2023 Review - Northern Ireland

[YL]

Here's a slightly improved version of the 3 seat Belfast plan I mentioned. It now really is a 3 seat Belfast plan, with the city boundary not crossed. It's not my preferred option -- I agree that the four way split works well with the city and most of the areas included but outside the city boundary actually fit better in the city seats than in mainly rural ones -- but here it is anyway:



1. Belfast East (75,448). Expanded west to the Lagan.
2. Belfast South West (74,645). The west of the old South and the south of the old West, probably not a popular arrangement.
3. Belfast North West (74,300). The old North loses areas outside the city boundary and gains from West.
4. North Down (71,644). Gains Dundonald, loses Donaghadee.
5. Strangford (73,712). Gains Donaghadee, loses Moneyreagh.
6. South Down (70,295). Loses Rathfriland, now wholly within the NMD district.
7. Newry & Armagh (71,380). Loses Richhill, Loughgall and Tandragee.
8. Upper Bann (72,827). Loses Banbridge, gains some areas in the west. Or "Portadown & Lurgan".
9. West Down (72,012). Basically the "Castlereagh" parts, plus some of the "Lisburn" parts outside Lisburn itself, of Lisburn & Castlereagh, and the Banbridge part of ABC.
10. Lisburn & South Antrim (69,734). Part of Lagan Valley including Lisburn city, and the southern part of South Antrim.
11. Carrickfergus & Newtownabbey (70,256). I thought it made sense to try to keep most of the northern suburban sprawl together, and once that decision was made Carrickfergus seemed the obvious partner. The ward boundaries north of Glengormley aren't that helpful.
12. North Antrim (72,875). Loses Giant's Causeway and some southern fringe, gains much of the east coast.
13. Larne & Antrim Town (71,424).
14. Fermanagh & South Tyrone (71,518).
15. Mid Ulster (71,027). Loses Killyman.
16. West Tyrone (70,858). Extends closer to Derry city.
17. Foyle (69,884). Contracts more around the urban area. Really ought to be named after the city but obviously won't be.
18. Coleraine & Limavady (71,849). Gains Giant's Causeway, and I'm going to use the extension further into County Antrim as an excuse to change the name.

[islington]

Jan 11, 2021 11:01:02 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Jan 11, 2021 10:53:20 GMT johnloony said:

How many quotas are there currently in the electorate of Belfast City council? I guess it's closer to 3 than 4. I also guess that the Boundary Commission will continue the current practice of expanding the Belfast constituencies outwards to include more of the suburbs, rather than grasping the nettle by the horns and creating 3 constituencies within the city boundaries.

I don't expect the local residents would like the proposal for expanding Belfast West proposed by 🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️ . Perhaps it would be better if the BCNI were to plunge in at the deep end and start with the local authority boundaries ab initio instead of trying to squidge the existing 18 constituencies into shape.

It's 3.12 and you can theoretically fit three quotas into it - Belfast East would be every ward East of the Lagan. The other two seats (North and South West I guess) would be a bit less logical but they work. The issue is with the major redrawing required elsewhere and you end up with monstrosities like in @europeanlefty 's plan. The four seat Belfast arrangement is so longstanding (very nearly a century old in fact) and all attempts to change have run into major opposition it isn't really worth trying

The four-seat Belfast goes farther back than that: except for the single Parliament elected in 1918 when Belfast comprised 9 (!) seats, it has had four compass-point seats ever since 1885.

[phoenixparnell]

3 Seat Belfast

This is my take one a 3 seat Belfast model . Lagmore is the only BCC ward not included in the 3 Belfast seats. 

West of the Bann is much the same as my take on a 4 seat Belfast model. I've managed to avoid my version of West Down extending beyond Carryduff. Dundonald returns to North Down after 30 years. Strangford gains wards from the old Castlereagh Council, which is more than enough excuse to rename it Castlereagh & Ards.

