obsie
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Post by obsie on May 4, 2021 4:37:36 GMT
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. The problem with the 11-authority model is that existing councils (most of which individually reflected coherent areas) were arbitrarily bolted together to make the numbers fit regardless of commonality or lack of same or natural patterns of communication. AB&C is a prime example where although there are ties between Armagh and Lurgan/Portadown and between Lurgan/Portadown and Banbridge, there is very little in the way of communication links between Armagh and Banbridge. The same applies to Ballymena-Larne, to Lisburn-Castlereagh, to South Armagh-Downpatrick, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Omagh-Enniskillen. |
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YL
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Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on May 4, 2021 7:24:14 GMT
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. OTOH, the traditional division into four works well in terms of the way the city is perceived, and in many ways the M1 is a stronger community boundary than the Lagan. Also the four seat Belfast allows Newtownbreda and Four Winds, which are functionally part of south Belfast, to be included in a Belfast South seat as now, whereas three seat Belfast plans throw them into a largely rural seat, in the case of your plan stretching as far as the Mourne Mountains. I agree the Dundonald solution for North Down works well enough, but I'm not convinced there's enough connection between Dundonald, also really a Belfast suburb, and Bangor for it to be a major selling point. The plan I posted above did indeed put Banbridge with Lisburn, but that was explicitly as an alternative to putting Banbridge with South Down. Other four seat Belfast plans have a Lagan Valley with only fairly minor changes, and I'd rather have that than putting Newtownbreda in a seat with the Mournes and bits of Downpatrick. OK, I agree with you to some extent here. Although Newtownabbey is also essentially a Belfast suburb, the current boundaries in the area strike me as a mess and I wouldn't be very attached to them. As obsie says, ABC is an artificial agglomeration. So no-one really cares about it enough to give that sort of regard to, and neither do the rules as they apply in NI. I think this is a reasonable reading of the situation as far as the quota is concerned, which is why both the maps I've posted have stayed within the UK-wide 5% range. |
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Post by islington on May 4, 2021 8:57:36 GMT
This is an admirably balanced summary of the issues by YL and I have little to add except that:
- the rationale for the Bangor-Dundonald link is not that it is particularly meritorious in itself but that it enables us to avoid ways of reinforcing N Down that are worse (i.e. including the whole Ards peninsula or encroaching on the Newtownards urban area); and
- while I agree that Newtownbreda is indeed part of Belfast, this is an argument more for extending the Belfast city boundary than for ignoring the boundary (albeit flawed) that already exists (and this is consistent with the view I've taken with similarly flawed LA boundaries elsewhere in the UK).
All that said, we're not really that far apart and I'm glad we agree that in this review NI's wider tolerance is not needed. It will be interesting to see whether, post- Lynch, the BCNI is of the same opinion. |
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Post by emidsanorak on May 4, 2021 10:23:33 GMT
It is possible to have a 4 seat Belfast solution which puts all the Newtownabbey wards together in a Belfast North and has the Dundonald solution for North Down.
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Post by emidsanorak on May 4, 2021 17:20:29 GMT
It is possible to have a 4 seat Belfast solution which puts all the Newtownabbey wards together in a Belfast North and has the Dundonald solution for North Down. Working on the basis that Derry City & Strabane, Fermanagh & Omagh and Mid Ulster are good for four seats, the rest of Northern Ireland can look like: Banbridge (71403) Belfast East (71838) Belfast North (69893) Belfast South (71536) Belfast West (71505) Coleraine (76093) Craigavon (73098) Lisburn (73853) Newry & Armagh (71006) North Down (71644) North East Antrim (74323) South Down (69792) Strangford (70704) West Antrim (70515)   I don't like the continuing division of Carryduff but, if you think that Belfast needs four seats, this is reasonable. Personally, I'm with Islington in thinking that, if Belfast qualifies for three seats, that is what it should get. |
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Post by minionofmidas on May 4, 2021 17:48:59 GMT
It is possible to have a 4 seat Belfast solution which puts all the Newtownabbey wards together in a Belfast North and has the Dundonald solution for North Down. Working on the basis that Derry City & Strabane, Fermanagh & Omagh and Mid Ulster are good for four seats, the rest of Northern Ireland can look like: Banbridge (71403) Belfast East (71838) Belfast North (69893) Belfast South (71536) Belfast West (71505) Coleraine (76093) Craigavon (73098) Lurgan (73853) Newry & Armagh (71006) North Down (71644) North East Antrim (74323) South Down (69792) Strangford (70704) West Antrim (70515) I don't like the continuing division of Carryduff but, if you think that Belfast needs four seats, this is reasonable. Personally, I'm with Islington in thinking that, if Belfast qualifies for three seats, that is what it should get. That's not where Craigavon is, assuming you mean the Lisburn & points north seat. More to the point it's just generally empathically not minimum change around those parts - the consequence of doing those two things at once, obviously - so if you're going to do that anyways might as well go with three Belfasts. |
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obsie
Non-Aligned
Posts: 866
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Post by obsie on May 4, 2021 18:07:40 GMT
The Coast Road isn't a good enough link to justify the Greenisland-to-Bushmills Machete.
