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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 20, 2021 15:43:01 GMT
In Wolverhampton and Walsall there are eight 'pairs' of wards where a name element is shared: - Aldridge Central & South + Aldridge North & Walsall Wood
- Bloxwich East + West
- Willenhall North + South (effectively a trio with Short Heath)
- Bentley & Darlaston North + Darlaston South
- Wednesfield North + South
- Bilston North + East
- Tettenhall Wightwick + Regis
- Bushbury North + Bushbury South & Low Hill
I'm aware that some of these are more meaningful than others and that some of the areas concerned in practice extend over larger areas than the ones named. However, this is likely to be the thought of thing the BCE cares about and none of the maps assigning 5 seats to those two boroughs have avoided splitting at least one pair. Here's an attempt to rectify that: Aldridge & Walsall SE 71806 Walsall NW 76182 Willenhall & Wednesfield 74276 Wolverhampton N 75874 Wolverhampton S 71576 It's very ugly. Heath Town reaches into the city centre of Wolverhampton and shouldn't be in a seat which is mostly outside the city. And Penn and Merry HIll are strongly linked to the wards to their North but not at all to Bilston. I see what you're trying to do but some of these names are fairly meaningless (eg 'Bushbury South & Low Hill' is more or less just Low Hill with the vast majority of Bushbury being in the Bushbury North ward
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 20, 2021 16:11:19 GMT
I approve of the two Hagley wards going into a Stourbridge seat but the inhabitants probably wouldn't. They are effectively part of Stourbridge and have been since before I was born and the gap between them has long been filled. Birmingham is just slightly painful this time. The only way I could make my plan work was by putting Hagley East into Halesowen and Hagley West into Stourbridge & Wombourne. I'm guessing splitting Hagley in that way would be unlikely to be accepted. I've also put Wyre Forest Rural into the Stourbridge seat.
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Post by No Offence Alan on Jan 20, 2021 16:27:50 GMT
I approve of the two Hagley wards going into a Stourbridge seat but the inhabitants probably wouldn't. They are effectively part of Stourbridge and have been since before I was born and the gap between them has long been filled. Birmingham is just slightly painful this time. The only way I could make my plan work was by putting Hagley East into Halesowen and Hagley West into Stourbridge & Wombourne. I'm guessing splitting Hagley in that way would be unlikely to be accepted. I've also put Wyre Forest Rural into the Stourbridge seat. You might need Wyre Forest Rural for Bromsgrove, if you haven't done Worcestershire yet.
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 20, 2021 16:36:14 GMT
The only way I could make my plan work was by putting Hagley East into Halesowen and Hagley West into Stourbridge & Wombourne. I'm guessing splitting Hagley in that way would be unlikely to be accepted. I've also put Wyre Forest Rural into the Stourbridge seat. You might need Wyre Forest Rural for Bromsgrove, if you haven't done Worcestershire yet. Thanks, although I've done the whole of the West Midlands region, the map is above somewhere (previous page). Took ages to make the numbers work and I don't like the Stourbridge and Halesowen seats much. The Stone seat is an odd shape as well. My Bromsgrove seat proposal adds Dodderhill from Wychavon council and Tanworth-in-Arden from Stratford-on-Avon to make up for losing the Hagley wards. Electorate = 74,842.