South Antrim loses it's southernmost wards, which means a name change is required as South Antrim is no longer accurate. Mid Antrim is likely to cause confusion as it contains exactly zero wards that makeup Mid & East Antrim Council area. The Six Mile Water is a river running through or close to Ballynure, Ballyclare, Doagh, Parkgate, Templepatrick, Dunadry and Antrim into Lough Neagh. That's more or less the whole constituency so i've gone with that name.

What's left is a neat seat for Lisburn. Again i thought that with it now going as far north as Crumlin that Lagan Valley wasn't quite accurate, but just calling it Lisburn is perfectly reasonable. 

I've split 2 wards. The first is Aldergrove which is extremely easy to do as Belfast International Airport already de facto does that for people on the ground. The other is Drumbo which happens in rolling green fields and does nothing but remove an awkward looking tail from West Down.

[YL]

Part of me quite likes "Six Mile Water" as a name. I'm not so keen on using "Castlereagh", though, especially after so much of the area that used to bear that name was (correctly) absorbed into Belfast.

As for a four seat Belfast map, I could just post basically the same map as everyone else, but here's a slightly different take:


Belfast North (71,355). Loses Woodvale; the ragged boundaries with South and East Antrim aligned to the new wards.
Belfast West (72,365). Gains Woodvale.
Belfast South (71,685). Loses Carryduff, gains Moneyreagh. This change is a bit weird, but in this plan Carryduff's electorate is useful elsewhere. If the lower NI lower limit is enabled, then Moneyreagh could stay out as well.
Belfast East (72,783). Gains Holywood, Cultra.
"North Down" (70,103). Loses Holywood, Cultra, Clandeboye; gains the Ards Peninsula. I'm not convinced the name fits any more.
"Strangford" (70,599). Loses the Ards Peninsula; gains Clandeboye, Carryduff, Drumaness and the Drumbo/Dromara area. The name should probably be changed, but I guess it would almost inevitably be "Mid Down", which I'm not a great fan of either... If using the lower lower limit, Moneyreagh comes back in and then there's no need to move Clandeboye.
South Down (74,639). Minor changes only, but gains Loughbrickland.
Lisburn & Banbridge (73,234). Banbridge goes into a successor to Lagan Valley rather than into South Down as in other plans. This is quite well connected along the A1. There's no room for Loughbrickland.
Upper Bann (76,059). Gains Loughgall, Tandragee.
Newry & Armagh (74,925). Loses Loughgall, Tandragee.
Fermanagh & South Tyrone (71,518). Loses Killyman (unnecessary if the lower lower limit is enabled).
West Tyrone (70,858). Gets closer to Derry city.
Mid Ulster (71,027). Gains Killyman.
Foyle (69,884). Loses some fringe to West Tyrone.
Coleraine & Limavady (71,849). Gains Giant's Causeway (also unnecessary with the lower lower limit).
North Antrim (70,852). Loses Giant's Causeway; border with East re-aligned to keep the latter out of the Causeway Coast & Glens district.
East Antrim (71,408). Border with North re-aligned as above; gains Jordanstown.
South Antrim (70,815). Loses Jordanstown; gains a couple of wards west of Lisburn.

[islington]

I know little of Northern Ireland (I think I've been there thrice in my life) and arguably this belongs in the Pitchfork thread because we all know the four-seat Belfast arrangement will continue, but I thought I'd have a go at a plan anyway. My self-imposed rules were: (1) Don't worry about minimum change (or else I'd have stuck with a 4-seat Belfast); (2) Respect local government boundaries as much as reasonably possible; (3) No seat should extend into three authorities; (4) Keep all seats within the usual UK range (i.e. do not use the extra latitude permitted in NI).

The result is not dissimilar to the plan posted by YL on 7 Feb, but was drawn independently.

Belfast North - 74300.

Belfast South - 74645.

Belfast East - 75448.

