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Post by loderingo on Jan 16, 2021 12:11:48 GMT
Success: Here is my Berkshire - 7 seats for the Eastern 5 boroughs and then a cross-border West berks Hants seat. You can use the Newbury area for the cross-border seat but you have to leave out Newbury Speen. link |
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Post by loderingo on Jan 16, 2021 12:45:08 GMT
Sussex and Surrey: If you put Adur borough with East Sussex and Brighton and Hove that allows West Sussex to be nicely split with 3 seats for Mid Sussex and Horsham and 4 seats for Chichester, Arun and Worthing (Worthing only needs to lose Goring to a Littlehampton seat. In the East, there is a Brighton east and Seaford seat that is similar to the one put forward in the Zombie review. I think for Surrey it is inevitable that there will be one leftovers seat. I have gone for a South Surrey imgur.com/L2wb97Himgur.com/qHj4pZ3 |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 16, 2021 14:21:34 GMT
I’ve been giving some consideration to how Buckinghamshire might work with the new ward boundaries (technically Electoral divisions but I will refer to them as wards for simplicity). Firstly, we know that there will need to be four wards in the North around Buckingham which link with some Milton Keynes wards, whether that be Bletchley as per my plan or the Stony Stratford and Wolverton area as envisaged by ricmk. Based on plans that have been posted here those four wards would be Buckingham East, Buckingham West, Great Brickhill, Winslow. It looks like the numbers should work there with one or other plan (on mine Tattenhoe is interchangeable with Danesborugh & Walton should that help with the numbers. In considering the rest of the county it is best to start with Chesham & Amersham. I had used wards from there to mediate changes elsewhere in the county but this would not be desirable on the new boundaries because most of the county electoral divisions split one other of the main towns (the exception is Great Missenden which could be used elsewhere if it will help but the neighbouring wards in South Bucks similarly divide towns in a quite bizarre way. Chesham & Amersham is almost bang on the average electorate for the county so best to leave well alone. Beaconsfield on current boundaries comprehends the whole of South Bucks district (7 wards) together with the three divisions from the South East of Wycombe district (Marlow; Flackwell Heath, Little Marlow & Marlow SE; The Wooburns, Bourne End & Hedsor). The current constituency exactly matches the new ward boundaries, and we know it is over quota so something has to change. Removing only Marlow might work but seems likely to bring it below quota and in any case it divides the town of Marlow so it would be best to remove Flackwell Heath etc as well. The obvious replacement would be then to add Tylers Green & Loudwater. On the numbers on BA, adding the old district ward of that name leaves the seat about 1,500 short but the county division is larger and includes a large chunk of Ryemead ward (perhaps half or more of the voters which should be enough to bring it in quota. (there is an option to add bits of Slough instead but as that increases the quota across the county and has knock on effects for Berkshire I am provisionally discounting that option) In considering Wycombe, my original plan envisaged a compact seat around the town which was brought into quota by including the semi-rural Hughenden Valley ward. On the new boundaries that area is included in the Ridgeway East ward which stretches far to the North beyond Princes Risborough and is no longer feasible. Absent that area and Tylers Gree & Loudwater, Wycombe must move south to include the Marlow and Flackwell Heath wards (plus Chiltern Villages which is currently in that seat but was not on my plan). It would then need to lose two further wards to the North – Hazlemere will be one obvious one and the other would be either Downley or West Wycombe (the latter would be preferable as it is more peripheral to the town, but it will depend on the numbers. Aylesbury would incorporate the six wards of Aylesbury town plus two others. The most logical would Aston Clinton & Bierton and Wendover, Halton & Stoke Mandeville. The other option would be Wing and Ivinghoe. The only argument for going for the second option here is that it makes the Mid Bucks seat slightly more coherent and as that is a mess however its drawn, I’d say it would be best to make the other seats work as well as possible. But again, the choice may be dictated by the numbers. That leaves the awful Mid Bucks seat encompassing the Northern wards from Wycombe district (Hazlemere; Ridgway East; Ridgeway West, The Risboroughs and either one of West Wycombe or Downley) and the Southern end of Aylesbury Vale ( Bernwood, Grendon Underwood, Stone & Waddesdon and either the Wing/Ivinghoe pairing or the Wendover/Aston Clinton one) A third option here is to put Wing and Ivinghoe in with Bletchley and move Buckingham to the leftovers seat but I’m not sure that is any improvement (except that it provides a better name ie. Buckingham & Princes Risborough). However you do it the seat shaded green is going to be a god-awful mess, but the others are fairly coherent  (Ignore Slough on the map - it isn't involved in the equation but had been included on my map because it might have been) |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 16, 2021 14:40:53 GMT
Actually there is a possible option that more or less corresponds to my original plan on here. Beaconsfield loses the Wycombe district wards and gains the Chalfonts from Chesham & Amersham which then takes Wendover etc from Aylesbury. High Wycombe town is kept intact and Marlow & Princes Risborough is the leftovers seat. I still think I would rather leave C&A alone and have Wendover etc in with Aylesbury  |
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Post by islington on Jan 16, 2021 15:07:41 GMT
Success: Here is my Berkshire - 7 seats for the Eastern 5 boroughs and then a cross-border West berks Hants seat. You can use the Newbury area for the cross-border seat but you have to leave out Newbury Speen. linkI've been reflecting on the Berks/Hants issue.