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Post by minionofmidas on May 4, 2021 18:38:38 GMT
The Coast Road isn't a good enough link to justify the Greenisland-to-Bushmills Machete. that too. And it still doesn't include all of the Glens! |
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Post by emidsanorak on May 5, 2021 6:59:03 GMT
That's not where Craigavon is, assuming you mean the Lisburn & points north seat. Sorry, I misnamed my Lisburn seat. My Craigavon (73098) includes Craigavon, Lurgan and Portadown. The Lisburn (73853) seat is the successor to South Antrim which has lost Antrim and gained Lisburn. |
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Post by afleitch on May 5, 2021 19:09:13 GMT
  So here's a stab Hopefully it's self explanatory. Belfast is neat, there's a major reconfiguration of North Down and Strangford as expected with Lagan Valley snaking down into Banbridge and leaves a huge number of seats virtually unchanged. I'm also pleased with the slight rejig in Antrim. |
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Post by tiberius on May 6, 2021 8:56:21 GMT
So here's a stab Hopefully it's self explanatory. Belfast is neat, there's a major reconfiguration of North Down and Strangford as expected with Lagan Valley snaking down into Banbridge and leaves a huge number of seats virtually unchanged. I'm also pleased with the slight rejig in Antrim. This looks quite nice to my (admittedly untrained) eye. |
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Post by islington on May 6, 2021 10:11:34 GMT
Well, afleitch might legitimately say that because of the slightly different rules this isn't a consideration in NI, but I'd point out that the Belfast E and E Antrim seats both extend into three authorities.
Also, are all the seats within the UK tolerance? This is important because although a wider tolerance is theoretically available in NI, other posters' plans strongly suggest that the requirement for its use ('unreasonable impairment' in complying with Rule 5 criteria) isn't met at this review.
(On the latter point, I found it helpful to adjust the plan parameters for NI so that the minimum is the usual UK figure of 69724 rather than the NI figure of 68313.)
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Post by islington on May 17, 2021 9:58:50 GMT
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.
I'm reposting this because in view of my newfound zeal for respecting the current map it's now my preferred NI solution. I've taken the point made by therealriga that the rules in NI de-emphasize LA boundaries (as opposed to ward boundaries) so I've largely ignored them except insofar as I've avoided orphan wards and I've kept any seat from spilling into three authorities. I found no compelling reason to use the wider NI tolerance so each seat falls within the normal UK limits (although only just in a few cases). Numbers follow. I've kept the current names but I suggest alternatives in a couple of cases. East Antrim - 73391. North Antrim - 73370.
South Antrim - 71508.
Belfast East - 70270.
Belfast North - 69764. Belfast South - 69967.
Belfast West - 72365. The only seat wholly in Belfast. North Down - 71234. South Down - 76573. Extends north to include Banbridge. Fermanagh and South Tyrone - 71518. Foyle - 69890. (But if (see below) we rename Upper Bann as Craigavon, which ought to please the Unionists, can't we drop the pretence and just call it Derry?)
Lagan Valley - 72285. East Londonderry - 72107. Given that this now extends well into the former Co Antrim I'd suggest that Coleraine might be a better name.
Newry and Armagh - 71380.
Strangford - 75899. Now with added Strangford. West Tyrone - 70594.
Mid Ulster - 71027.
