2023 Review - South East

[islington]

Mar 19, 2022 6:54:30 GMT YL said:

I submitted something with both those options for avoiding the split of Beaconsfield. Both split two wards, which I don't think is unreasonable in Buckinghamshire given the temporary nature of the wards and their tendency to carve up towns with reckless abandon. (Is it the worst ward map in the country?)



The left option ("Option 1") avoids the split of Beaconsfield by moving the whole town into Chesham & Amersham; to make Marlow & South Buckinghamshire big enough it then adds a large part of Chiltern Villages ward, uniting Marlow and Marlow Bottom. The right option ("Option 2") leaves Chesham & Amersham unchanged and trims the existing Beaconsfield constituency by removing Flackwell Heath; to get enough electorate for the new Princes Risborough constituency (other names are available) that then takes in the whole of Chiltern Villages and the western parts of West Wycombe ward, leaving a compact High Wycombe constituency. Option 2 does very well on the "minimum change" criterion, better than any whole ward solution in the area and way better than the BCE's proposals.

The reference is 88612.

I've giving this a huge 'like' for the sake of option 2, which is far and away the best plan I've seen if you don't want to cross the Berks-Bucks boundary. This is exactly what ward splits are for, in my view: not to correct real or imagined deficiencies the way wards are drawn, but to get the numbers to work in a plan that is markedly better than the best possible non-split plan.

YL, do you have numbers for Flackwell Heath?

The other split is less attractive because it removes from the Wycombe seat areas that definitely belong in it. So I'd suggest leaving Wycombe as the BCE has it, subject to the addition of Flackwell Heath, which I'm guessing might be about 2500 or so.

Mid Bucks, as I'd call it, then takes Hazlemere and makes up the numbers by adding Gt Brickhill ward at the northern end. That leaves the three northern Bucks wards plus MK to make three smallish seats and we have plans that do that.

All that said, the main drawback with this approach is that it leaves unresolved the multiple problems in the east Berks area (Windsor spilling into Surrey, Ascot divided, &c).

[YL]

Mar 19, 2022 9:53:40 GMT islington said:

YL, do you have numbers for Flackwell Heath?

It's polling district BC, the part of its ward in Chepping Wycombe parish (see the spreadsheet on the LGBCE website for details of all Bucks polling districts). It's surprisingly large, especially given that it's only a single polling district: 4693 according to the BCE's spreadsheet.

[J.G.Harston]

Mar 19, 2022 10:47:24 GMT YL said:

Mar 19, 2022 9:53:40 GMT islington said:

YL, do you have numbers for Flackwell Heath?

It's polling district BC, the part of its ward in Chepping Wycombe parish (see the spreadsheet on the LGBCE website for details of all Bucks polling districts). It's surprisingly large, especially given that it's only a single polling district: 4693 according to the BCE's spreadsheet.

Wasn't there a directive from the Electoral Commission after 2010 to get polling districts under 2000-2500?

[islington]

Mar 19, 2022 10:47:24 GMT YL said:

Mar 19, 2022 9:53:40 GMT islington said:

YL, do you have numbers for Flackwell Heath?

It's polling district BC, the part of its ward in Chepping Wycombe parish (see the spreadsheet on the LGBCE website for details of all Bucks polling districts). It's surprisingly large, especially given that it's only a single polling district: 4693 according to the BCE's spreadsheet.

Thanks.

Just to put a few numbers on this, that would give us

Beaconsfield - 73831 (as in YL's option 2)

Wycombe - 76462 (BCE version plus Flackwell Heath)

Mid Bucks - 76431 (including both Hazlemere and Gt Brickhill but no part of the BCE's Wycombe seat)

That leaves MK + three wards in the far north of Bucks = 211712 and we have at least three non-split ways of getting three legal seats from that.

That does Bucks/MK quite tidily, far better than the BCE version with only the same number of ward splits (one). But it does nothing to help with the holy mess BCE has proposed for eastern Berks.

[evergreenadam]

Mar 19, 2022 11:04:42 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Mar 19, 2022 10:47:24 GMT YL said:

It's polling district BC, the part of its ward in Chepping Wycombe parish (see the spreadsheet on the LGBCE website for details of all Bucks polling districts). It's surprisingly large, especially given that it's only a single polling district: 4693 according to the BCE's spreadsheet.

Wasn't there a directive from the Electoral Commission after 2010 to get polling districts under 2000-2500?

Per polling station, not per polling district. So maybe it has two polling stations within the same polling place for the polling district. That’s quite common in London for example.

[jacoblamsden]

Good to see Howard Simmons' flat cap making an appearance at the public hearings, the only Assistant Commissioner to adjudicate wearing headgear.

[islington]

South East now submitted: BCE-94668.

[YL]

Apr 3, 2022 20:53:12 GMT islington said:

South East now submitted: BCE-94668.

What did you suggest here?

[islington]

Apr 4, 2022 7:07:20 GMT YL said:

Apr 3, 2022 20:53:12 GMT islington said:

South East now submitted: BCE-94668.

What did you suggest here?

I reaffirmed my advocacy of a Maidenhead and Marlow seat and the many benefits deriving therefrom. I had the brainwave a few weeks ago of typing 'Maidenhead and Marlow' into google and bing and I got a huge number of hits of voluntary and commercial bodies that specifically present themselves as serving the two towns - everything from a Saturday walkers' club to a teacher of 'baby signing' (whatever that is). So I feel I've demonstrated that there is a natural affinity here and while I probably shan't succeed, I want to give it my best shot because of the improvements it allows in both Bucks and Berks. (Your Flackwell Heath idea, for instance, sorts Bucks out nicely but does nothing for Berks.)

I also supported the LibDem scheme in Hants (but also suggested a small tweak); suggested some changes in Surrey that become much easier as a result of the LibDems' Hants plan; pointed out, pace the Labour submission, that it is perfectly possible to keep an east-west split of Reading without the Silchester monstrosity that they proposed (although they didn't call it that); and proposed some changes in Kent in response to complaints received at the first stage.

Quite a wide-ranging submission, in fact. In most other regions I was more focused, although I also had a lot to say in the North West (much of it in support of your ideas).

[islington]

It's too late of course, and I don't think this would have been my preferred plan even if I'd thought of it in time (which I didn't). But here's a Hants/Surrey scheme that keeps Aldershot and Farnborough together, keeps the Yateleys together, and throws in a nice Basingstoke doughnut.

Farnham & Fleet, anyone?

Edited to add: Also, it maintains three further seats unchanged - Aldershot, E Hants and (subject to ward realignment) Meon Valley. So it's rather growing on me, but it's all too late of course.