First of all, it's not at all a natural pairing and it is being suggested only because of the very difficult numbers: Hants 18.43, Berks 8.65. I think even now if someone could come up with a reasonable way to give Berks 9 whole seats and Hants 18, we'd probably all embrace it gratefully and forget about cross-border schemes.
But if a cross-border seat is inevitable, what should it look like?
I'm not sure whether I'm alone in this, but I'm uncomfortable with seats comprising large but relatively anonymous tracts of the two counties - either rural areas of small towns and villages or suburbs of Reading. The difficulty of naming such a seat should be a warning sign: I think someone the other day proposed 'Bradfield and Tadley', two places of which I suspect 99% of the UK population have never heard. Even locally, places like this, delightful though they may well be (I've no idea), are of little account outside their immediate area.
In places like this the county is enormously important as the primary geographical point of reference. If you ask a man from Bradfield where he comes from, I imagine he is likely to say 'Berkshire' because if he says 'Bradfield' the chances are that unless you come from the same area yourself, you'll never have heard of it. But larger towns are different: a native of Wokingham would probably answer the question with the name of the town, not the county, because it's a place most people will have heard of.
So I'm increasingly of the view that to allow local people to relate to the cross-border seat, and incidentally to give it a name that will be widely understood, it would be better to avoid a predominantly rural or suburban seat and instead to focus it as far as possibly on significant towns on either side of the border.
I thought a 'Newbury and Andover' seat might fill the bill but I can't get it to work.
So I'm very much warming to the 'Wokingham and Fleet' I floated yesterday. Yes, it's a shotgun marriage; and yes, a seat named after Fleet should really include Church Crookham as well. But it's the best I can do in the circumstances and in my view it is far preferable to the more rural or suburban two-county alternatives.
It also has the advantage of allowing a single-county 'Reading hinterland' seat: I've called it 'Mid Berkshire' but if you really can't abide 'Mid' names then I'd suggest 'Theale and Winnersh' as an alternative - at least these names will be familiar to anyone regularly using the M4 (incidentally a strong uniting factor in the seat).
It also has the great merit of allowing a very logical 'North Hampshire' seat as shown below, effectively the successor to the current North East Hampshire, but with its centre of gravity shifted westward.
I've also come to prefer the version of Surrey on the map below. Taking Godalming out of SW Surrey allows a more compact and logical S Surrey seat. Also, Bisley ward is east-facing rather than west-facing so it's a more logical fit with a Chertsey seat, with Bagshot swapped the other way.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 16, 2021 15:26:42 GMT
It might work if you didn't split Fleet in the process as well as splitting Yately (splitting one of those communities is inevitable to keep Aldershot in quota, unless you go for a cross county arrangement with Surrey there, but doing both seems excessive). You'd be better off (if the numbers work) putting all of Yateley and Blackwater in your Wokingham seat and adding Hook, leaving Fleet/Church Crookham out of it all together (but you would have to add a couple of wards from there to Aldershot instead)
It was me who suggested Tadley & Bradfield btw and it was a solution to the kind of awful mess of a Mid-Berkshire seat we have seen in other plans inlcuding yours.
Everybody has heard of Tadley which is the second largest town in Basingstoke & Deane borough (after Basingstoke) and in the North West Hampshire constituency (after Andover). Bradfield is the name of the old Rural District which covered an area almost exactly corresponding to the part of Berkshire included in that seat.