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Post by emidsanorak on Jan 20, 2021 16:44:31 GMT
Extremely neatly. 3 seats in Sandwell. 5 seats in Walsall/Wolverhampton. And we give Greenhert a heart attack with a Dudley that looks like this: ibb.co/P6zbRsTDudley North (70711) gains Coseley East Halesowen & Bartley Green (74748) (Halesowen) loses all Sandwell electors; gains wards lost by Stourbridge, Bartley Green Kingswinford & Wombourne (71768) as previously described Stourbridge (69840) loses Cradley & Wollescote, Quarry Bank & Dudley Wood; gains Brierley Hill, Netherton Woodside & St Andrews OK that works well and your Staffordshire was very good. Have you managed to make Birmingham work with the loss of Bartley Green? If so you've probably found the answer (Im guess in Sandwell you've gone for Warley gaining Blackheath, West Brom West gaining Rowley and Cradley Heath (Rowley Regis & Tipton) and then exchanging Greets Green & Lyng for the Wednesbury wards with West Bromwich East) I have managed to get Birmingham to work, but it's ugly: ibb.co/Wn6RzkVBrandwood (74384) (Selly Oak) loses Bournbrook & Selly Park, Bournville & Cotteridge; gains Hall Green South, Kings Norton North, Kings Norton South Edgbaston (71565) loses Bartley Green; gains Bournbrook & Selly Park, North Edgbaston Erdington (75657) loses Kingstanding; gains Aston, Nechells Hodge Hill & Castle Bromwich (69726) (Hodge Hill) loses Alum Rock, Heartlands, Small Heath; gains Garretts Green, Castle Bromwich, Smith’s Wood Ladywood (69963) loses Aston, Bordesley Green, Nechells, North Edgbaston; gains Alum Rock, Heartlands, Lozells Northfield (75689) loses Kings Norton North, Kings Norton South; gains Bournville & Cotteridge Perry Barr (74979) loses Lozells; gains Kingstanding Sparkbrook (73914) (Hall Green) loses Hall Green South; gains Bordesley Green Yardley (71912) loses Garretts Green; gains Small Heath Sutton Coldfield (74584) unchanged My Ladywood should go in the Pitchfork thread. I'm sure, with time, I can do better.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 20, 2021 16:59:16 GMT
It's not terrible by any means. I've seen worse proposed for Birmingham generally and Ladywood in particular Remember this?
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Post by mattb on Jan 20, 2021 17:21:27 GMT
Here's my Black Country in detail showing the non-Hagley (but ugly) alternative in Stourbridge Your Staffs is definitely better than mine and I am adopting it. (I even looked for a solution along your lines and failed to find it). But your Black Country looks if anything even worse than mine - is that "Dudley North & West Bromwich South" and "Dudley South & Stourbridge East?!
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 20, 2021 17:25:46 GMT
I think I'm sold on this plan but I'd like to rename Brandwood as King's Norton. The consequent division of Solihull is sub-optimal as well but I can live with it
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 20, 2021 17:28:58 GMT
OK that works well and your Staffordshire was very good. Have you managed to make Birmingham work with the loss of Bartley Green? If so you've probably found the answer (Im guess in Sandwell you've gone for Warley gaining Blackheath, West Brom West gaining Rowley and Cradley Heath (Rowley Regis & Tipton) and then exchanging Greets Green & Lyng for the Wednesbury wards with West Bromwich East) I have managed to get Birmingham to work, but it's ugly: ibb.co/Wn6RzkVBrandwood (74384) (Selly Oak) loses Bournbrook & Selly Park, Bournville & Cotteridge; gains Hall Green South, Kings Norton North, Kings Norton South Edgbaston (71565) loses Bartley Green; gains Bournbrook & Selly Park, North Edgbaston Erdington (75657) loses Kingstanding; gains Aston, Nechells Hodge Hill & Castle Bromwich (69726) (Hodge Hill) loses Alum Rock, Heartlands, Small Heath; gains Garretts Green, Castle Bromwich, Smith’s Wood Ladywood (69963) loses Aston, Bordesley Green, Nechells, North Edgbaston; gains Alum Rock, Heartlands, Lozells Northfield (75689) loses Kings Norton North, Kings Norton South; gains Bournville & Cotteridge Perry Barr (74979) loses Lozells; gains Kingstanding Sparkbrook (73914) (Hall Green) loses Hall Green South; gains Bordesley Green Yardley (71912) loses Garretts Green; gains Small Heath Sutton Coldfield (74584) unchanged My Ladywood should go in the Pitchfork thread. I'm sure, with time, I can do better. I especially like the Hodge Hill & Castle Bromwich seat. I might adopt that for my plan. I hadn't thought of putting Smith's Wood in as well as Castle Bromwich.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 20, 2021 17:29:52 GMT
