safc26 has nailed it with Northfield and Moseley but his plan runs into trouble in north Brum. Here's something that preserves the strongest area of his plan but takes a different approach elsewhere, and one that I'm pretty sure we haven't seen before. The main drawback is that it's not minimum change but purely on its own merits I feel quite excited about it.

Names, numbers and a few comments (all names prefaced by 'Birmingham' of course) -

Northfield - 75689. As per safc26.

Moseley - 76217. Also as per safc26. Roughly the successor to the current Selly Oak but actually a considerable improvement on it in terms of compactness and lines of communication. The name 'Moseley' has been used before.

Hall Green - 73690. This is close to the safc26 version but gains Acocks Gn instead of Sparkbrook, which moves its centre of gravity away from the inner city and makes it more firmly a southeastern seat.

Yardley - 70510. A good compact seat on the east of the city.

Edgbaston - 71354. As proposed by the BCE and many other schemes.

Ladywood - 70008. This keeps Balsall Heath and Bordesley together. I admit Lozells juts out a bit but it's not so bad as all that and if you swap it with Newtown you come up short on numbers.

Perry Barr - 74979. This is as per the BCE and actually a reasonable fit with the current seat.

Aston - 70788. This, on the other hand, is a long way from minimum change and draws mainly from the current Ladywood, Erdington and Hodge Hill seats. But it's a reasonable and compact seat and 'Aston' has a distinguished history as a constituency name.

Erdington - 72125. A much-altered version of the current under-size seat, losing areas on its western flank and gaining Hodge Hill and other areas south of the M6. It's very similar to what safc26 suggested; in fact, it would be identical to his version if you swapped Perry Common and Gravelly Hill with the previous seat.  

Compared with the current map, 'Hodge Hill' and 'Selly Oak' vanish as names, to be replaced by 'Aston' and 'Moseley'.

Edited to add: Apologies to sirbenjamin but I think I killed the dog.

[islington]

So just to sum up: here's a plan for the whole W Mids region with everything in range, no ward splits, and overall as tidy as I can get it.

[YL]

If I imagine myself as an Assistant Commissioner looking at that map, the thing I'd be most worried about would be that seat stretching from the Great Wyrley area to the Cheshire border. Also I'd be a bit sceptical of the two separate nibbles at Dudley by South Staffs.

I'd definitely emphasise the avoidance of splitting Chelmsley Wood among the benefits of the Brum/Solihull/Warks approach.