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Post by greenhert on Jan 16, 2021 15:27:03 GMT
Sussex and Surrey: If you put Adur borough with East Sussex and Brighton and Hove that allows West Sussex to be nicely split with 3 seats for Mid Sussex and Horsham and 4 seats for Chichester, Arun and Worthing (Worthing only needs to lose Goring to a Littlehampton seat. In the East, there is a Brighton east and Seaford seat that is similar to the one put forward in the Zombie review. I think for Surrey it is inevitable that there will be one leftovers seat. I have gone for a South Surrey imgur.com/L2wb97Himgur.com/qHj4pZ3The BCE tried Brighton North/Brighton Central & Hove/Brighton East & Seaford last time (in its initial set of proposals for the 2018 "zombie review") and residents of Brighton & Hove were rightly outraged, so the BCE dropped it from the draft recommendations without a second thought. Hove should stay intact, as it is within quota and comprises meaningful communities (Hove and Portslade). Here is a combined Sussex plan which will mainly keep the Brighton & Hove seats intact: 1. Hastings & Rye (75,531). Loses Brede & Udimore and Sedlescombe & Westfield wards in Rother. 2. Bexhill & Pevensey (70,869). Succeeds Bexhill & Battle. Gains Brede & Udimore and Sedlescombe & Westfield wards in Rother, loses Horam & Punnetts Town and Stone Cross wards in Wealden. 3. Eastbourne (73,322). Now coterminous with borough of Eastbourne. 4. Hailsham & Uckfield (74,973). Succeeds Wealden. Loses the wards of Crowborough (all), Daneshill & Fletching, Forest Row, Hartfield, Maresfield and Withyham, and gains Horam & Punnetts Town, Polegate (all) and Stone Cross wards. 5. Lewes (71,157). Loses all Polegate wards in Wealden, gains Upper Willingdon and Lower Willingdon wards in Wealden. 6. Hove (73,726). Unchanged. 7. Brighton Pavilion (75,850). Loses Hanover & Elm Grove ward, gains Queens Park ward. 8. Brighton Kemptown (69,737). Loses Queens Park ward, gains Hanover & Elm Grove ward. 9. East Grinstead & Crowborough (71,392). New seat. Contains the Wealden wards of Crowborough (all), Daneshill & Fletching, Forest Row, Hartfield, Maresfield and Withytham, and the Mid Sussex wards of Ardingly & Balcombe, Copthorne & Worth, Crawley Down & Turners Hill, East Grinstead (all), and High Weald. Similar to the old East Grinstead seat. 10. Haywards Heath & Burgess Hill (72,255). Succeeds Mid Sussex. Contains all Mid Sussex wards not in East Grinstead & Crowborough. 11. Crawley (74,446). Unchanged. 12. Horsham (76,981). Loses all Mid Sussex wards, gains the Horsham ward of Cowfold, Shermanbury & West Grinstead. 13. Shoreham (76,785). Succeeds Worthing East & Shoreham. Contains all of Adur district, the Worthing ward of Offington, and the Horsham wards of Bramber, Upper Beeding & Woodmancote, Henfield, Steyning & Ashurst, and West Chittington, Thakeham & Ashington. 14. Worthing (76,835). Succeeds Worthing West. Contains all Worthing wards except for Offington. 15. Littlehampton (75,638). New seat. Contains the Arun wards of Angmering & Findon, Arundel & Walberton, Beach, Brookfield, Courtwick with Toddington, East Preston, Ferring, River, Rustington East, and Rustington West, the Horsham wards of Pulborough, Coldwaltham & Amberley and Storrington & Washington, and the Chichester ward of Fittleworth. 16. Bognor Regis (77,045). Succeeds Bognor Regis & Littlehampton in practice. Loses all Arun wards transferred to Littlehampton, and gains the Arun ward of Barham and the Chichester wards of North Mundham & Tangmere, Selsey South, and Sidlesham with Selsey North. 17. Chichester (76,180). Contains all Chichester wards except for Fittleworth, North Mundham & Tangmere, Selsey South, and Sidlesham with Selsey North. Arundel & South Downs disappears. |
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Post by islington on Jan 16, 2021 16:30:10 GMT
It might work if you didn't split Fleet in the process as well as splitting Yately (splitting one of those communities is inevitable to keep Aldershot in quota, unless you go for a cross county arrangement with Surrey there, but doing both seems excessive). You'd be better off (if the numbers work) putting all of Yateley and Blackwater in your Wokingham seat and adding Hook, leaving Fleet/Church Crookham out of it all together (but you would have to add a couple of wards from there to Aldershot instead) It was me who suggested Tadley & Bradfield btw and it was a solution to the kind of awful mess of a Mid-Berkshire seat we have seen in other plans inlcuding yours. Everybody has heard of Tadley which is the second largest town in Basingstoke & Deane borough (after Basingstoke) and in the North West Hampshire constituency (after Andover). Bradfield is the name of the old Rural District which covered an area almost exactly corresponding to the part of Berkshire included in that seat. This is harsh on the Mid Berks seat, which isn't really a new seat at all: it's the clear successor of Wokingham, shorn of Wokingham town itself (which in any case right on the edge of the seat). It is unified by the fact that it is virtually all within the orbit of Reading. It also allows the Reading seats to stay virtually unchanged. So I'd say that the Mid Berks seat is a feature, not a bug.