Here's my Black Country in detail showing the non-Hagley (but ugly) alternative in Stourbridge Your Staffs is definitely better than mine and I am adopting it. (I even looked for a solution along your lines and failed to find it). But your Black Country looks if anything even worse than mine - is that "Dudley North & West Bromwich South" and "Dudley South & Stourbridge East?! The Dudley seat with part of Stourbridge is the non-Hagley version which I agree is appalling and why I am sticking with my far more logical Stourbridge seat which includes Hagley. The other seat you refer to is Tipton and Coseley and isn't great but not totally illogical But anyway I'm abandoning my plan now and adopting emidsanorak's plan Edit: also your plan linked Halesowen with Smethwick and made a mess of Wolverhampton
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Post by iainbhx on Jan 20, 2021 17:34:07 GMT
It's not terrible by any means. I've seen worse proposed for Birmingham generally and Ladywood in particular Remember this? Ah yes, Birmingham, Strip. One of the zombie reviews highlights.
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Post by iainbhx on Jan 20, 2021 17:38:39 GMT
I approve of the two Hagley wards going into a Stourbridge seat but the inhabitants probably wouldn't. They are effectively part of Stourbridge and have been since before I was born and the gap between them has long been filled. Birmingham is just slightly painful this time. The only way I could make my plan work was by putting Hagley East into Halesowen and Hagley West into Stourbridge & Wombourne. I'm guessing splitting Hagley in that way would be unlikely to be accepted. I've also put Wyre Forest Rural into the Stourbridge seat. You'd be surprised how much difference there is between Hagley and West Hagley although mainly in houseprices. Hagley is expensive, West Hagley is not quite so expensive. I'm shuddering at the town I grew up in ending with with bloody Wombourne.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 20, 2021 18:05:25 GMT
In Wolverhampton and Walsall there are eight 'pairs' of wards where a name element is shared: - Aldridge Central & South + Aldridge North & Walsall Wood
- Bloxwich East + West
- Willenhall North + South (effectively a trio with Short Heath)
- Bentley & Darlaston North + Darlaston South
- Wednesfield North + South
- Bilston North + East
- Tettenhall Wightwick + Regis
- Bushbury North + Bushbury South & Low Hill
I'm aware that some of these are more meaningful than others and that some of the areas concerned in practice extend over larger areas than the ones named. However, this is likely to be the thought of thing the BCE cares about and none of the maps assigning 5 seats to those two boroughs have avoided splitting at least one pair. Here's an attempt to rectify that: Aldridge & Walsall SE 71806 Walsall NW 76182 Willenhall & Wednesfield 74276 Wolverhampton N 75874 Wolverhampton S 71576 It's very ugly. Heath Town reaches into the city centre of Wolverhampton and shouldn't be in a seat which is mostly outside the city. And Penn and Merry HIll are strongly linked to the wards to their North but not at all to Bilston. I see what you're trying to do but some of these names are fairly meaningless (eg 'Bushbury South & Low Hill' is more or less just Low Hill with the vast majority of Bushbury being in the Bushbury North ward Yes, there are much nicer options if you're willing to separate Bushbury N and Bushbury S and Low Hill, and especially if you're willing to have two seats crossing the Wolverhampton-Walsall boundary.