North Down - 71644. With the NI average only 71983 and the three Belfast seats all well above average, the trick from this point is to keep the seats small (but within the UK minimum of 69724).

Strangford - 70577. Now with added Strangford.

Mid Down - 71105.

South Down - 69836. Yes, I admit that for a seat with this name it extends a long way north. Maybe it could be called 'West Down' with the Strangford seat as 'East Down'.

Newry and Armagh - 71380.

Craigavon - 72363.

Lisburn - 71034.

Carrickfergus - 70905. Or whatever you want to call it. In practice it would probably be Newtownabbey but is that even an actual place?

Antrim and Larne - 71433.

Ballymena - 70759.

Coleraine - 71774.

Mid Ulster - 70687. It's a shame about the orphan ward, but this arrangement allows me to have the last four seats coincide exactly with the three western authorities.

Fermanagh and Dungannon - 73813.

Omagh and Strabane - 71261.

Derry - 72724. Of course it would be 'Foyle' but it's my plan so I thought I'd court a little controversy.

Edited to add: And of course just after posting this I realized that the numbers work beautifully if the S Down and Armagh seats trade their respective territory either side of the authority boundary. This means that AB&C gets two whole seats and also allows Waringstown to be placed in Craigavon where it belongs in exchange for Gilford. These changes gives you: Newry (as it now would be) - 70775; Armagh and Banbridge - 69977; Craigavon - 72827.

What all this would mean in terms of NI politics, I've no idea.

[East Anglian Lefty]

The orphan ward is an odd choice. Why not just shift a ward from FST to Mid Ulster?

[islington]

Mar 9, 2021 17:35:36 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

The orphan ward is an odd choice. Why not just shift a ward from FST to Mid Ulster?

Yes, good thinking. Killyman?

That would give: Mid Ulster - 71027; Fermanagh & Dungannon (I still think is a better name than FST) - 71518; Omagh & Strabane - 73216.

[islington]

Just a quick update taking account of the helpful suggestion by East Anglian Lefty and a couple of afterthoughts by me, including dealing with the 3-authority Ballymena seat I inadvertently included in my previous plan. In terms of groupings, the three western authorities get four seats, AB&C gets two and Belfast three, leaving nine for the rest of NI.

It'll never happen, I know that, but actually I'm quite happy with it. I'm particularly pleased with the two-seat arrangement for AB&C and the consequent Newry seat.

(I know the Belfast area is too small to see here, but it's unchanged from my earlier posting.)

[🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️]

Mar 9, 2021 19:49:49 GMT islington said:

Just a quick update taking account of the helpful suggestion by East Anglian Lefty and a couple of afterthoughts by me, including dealing with the 3-authority Ballymena seat I inadvertently included in my previous plan. In terms of groupings, the three western authorities get four seats, AB&C gets two and Belfast three, leaving nine for the rest of NI.

It'll never happen, I know that, but actually I'm quite happy with it. I'm particularly pleased with the two-seat arrangement for AB&C and the consequent Newry seat.

(I know the Belfast area is too small to see here, but it's unchanged from my earlier posting.)

"Interesting" split of ABC – through 90 degrees from what I'd've thought of.

[therealriga]

Mar 9, 2021 17:21:57 GMT islington said:

I know little of Northern Ireland (I think I've been there thrice in my life) and arguably this belongs in the Pitchfork thread because we all know the four-seat Belfast arrangement will continue, but I thought I'd have a go at a plan anyway. My self-imposed rules were: (1) Don't worry about minimum change (or else I'd have stuck with a 4-seat Belfast); (2) Respect local government boundaries as much as reasonably possible; (3) No seat should extend into three authorities; (4) Keep all seats within the usual UK range (i.e. do not use the extra latitude permitted in NI).

The result is not dissimilar to the plan posted by YL on 7 Feb, but was drawn independently.