The Yateley split seems to be unavoidable on any plan (including those that cross the county boundary farther west). But if Fleet and Church Crookham must be kept together (and I can see why you might feel that they should, although a lot of people in Church Crookham would strongly resist any suggestion that they live in Fleet), the Wokingham seat still works if you extend it west to include Tadley. This then means that instead of the relatively compact North Hampshire seat allowed by pairing Wokingham and Fleet, the seat with Fleet and Church Crookham at its eastern end extends all the way west to Whitchurch (also taking in Hook and Chineham). I posted this yesterday.
Wokingham and Tadley (?) - 70598 Fleet and Whitchurch - 76069
I agree it's a viable alternative.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 16, 2021 17:27:04 GMT
It might work if you didn't split Fleet in the process as well as splitting Yately (splitting one of those communities is inevitable to keep Aldershot in quota, unless you go for a cross county arrangement with Surrey there, but doing both seems excessive). You'd be better off (if the numbers work) putting all of Yateley and Blackwater in your Wokingham seat and adding Hook, leaving Fleet/Church Crookham out of it all together (but you would have to add a couple of wards from there to Aldershot instead) It was me who suggested Tadley & Bradfield btw and it was a solution to the kind of awful mess of a Mid-Berkshire seat we have seen in other plans inlcuding yours. Everybody has heard of Tadley which is the second largest town in Basingstoke & Deane borough (after Basingstoke) and in the North West Hampshire constituency (after Andover). Bradfield is the name of the old Rural District which covered an area almost exactly corresponding to the part of Berkshire included in that seat. This is harsh on the Mid Berks seat, which isn't really a new seat at all: it's the clear successor of Wokingham, shorn of Wokingham town itself (which in any case right on the edge of the seat). It is unified by the fact that it is virtually all within the orbit of Reading. It also allows the Reading seats to stay virtually unchanged. So I'd say that the Mid Berks seat is a feature, not a bug.
The Yateley split seems to be unavoidable on any plan (including those that cross the county boundary farther west). But if Fleet and Church Crookham must be kept together (and I can see why you might feel that they should, although a lot of people in Church Crookham would strongly resist any suggestion that they live in Fleet), the Wokingham seat still works if you extend it west to include Tadley. This then means that instead of the relatively compact North Hampshire seat allowed by pairing Wokingham and Fleet, the seat with Fleet and Church Crookham at its eastern end extends all the way west to Whitchurch (also taking in Hook and Chineham). I posted this yesterday.
Wokingham and Tadley (?) - 70598 Fleet and Whitchurch - 76069 I agree it's a viable alternative.
Other than the Motorway service station I don't think I've ever been to Fleet even though a close friend of mine moved there some years ago and I used to have strong associations to the wider area (Sandhurst/Camberley/Aldershot). Come to think of it I think he lives in Church Crookham but describes it as Fleet though I can't be sure and he isn't one to be particularly interested in ward boundaries and the like. The trouble is that in as much as Fleet and Church Crookham are separate, ie they are separate parishes, the ward boundaries don't reflect that so that the Crookham East ward includes a sizeable chunk of Fleet parish. It all looks very much like a single settlement on the map to me, but as I say I don't know the area and can't get exercised about it. It just doesn't seem like the most logical place to cross the boundary. Like you I find the very notion of a Berkshire/Hampshire crossing counterintuitive but it seemed to me that the most logical place to do this would be in the Sandhurst/Blackwater area. However I was unable to make this work in practice. There do seem on the other hand, to be quite good links between Tadley/Baughurst in Hampshire and the Aldermaston area in Berkshire. My original working name for this seat though was something like 'random rural areas between Basingstoke and Reading' which somewhat betrays my attitude to the whole concept. I came up with the Tadley & Bradfield name subsequently but it was very much a case of casting around for a name to fit a constituency rather than drawing a constituency to fit a name. I did subsequently draw up a seat which combined Sandhurst and Crowthorne (together with Finchampstead) with Camberley which seemed to leave the rest of Berkshire in an OK state so I might try a variation of that which links the Sandhurst area with bits of Hart rather than Surrey Heath. I was pretty happy with what remained of Hampshire from my other plan so wouldn't want to mess with that too much. Edit: Silchester could be an alternative name for the Mid Berks/North Hants constituency |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 16, 2021 18:16:04 GMT