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Post by greenchristian on Jan 20, 2021 21:33:00 GMT
It's interesting that quite a few of the plans here involve multiple ward swaps in Coventry when there are six different ways to get the city's seats in quota with a single ward swap. I must admit I only spent about 20 seconds on Coventry. I don't know the details of which areas best go together in terms of local ties. Fair enough. Your worst call is moving Holbrook from North west to North East, which definitely breaks local ties. One of the nine polling districts blatantly belongs in Radford, another blatantly belongs in Bablake, and a third also has significant local ties to Bablake. On the other hand, the A444 functions as a natural boundary with Longford and Folesshill and, whilst there are some local ties with Foleshill in the one place where there's a road bridge over the A444, those are less significant than the ties connecting the ward to its North West neighbours. If you're going to move a ward between North East and North West then moving Foleshill from North East to North West (as both islington and Pete Whitehead have done) is far less disruptive. It's interesting that quite a few of the plans here involve multiple ward swaps in Coventry when there are six different ways to get the city's seats in quota with a single ward swap. Because the city's boundaries are illogically* drawn in the first place so one may as well take the opportunity to reconfigure the whole arrangement so that the seats reflect a more natural division of the city * Actually not lacking in logic so much as being a fairly blatant pro-Labour gerrymander Given that there are parts of Earlsdon in four different wards (one of which also contains part of Lower Stoke as well as an area that most naturally belongs with Foleshill), parts of Coundon in three different wards, and several other natural communities that are split across two wards the only way to draw a Parliamentary map that works well as a natural division of the city is ward splitting.
Given the result in 2019, where the Conservatives came within a hair's breadth of winning a majority of the city's seats when they were in a clear second place across the city, it's somewhat questionable whether the current boundaries overly favour Labour. Given the extremely limited non-ward-split options which would get a decent Conservative prospect outside of a landslide year your plan is just as open to accusations of gerrymandering. Though you'd do better at making South a decent Conservative prospect if you left Whoberley in North West and simply swapped St Michaels for Woodland.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 20, 2021 21:45:07 GMT
I must admit I only spent about 20 seconds on Coventry. I don't know the details of which areas best go together in terms of local ties. Fair enough. Your worst call is moving Holbrook from North west to North East, which definitely breaks local ties. One of the nine polling districts blatantly belongs in Radford, another blatantly belongs in Bablake, and a third also has significant local ties to Bablake. On the other hand, the A444 functions as a natural boundary with Longford and Folesshill and, whilst there are some local ties with Foleshill in the one place where there's a road bridge over the A444, those are less significant than the ties connecting the ward to its North West neighbours. If you're going to move a ward between North East and North West then moving Foleshill from North East to North West (as both islington and Pete Whitehead have done) is far less disruptive. Because the city's boundaries are illogically* drawn in the first place so one may as well take the opportunity to reconfigure the whole arrangement so that the seats reflect a more natural division of the city * Actually not lacking in logic so much as being a fairly blatant pro-Labour gerrymander Given that there are parts of Earlsdon in four different wards (one of which also contains part of Lower Stoke as well as an area that most naturally belongs with Foleshill), parts of Coundon in three different wards, and several other natural communities that are split across two wards the only way to draw a Parliamentary map that works well as a natural division of the city is ward splitting. Given the result in 2019, where the Conservatives came within a hair's breadth of winning a majority of the city's seats when they were in a clear second place across the city, it's somewhat questionable whether the current boundaries overly favour Labour. Given the extremely limited non-ward-split options which would get a decent Conservative prospect outside of a landslide year your plan is just as open to accusations of gerrymandering. Though you'd do better at making South a decent Conservative prospect if you left Whoberley in North West and simply swapped St Michaels for Woodland.