Carrickfergus - 70905. Or whatever you want to call it. In practice it would probably be Newtownabbey but is that even an actual place?

South East Antrim.
Carrick and Newtownabbey works too.

I quite like that seat, but they mulled that in 1995 and rejected it because of disruption elsewhere.
Oh and another key point which I think people sometimes miss: the NI commission are not required to take local council boundaries into consideration. They need only consider wards.

[islington]

Mar 10, 2021 10:55:11 GMT therealriga said:

Mar 9, 2021 17:21:57 GMT islington said:

I know little of Northern Ireland (I think I've been there thrice in my life) and arguably this belongs in the Pitchfork thread because we all know the four-seat Belfast arrangement will continue, but I thought I'd have a go at a plan anyway. My self-imposed rules were: (1) Don't worry about minimum change (or else I'd have stuck with a 4-seat Belfast); (2) Respect local government boundaries as much as reasonably possible; (3) No seat should extend into three authorities; (4) Keep all seats within the usual UK range (i.e. do not use the extra latitude permitted in NI).

The result is not dissimilar to the plan posted by YL on 7 Feb, but was drawn independently.

Carrickfergus - 70905. Or whatever you want to call it. In practice it would probably be Newtownabbey but is that even an actual place?

South East Antrim.
Carrick and Newtownabbey works too.

I quite like that seat, but they mulled that in 1995 and rejected it because of disruption elsewhere.
Oh and another key point which I think people sometimes miss: the NI commission are not required to take local council boundaries into consideration. They need only consider wards.

The seat makes sense to me too, in particular by not driving a boundary through the complex mess of wards just north of the Belfast city boundary.

I'm not quite so comfortable, however, about the fairly long and thin Antrim & Larne seat immediately to the north. An alternative would be to break the link between Antrim town and Larne and instead join Antrim town and Ballyclare with Ballymena and adjacent wards. This would then leave a much more rural seat (Larne?) comprising  Mid & E Antrim (except the Carrickfergus and Ballymena areas) and the eastern end of CC&G. I think it would work on the numbers, but I'm receptive to being told it's a bad idea and that the Antrim & Larne arrangement is fine. 

[East Anglian Lefty]

An additional issue is that that Carrick and Newtonabbey seat includes a ward covering part of Ballyclare, but doesn't include two wards covering Carrickfergus. Swapping one of them in for Ballyrobert is easy enough, swapping both in requires use of Northern Ireland's higher tolerance.

[islington]

Mar 10, 2021 15:50:19 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

An additional issue is that that Carrick and Newtonabbey seat includes a ward covering part of Ballyclare, but doesn't include two wards covering Carrickfergus. Swapping one of them in for Ballyrobert is easy enough, swapping both in requires use of Northern Ireland's higher tolerance.

Yes.

I'm sticking to the target I set myself of not using the greater tolerance, so I'm now looking at including both Kilroot and Woodburn and omitting both Ballyrobert and Mallusk. The latter is undesirable since it is clearly part of the Newtownabbey urban sprawl but it is right on the western flank of it and if it is put in the Lisburn seat alongside Templepatrick it doesn't look too badly isolated. In this case Antrim & Larne, in addition to picking up Ballyrobert, takes Aldergrove from Lisburn to balance out the numbers (and this also nests Antrim Town better into the seat).

But there's still a bad boundary in the Mossley area because Ballynure ward, an essential ingredient in the Antrim & Larne seat, reaches right down into Mossley. Really the wards couldn't be more unhelpful in this area so there's a limit to what can be done.