I've often thought there should be a new kind of Metropolitan borough centred on Aldershot. Such a borough now would be bang on for three quotas and it would be possible to draw three seats without splitting any of the component towns (alternatively to draw a seat entirely to the East of the Blackwater)  Probably one for the fantasy constituency threads and unlikely to help us much here... |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jan 16, 2021 19:11:59 GMT
I've often thought there should be a new kind of Metropolitan borough centred on Aldershot. Such a borough now would be bang on for three quotas and it would be possible to draw three seats without splitting any of the component towns (alternatively to draw a seat entirely to the East of the Blackwater) Probably one for the fantasy constituency threads and unlikely to help us much here... Most of that existed as Farnham Poor Law Union before the extremely bad decision was taken in the 1880s to set up county councils without bringing their boundaries into alignment with PLUs/Registration Districts. |
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Post by loderingo on Jan 16, 2021 23:27:48 GMT
Sussex and Surrey: If you put Adur borough with East Sussex and Brighton and Hove that allows West Sussex to be nicely split with 3 seats for Mid Sussex and Horsham and 4 seats for Chichester, Arun and Worthing (Worthing only needs to lose Goring to a Littlehampton seat. In the East, there is a Brighton east and Seaford seat that is similar to the one put forward in the Zombie review. I think for Surrey it is inevitable that there will be one leftovers seat. I have gone for a South Surrey imgur.com/L2wb97Himgur.com/qHj4pZ3The BCE tried Brighton North/Brighton Central & Hove/Brighton East & Seaford last time (in its initial set of proposals for the 2018 "zombie review") and residents of Brighton & Hove were rightly outraged, so the BCE dropped it from the draft recommendations without a second thought. Hove should stay intact, as it is within quota and comprises meaningful communities (Hove and Portslade). Here is a combined Sussex plan which will mainly keep the Brighton & Hove seats intact: 1. Hastings & Rye (75,531). Loses Brede & Udimore and Sedlescombe & Westfield wards in Rother. 2. Bexhill & Pevensey (70,869). Succeeds Bexhill & Battle. Gains Brede & Udimore and Sedlescombe & Westfield wards in Rother, loses Horam & Punnetts Town and Stone Cross wards in Wealden. 3. Eastbourne (73,322). Now coterminous with borough of Eastbourne. 4. Hailsham & Uckfield (74,973). Succeeds Wealden. Loses the wards of Crowborough (all), Daneshill & Fletching, Forest Row, Hartfield, Maresfield and Withyham, and gains Horam & Punnetts Town, Polegate (all) and Stone Cross wards. 5. Lewes (71,157). Loses all Polegate wards in Wealden, gains Upper Willingdon and Lower Willingdon wards in Wealden. 6. Hove (73,726). Unchanged. 7. Brighton Pavilion (75,850). Loses Hanover & Elm Grove ward, gains Queens Park ward. 8. Brighton Kemptown (69,737). Loses Queens Park ward, gains Hanover & Elm Grove ward. 9. East Grinstead & Crowborough (71,392). New seat. Contains the Wealden wards of Crowborough (all), Daneshill & Fletching, Forest Row, Hartfield, Maresfield and Withytham, and the Mid Sussex wards of Ardingly & Balcombe, Copthorne & Worth, Crawley Down & Turners Hill, East Grinstead (all), and High Weald. Similar to the old East Grinstead seat. 10. Haywards Heath & Burgess Hill (72,255). Succeeds Mid Sussex. Contains all Mid Sussex wards not in East Grinstead & Crowborough. 11. Crawley (74,446). Unchanged. 12. Horsham (76,981). Loses all Mid Sussex wards, gains the Horsham ward of Cowfold, Shermanbury & West Grinstead. 13. Shoreham (76,785). Succeeds Worthing East & Shoreham. Contains all of Adur district, the Worthing ward of Offington, and the Horsham wards of Bramber, Upper Beeding & Woodmancote, Henfield, Steyning & Ashurst, and West Chittington, Thakeham & Ashington. 14. Worthing (76,835). Succeeds Worthing West. Contains all Worthing wards except for Offington. 15. Littlehampton (75,638). New seat. Contains the Arun wards of Angmering & Findon, Arundel & Walberton, Beach, Brookfield, Courtwick with Toddington, East Preston, Ferring, River, Rustington East, and Rustington West, the Horsham wards of Pulborough, Coldwaltham & Amberley and Storrington & Washington, and the Chichester ward of Fittleworth. 16. Bognor Regis (77,045). Succeeds Bognor Regis & Littlehampton in practice. Loses all Arun wards transferred to Littlehampton, and gains the Arun ward of Barham and the Chichester wards of North Mundham & Tangmere, Selsey South, and Sidlesham with Selsey North. 17. Chichester (76,180). Contains all Chichester wards except for Fittleworth, North Mundham & Tangmere, Selsey South, and Sidlesham with Selsey North. Arundel & South Downs disappears. Thanks for your reply. It made me go back and have a look at the final report for the Zombie review. They actually kept a Brighton Kemptown and Seaford, almost identical to mine but including a split ward but had Brighton Pavilion and Hove constituencies similar to the existing ones. I can see there was some upset and they said that people wanted every constituency to border on the sea! I see no good reason for that and it seems to me the only things mitigating against a Brighton N seat are parochialism and partisanship. While my scheme may cause some disruption in Brighton and Hove I feel it is better for Sussex overall as it doesn't cross the South Downs as your Shoreham and Steyning seat does. If you look at the area on Google maps, Shoreham blends seamlessly with Portslade, while Rottingdean is more detached from Brighton and can go in a seat with Newhaven and Seaford |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 17, 2021 10:22:01 GMT