My proposal is precisely designed to reunite all of Earlsdon in one seat and all of Tile Hill as well. The fact that the Conservatives failed to win any of the Coventry seats in a landslide election illustrates how well the boundaries are drawn from Labour's point of view (albeit they came close in two - these conditions are unlikely to be repeated). If the boundaries had been drawn in the way I propose back in 1997, I don't believe the Conservatives would have won this version of Coventry South at any election other than the last one - so it wouldn't be a very effective gerrymander if that was its purpose (but it isn't) Edit: If I wanted to gerrymander the optimum Conservative seat I would additionally remove Cheylesmore from my proposed seat and replace it with Bablake, but that would be ridiculous
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Post by greenchristian on Jan 20, 2021 21:48:40 GMT
Fair enough. Your worst call is moving Holbrook from North west to North East, which definitely breaks local ties. One of the nine polling districts blatantly belongs in Radford, another blatantly belongs in Bablake, and a third also has significant local ties to Bablake. On the other hand, the A444 functions as a natural boundary with Longford and Folesshill and, whilst there are some local ties with Foleshill in the one place where there's a road bridge over the A444, those are less significant than the ties connecting the ward to its North West neighbours. If you're going to move a ward between North East and North West then moving Foleshill from North East to North West (as both islington and Pete Whitehead have done) is far less disruptive. Given that there are parts of Earlsdon in four different wards (one of which also contains part of Lower Stoke as well as an area that most naturally belongs with Foleshill), parts of Coundon in three different wards, and several other natural communities that are split across two wards the only way to draw a Parliamentary map that works well as a natural division of the city is ward splitting. Given the result in 2019, where the Conservatives came within a hair's breadth of winning a majority of the city's seats when they were in a clear second place across the city, it's somewhat questionable whether the current boundaries overly favour Labour. Given the extremely limited non-ward-split options which would get a decent Conservative prospect outside of a landslide year your plan is just as open to accusations of gerrymandering. Though you'd do better at making South a decent Conservative prospect if you left Whoberley in North West and simply swapped St Michaels for Woodland.
My proposal is precisely designed to reunite all of Earlsdon in one seat and all of Tile Hill as well. The fact that the Conservatives failed to win any of the Coventry seats in a landslide election illustrates how well the boundaries are drawn from Labour's point of view (albeit they came close in two - these conditions are unlikely to be repeated). If the boundaries had been drawn in the way I propose back in 1997, I don't believe the Conservatives would have won this version of Coventry South at any election other than the last one - so it wouldn't be a very effective gerrymander if that was its purpose (but it isnt) You've reunited most - but not all - of Earlsdon. Remember that part of it is in St Michael's.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 20, 2021 21:54:52 GMT
If you're talking about the area around Albany Road but on the other side of the railway, then I doubt that really counts as Earlsdon - not to any extent that matters for out purposes anyway. I'd say that's pretty much the City Centre
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,042
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Post by ilerda on Jan 20, 2021 22:13:30 GMT
When it comes to dealing with Coventry, we probably all need to recognise that we have (un)conscious biases that favour our team.
Those on the right want to move St Michael’s out of Coventry South and replace it with Tory-leaning suburbs.
Those on the left want to use St Michael’s or another solidly Labour ward to give Labour the best chance of holding on to Coventry South.
Even if we don’t want to admit it, or don’t think it’s the case, I would suggest this influences the way we interpret the other BCE criteria and decide what makes the best plan.
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Post by greenchristian on Jan 20, 2021 22:15:15 GMT
If you're talking about the area around Albany Road but on the other side of the railway, then I doubt that really counts as Earlsdon - not to any extent that matters for out purposes anyway. I'd say that's pretty much the City Centre As someone who used to live there I very much disagree. The only area outside of the ring road that even arguably counts as part of the City Centre is Far Gosford Street and some of its side roads.
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Post by Andrew_S on Jan 20, 2021 22:17:20 GMT
When it comes to dealing with Coventry, we probably all need to recognise that we have (un)conscious biases that favour our team. Those on the right want to move St Michael’s out of Coventry South and replace it with Tory-leaning suburbs. Those on the left want to use St Michael’s or another solidly Labour ward to give Labour the best chance of holding on to Coventry South. Even if we don’t want to admit it, or don’t think it’s the case, I would suggest this influences the way we interpret the other BCE criteria and decide what makes the best plan. You'd think Coventry NW is slightly more likely to go Tory in the future because demographic change is likely to go against the Tories in Coventry South since that's where the university-influenced areas are.
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