Incidentally, you haven't picked me up on another rotten boundary in Downpatrick, most of which I've included in Mid Antrim. But Quoile ward, which includes a substantial part of the town (city?), extending very near the centre, is in the Strangford seat. I can't say I'm happy with this arrangement, but so far as I can see the alternatives are worse. For instance if you put Quoile into Mid Down then Strangford ward must go too, so the Strangford seat (which without Strangford should really be 'East Down') has to pick up Saintfield and Kilmore in exchange; and the latter of these simply transfers the 'bad boundary' issue to Ballynahinch, besides leaving Mid Down very awkwardly shaped. Or you could go for a more radical redrawing in this area as in the YL scheme but then you end up with an elongated seat extending from Belfast suburbs to Banbridge and you disrupt the AB&C authority, which can otherwise receive two seats to itself. So, all in all, I think the least worst option is for Downpatrick to take the hit.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Mar 12, 2021 11:01:57 GMT islington said:

Mar 10, 2021 15:50:19 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

An additional issue is that that Carrick and Newtonabbey seat includes a ward covering part of Ballyclare, but doesn't include two wards covering Carrickfergus. Swapping one of them in for Ballyrobert is easy enough, swapping both in requires use of Northern Ireland's higher tolerance.

Yes.

I'm sticking to the target I set myself of not using the greater tolerance, so I'm now looking at including both Kilroot and Woodburn and omitting both Ballyrobert and Mallusk. The latter is undesirable since it is clearly part of the Newtownabbey urban sprawl but it is right on the western flank of it and if it is put in the Lisburn seat alongside Templepatrick it doesn't look too badly isolated. In this case Antrim & Larne, in addition to picking up Ballyrobert, takes Aldergrove from Lisburn to balance out the numbers (and this also nests Antrim Town better into the seat).

But there's still a bad boundary in the Mossley area because Ballynure ward, an essential ingredient in the Antrim & Larne seat, reaches right down into Mossley. Really the wards couldn't be more unhelpful in this area so there's a limit to what can be done.

Incidentally, you haven't picked me up on another rotten boundary in Downpatrick, most of which I've included in Mid Antrim. But Quoile ward, which includes a substantial part of the town (city?), extending very near the centre, is in the Strangford seat. I can't say I'm happy with this arrangement, but so far as I can see the alternatives are worse. For instance if you put Quoile into Mid Down then Strangford ward must go too, so the Strangford seat (which without Strangford should really be 'East Down') has to pick up Saintfield and Kilmore in exchange; and the latter of these simply transfers the 'bad boundary' issue to Ballynahinch, besides leaving Mid Down very awkwardly shaped. Or you could go for a more radical redrawing in this area as in the YL scheme but then you end up with an elongated seat extending from Belfast suburbs to Banbridge and you disrupt the AB&C authority, which can otherwise receive two seats to itself. So, all in all, I think the least worst option is for Downpatrick to take the hit.

I don't think Ballynure is actually too bad - if you check Googlemaps, you'll see that a lot of its Newtonabbey portions are non-residential.

That said, given that wards in Northern Ireland aren't used in their own right for anything except Westminster constituencies, this problem is always likely to occur, because there's less reason to correct wards that no longer make sense.

[afleitch]

Yeah, it's quiet easy to work West to East and retain a lot of the existing seats until you get to Greater Belfast. Effectively you retain the Nationalist and Unionist balance and leaves the politics of the final four Belfast seats to the end. As is custom.

[colm]

Where can I get the total population in NI by ward/electoral area versus just the electorate? Thanks.

[obsie]

Apr 6, 2021 15:39:14 GMT colm said:

Where can I get the total population in NI by ward/electoral area versus just the electorate? Thanks.

Nearest to what you're looking for is probably www.ninis2.nisra.gov.uk/InteractiveMaps/Population/Population%20Change/Population%20Totals/atlas.html although it uses the 1992 ward boundaries.

[islington]

May 3, 2021 14:13:58 GMT therealriga said:

May 3, 2021 14:03:50 GMT islington said:

NI (18)

A: Belfast - 224,393 = 3.06 = 3

B: Everything not in A, C, D - 640,006 = 8.72 = 9

C: AB&C - 142,804 = 1.95 = 2

D: D&S / F&O / Mid Ulster - 288,485 = 3.93 = 4

A 3-seat Belfast is a no no. As is having two based on ABC council. Way too much disruption to existing ties. In other words, it completely and unnecessarily redraws the existing map. They tried that in 1994 and it was rightly thrown out. Note also that the rules for NI, in contrast to everywhere else, do not require them to take local authority boundaries into account. All they have to think about is wards.