Another take on the Berks-Hants pairing: The way I've done the cross-border seat isn't especially innovative (and whilst I agree with islington that a cohesive cross-border seat would be better, I don't think he's shown you can draw one so the point is moot, to my mind.) However, nobody else has drawn the Eastleigh & Southampton North seat I've come up with and I managed to keep 10 seats unchanged, so it appeals to the BCE's priors. On the downside, more orphan wards than I'd like.   Slough 75287 Windsor 74927 (if numbers allowed I'd have dropped Binfield and kept Ascot) Bracknell 74347 Wokingham 74309 Maidenhead 70743 Reading E 77007 (would swap Church and Katesgrove if numbers allowed) Reading W 76072 Insert Locally Meaningful Name Here 75890 Newbury 75194 Aldershot 70039 NE Hants 73633 Basingstoke 70549 Winchester 76171 E Hants 76943 Meon Valley 70831 Havant 72766 Portsmouth S 74253 Portsmouth N 71844 Gosport 73633 Fareham 72797 Hedge End 72496 Southampton Itchen 72150 Southampton Test 69960 Eastleigh & Southampton N 74398 Test Valley 77057 New Forest E 73823 New Forest W 71009 |
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ricmk
Lib Dem
Posts: 2,633 
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Post by ricmk on Jan 17, 2021 10:35:38 GMT
I’ve been giving some consideration to how Buckinghamshire might work with the new ward boundaries (technically Electoral divisions but I will refer to them as wards for simplicity). Firstly, we know that there will need to be four wards in the North around Buckingham which link with some Milton Keynes wards, whether that be Bletchley as per my plan or the Stony Stratford and Wolverton area as envisaged by ricmk. Based on plans that have been posted here those four wards would be Buckingham East, Buckingham West, Great Brickhill, Winslow. It looks like the numbers should work there with one or other plan (on mine Tattenhoe is interchangeable with Danesborugh & Walton should that help with the numbers. In considering the rest of the county it is best to start with Chesham & Amersham. I had used wards from there to mediate changes elsewhere in the county but this would not be desirable on the new boundaries because most of the county electoral divisions split one other of the main towns (the exception is Great Missenden which could be used elsewhere if it will help but the neighbouring wards in South Bucks similarly divide towns in a quite bizarre way. Chesham & Amersham is almost bang on the average electorate for the county so best to leave well alone. Beaconsfield on current boundaries comprehends the whole of South Bucks district (7 wards) together with the three divisions from the South East of Wycombe district (Marlow; Flackwell Heath, Little Marlow & Marlow SE; The Wooburns, Bourne End & Hedsor). The current constituency exactly matches the new ward boundaries, and we know it is over quota so something has to change. Removing only Marlow might work but seems likely to bring it below quota and in any case it divides the town of Marlow so it would be best to remove Flackwell Heath etc as well. The obvious replacement would be then to add Tylers Green & Loudwater. On the numbers on BA, adding the old district ward of that name leaves the seat about 1,500 short but the county division is larger and includes a large chunk of Ryemead ward (perhaps half or more of the voters which should be enough to bring it in quota. (there is an option to add bits of Slough instead but as that increases the quota across the county and has knock on effects for Berkshire I am provisionally discounting that option) In considering Wycombe, my original plan envisaged a compact seat around the town which was brought into quota by including the semi-rural Hughenden Valley ward. On the new boundaries that area is included in the Ridgeway East ward which stretches far to the North beyond Princes Risborough and is no longer feasible. Absent that area and Tylers Gree & Loudwater, Wycombe must move south to include the Marlow and Flackwell Heath wards (plus Chiltern Villages which is currently in that seat but was not on my plan). It would then need to lose two further wards to the North – Hazlemere will be one obvious one and the other would be either Downley or West Wycombe (the latter would be preferable as it is more peripheral to the town, but it will depend on the numbers. Aylesbury would incorporate the six wards of Aylesbury town plus two others. The most logical would Aston Clinton & Bierton and Wendover, Halton & Stoke Mandeville. The other option would be Wing and Ivinghoe. The only argument for going for the second option here is that it makes the Mid Bucks seat slightly more coherent and