Thanks to therealriga for this, but a few comments if I may.

First of all, the rules for NI are different as you say, but that does not amount to an injunction to ignore LA boundaries. The BCNI is still entitled to give some weight to them if it wishes, and I think you said yourself upthread that ignoring them totally would not be popular.

My basic reason for suggesting a 3-seat Belfast is that the overall plan works better that way: looking at the schemes put forward by various posters above, I'd say that the worst 3-seat Belfast plan is still better, across NI as a whole, than the best 4-seat Belfast plan - if any other test is applied, that is, than that of minimum change.

And a problem with a minimum-change approach is that it implies that several seats will take advantage of the lower minimum permissible in NI (68313 as against the usual 69724). But the Lynch case suggests that you need a pretty powerful reason for doing this: the mere 'strength and depth' of public and political objections is not enough. You have to show (with reasons) that sticking to the normal UK tolerance means that you are 'unreasonably impaired' in achieving your Rule 5 aims.

Well, here's a 4-seat Belfast map that substantially maintains each of the 18 current seats, but also stays within the UK tolerance (by only 40 in the case of Belfast N) and takes account of LA boundaries if only to the minimal extent that no seat extends into three authorities.

I still prefer a 3-seat Belfast plan, though.

And Belfast

Edited to add: I didn't feel 'unreasonably impaired' in preparing this.

[YL]

May 3, 2021 18:48:24 GMT islington said:

My basic reason for suggesting a 3-seat Belfast is that the overall plan works better that way: looking at the schemes put forward by various posters above, I'd say that the worst 3-seat Belfast plan is still better, across NI as a whole, than the best 4-seat Belfast plan - if any other test is applied, that is, than that of minimum change.

Can you expand on why you think this?

[islington]

May 3, 2021 20:12:09 GMT YL said:

May 3, 2021 18:48:24 GMT islington said:

My basic reason for suggesting a 3-seat Belfast is that the overall plan works better that way: looking at the schemes put forward by various posters above, I'd say that the worst 3-seat Belfast plan is still better, across NI as a whole, than the best 4-seat Belfast plan - if any other test is applied, that is, than that of minimum change.

Can you expand on why you think this?

Certainly.

• Not crossing the Belfast boundary is an advantage in itself; moreover, it allows advantage to be taken of the Lagan as a natural boundary running right through the city.
  
• It allows N Down to be brought within range by taking the Dundonald area (currently in Belfast E); but if this area stays in a Belfast seat, the only alternatives for N Down are either to encroach on the peripheries of Newtownards or to run right down the Ards peninsula.
  
• It allows the Lisburn-based seat to comprise areas reasonably close to Belfast, whereas if Belfast strays beyond the city limits then the Lisburn-based seat has to extend far out into the county will into the AB&C area; indeed some plans take it as far as Banbridge.
  
• Keeping Belfast N within the city limits means the mess of interlocked wards in the Newtownabbey area can be kept within one seat, or nearly so.
• If Lisburn is kept near Belfast and does not encroach on AB&C, then that authority can get two whole seats to itself.
  

So it's a neater, more logical set of boundaries all round; it is surely what would happen if boundaries for NI were being drawn from scratch.

But, of course, I've ignored minimum change. This is obviously a proper consideration and if it's thought to trump all other factors, then yes, we can keep a 4-seat Belfast. I'm sure this is what will actually happen; but even taking that approach, a plausible map can be constructed within the normal UK 5% tolerance so you needn't - in fact, I'd argue you shouldn't - use the additional latitude permitted in NI.