as that is a mess however its drawn, I’d say it would be best to make the other seats work as well as possible. But again, the choice may be dictated by the numbers. That leaves the awful Mid Bucks seat encompassing the Northern wards from Wycombe district (Hazlemere; Ridgway East; Ridgeway West, The Risboroughs and either one of West Wycombe or Downley) and the Southern end of Aylesbury Vale ( Bernwood, Grendon Underwood, Stone & Waddesdon and either the Wing/Ivinghoe pairing or the Wendover/Aston Clinton one) A third option here is to put Wing and Ivinghoe in with Bletchley and move Buckingham to the leftovers seat but I’m not sure that is any improvement (except that it provides a better name ie. Buckingham & Princes Risborough). However you do it the seat shaded green is going to be a god-awful mess, but the others are fairly coherent (Ignore Slough on the map - it isn't involved in the equation but had been included on my map because it might have been) The key thing seems to be where the ‘Pitstone salient’ (the wibbly bit near Tring) goes. The review last time had it in Aylesbury, the boundary commission were clearly nervous about it as it looked on the map, but on the ground it was seen as the best option. So I think I would start from your middle map, although it still looks like it could be tidied up if the numbers work. Worth looking at key routes in mid Bucks, in MK from Tattenhoe and Stony Stratford to Buckingham, Buckingham W then SW towards Bicester. Aylesbury SE towards Tring, S to Stoke Mandeville and Great Missenden, and most areas to west. P.S. I’ve never heard of Bradfield or Tadley and I look at boundary maps! Can’t see that name being clear enough. |
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mattb
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Post by mattb on Jan 17, 2021 12:30:42 GMT
The rest of Hampshire falls into place quite easily with that (It splits Yateley but I can live with that). Lots of unchanged seats here - both New Forests, both Southamptons, both Portsmouths, Gosport, Havant and East Hampshire. Fairly minimal change all round really, all things considered I realised you can also leave Aldershot unchanged (apart from new wards) which avoids splitting Yately and also means you can leave both Reading seats unchanged:  EDIT - I now see EAL beat me to it by a couple of hours!! |
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Post by greenhert on Jan 17, 2021 12:44:46 GMT
Another take on the Berks-Hants pairing: The way I've done the cross-border seat isn't especially innovative (and whilst I agree with islington that a cohesive cross-border seat would be better, I don't think he's shown you can draw one so the point is moot, to my mind.) However, nobody else has drawn the Eastleigh & Southampton North seat I've come up with and I managed to keep 10 seats unchanged, so it appeals to the BCE's priors. On the downside, more orphan wards than I'd like. Slough 75287 Windsor 74927 (if numbers allowed I'd have dropped Binfield and kept Ascot) Bracknell 74347 Wokingham 74309 Maidenhead 70743 Reading E 77007 (would swap Church and Katesgrove if numbers allowed) Reading W 76072 Insert Locally Meaningful Name Here 75890 Newbury 75194 Aldershot 70039 NE Hants 73633 Basingstoke 70549 Winchester 76171 E Hants 76943 Meon Valley 70831 Havant 72766 Portsmouth S 74253 Portsmouth N 71844 Gosport 73633 Fareham 72797 Hedge End 72496 Southampton Itchen 72150 Southampton Test 69960 Eastleigh & Southampton N 74398 Test Valley 77057 New Forest E 73823 New Forest W 71009 Theale & Tadley would be a good name for the South Berkshire/North Hampshire seat. Whilst it looks messy there is no credible NE Hampshire/SE Berkshire seat that will avoid splitting Yateley and/or Fleet, so it will have to do. Romsey & Andover would be a more appropriate name for your Test Valley seat. |
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Post by islington on Jan 17, 2021 12:46:19 GMT
Another take on the Berks-Hants pairing: The way I've done the cross-border seat isn't especially innovative (and whilst I agree with islington that a cohesive cross-border seat would be better, I don't think he's shown you can draw one so the point is moot, to my mind.) However, nobody else has drawn the Eastleigh & Southampton North seat I've come up with and I managed to keep 10 seats unchanged, so it appeals to the BCE's priors. On the downside, more orphan wards than I'd like. Slough 75287 Windsor 74927 (if numbers allowed I'd have dropped Binfield and kept Ascot) Bracknell 74347 Wokingham 74309 Maidenhead 70743 Reading E 77007 (would swap Church and Katesgrove if numbers allowed) Reading W 76072 Insert Locally Meaningful Name Here 75890 Newbury 75194 Aldershot 70039 NE Hants 73633 Basingstoke 70549 Winchester 76171 E Hants 76943 Meon Valley 70831 Havant 72766 Portsmouth S 74253 Portsmouth N 71844 Gosport 73633 Fareham 72797 Hedge End 72496 Southampton Itchen 72150 Southampton Test 69960 Eastleigh & Southampton N 74398 Test Valley 77057 New Forest E 73823 New Forest W 71009 You can make it 11 unchanged if you leave Meon Valley as is (subject to ward realignment). Your Winchester can stand the loss of Upper Meon Valley (4509 electors).
But I preferred Pete Whitehead's take on southern Hampshire, which was also very heavy on the unchanged seats and involved less change from the current map. In fact if you combine my plan for Berks and northern Hants with Pete's for the rest of Hants you also get 11 unchanged: your 10 less Aldershot but plus Meon Valley and Reading E.
Good work to keep Yateley together, though. But I must point out that your cross-county seat, apart from being pretty grim in itself, extends into three upper-tier authorities - although you may not see this as a problem, of course. (A similar comment applies to mattb's latest version, posted this morning.)
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mattb
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Post by mattb on Jan 17, 2021 12:56:47 GMT
You can make it 11 unchanged if you leave Meon Valley as is (subject to ward realignment). Your Winchester can stand the loss of Upper Meon Valley (4509 electors).
But I preferred Pete Whitehead's take on southern Hampshire, which was also very heavy on the unchanged seats and involved less change from the current map. In fact if you combine my plan for Berks and northern Hants with Pete's for the rest of Hants you also get 11 unchanged: your 10 less Aldershot but plus Meon Valley and Reading E. Good work to keep Yateley together, though. But I must point out that your cross-county seat, apart from being pretty grim in itself, extends into three upper-tier authorities - although you may not see this as a problem, of course. (A similar comment applies to mattb's latest version, posted this morning.)
You can avoid that with this option if you want:  |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 17, 2021 12:59:16 GMT
The difficulty with leaving Meon Valley unchanged is that the north-west protrusion of Upper Meon Valley ward looks very likely to develop a new urban extension to Winchester at some point in the next decade and I wanted to ensure that it would end up in the appropriate constituency in the event it materialises. If that isn't likely, then leaving Meon Valley unchanged is probably reasonable enough.
I don't see three upper-tier authorities as being an insurmountable problem, given that's already true of the Windsor constituency.
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Post by islington on Jan 17, 2021 13:14:30 GMT
P.S. I’ve never heard of Bradfield or Tadley and I look at boundary maps! Can’t see that name being clear enough. No, but I bet you've heard of Wokingham and Fleet.
And that's my point, really - given that a Berks/Hants seat is going to be a deeply flawed creation, we need to make the best of a bad job by giving it as much clear identity as we can, which in my view is best done by composing it, as far as possible, of significant towns. Hence my proposal, despite its shortcomings (which I acknowledge).
Another possibility, if anyone wants to run with it, would be Newbury and Andover, comprising those two towns plus Bourne Valley and Evingar (the last-named sounding like something out of Lord of the Rings): 75757.
Finally, I hope (because I'm as anxious to move on from this subject as everyone else must be), a few more words in defence of my Mid Berks. Despite its name, I see it as very much part of a minimum change approach. It allows Reading E to stay unchanged and Reading W to lose only a single ward (and even the latter is not strictly needed as Mid Berks is quorate even without Theale, but (I felt) then rather lacks focus at its western end). As for Mid Berks itself, over 80% of its electors are currently in the Wokingham seat, so it is the successor of Wokingham and should be seen as such: it is Wokingham & Fleet that is the new seat. And the component parts of Mid Berks, virtually all of which might reasonably be described as Reading peripheries, surely have far more in common with each other than they do with any part of Hampshire.
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