Upper Bann - 72546. Without Banbridge, is the name still appropriate? It could be called Craigavon.
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Post by aidanthomson on May 17, 2021 12:29:41 GMT
Upper Bann - 72546. Without Banbridge, is the name still appropriate? It could be called Craigavon. North Armagh? There's very little in this seat that isn't historically part of Co. Armargh (Aghagallon is historically Antrim, there are one or two ex-Down wards, but that's about it). Upper Bann would probably be OK, though, given that the upper Bann still flows through the seat (the lower Bann being what flows northwards out of Lough Neagh to the north coast). |
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Post by gamblingguru on May 17, 2021 12:41:30 GMT
Most seats just need an odd ward or 2 moving - The 2 exceptions being the cluster of small seats (E Belfast Strangford and N Down) and the cluster of big seats (Upper Bann, Newry & Armagh and S Down).
Ards peninsular can go to N Down, Downpatrick to Strangford bringing the village of Strangford inside the seat! And then Banbridge goes to South Down where it used to be anyway.
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YL
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Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Aug 9, 2021 16:56:02 GMT
(From the South Down Assembly thread) It depends how you deal with the cluster of ‘small’ seats - E Belfast / N Down / Strangford. It is possible to avoid putting the Ards peninsula into N Down, but if it does go in, the knock on is Downpatrick into Strangford and Banbridge into S Down. It really belongs in the boundaries section of this forum but I have a proposal I will likely prepare after I see the provisional proposals in the autumn. How do we add a picture file here? My proposals lead to constituencies that all meet the requirements and all broadly look like they do now. In short, Banbridge would move into a new Lagan Valley seat ("Mid Down"? "Lisburn & Banbridge"?) Which would have the whole of both towns but the LV fringes north of Lisburn go into South Antrim. You need to upload the picture somewhere else and link to it. Would you put the Ards Peninsula into North Down? If so your suggestions sound a lot like the ones I put in this post which had South Down with only minor changes and a Lisburn & Banbridge seat. NB when I did that I stuck to the higher lower limit which applies elsewhere in the UK; there are differences of opinion as to whether it's reasonable to use the greater flexibility available in NI. |
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Post by heverlee2019 on Aug 9, 2021 17:56:40 GMT
(From the South Down Assembly thread) It really belongs in the boundaries section of this forum but I have a proposal I will likely prepare after I see the provisional proposals in the autumn. How do we add a picture file here? My proposals lead to constituencies that all meet the requirements and all broadly look like they do now. In short, Banbridge would move into a new Lagan Valley seat ("Mid Down"? "Lisburn & Banbridge"?) Which would have the whole of both towns but the LV fringes north of Lisburn go into South Antrim. You need to upload the picture somewhere else and link to it. Would you put the Ards Peninsula into North Down? If so your suggestions sound a lot like the ones I put in this post which had South Down with only minor changes and a Lisburn & Banbridge seat. NB when I did that I stuck to the higher lower limit which applies elsewhere in the UK; there are differences of opinion as to whether it's reasonable to use the greater flexibility available in NI. I'll need to post it here at a later date. But in short, as I said in other thread, they look mostly like now so the Add a Peninsula remains in a slightly enlarged Strnagford. North Down takes in most of Dundonald as it did prior to 1995. East Belfast takes woodstock Ravenhill Wynchurch (now part of Cregagh) And hillfoot from S Belfast. South Belfast takes Dunmurry from WB (more SB anyway) along with it neighbouring SB wards of Derriaghy and Lambeg from Lagan Valley. West Belfast just unites the Shankill North Belfast takes all of Glengormley from S Antrim. It leads to a few constituencies flying really close to the limit but within the limit nonetheless. |
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YL
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Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Aug 10, 2021 18:10:40 GMT
I'll need to post it here at a later date. But in short, as I said in other thread, they look mostly like now so the Add a Peninsula remains in a slightly enlarged Strnagford. North Down takes in most of Dundonald as it did prior to 1995. East Belfast takes woodstock Ravenhill Wynchurch (now part of Cregagh) And hillfoot from S Belfast. South Belfast takes Dunmurry from WB (more SB anyway) along with it neighbouring SB wards of Derriaghy and Lambeg from Lagan Valley. West Belfast just unites the Shankill North Belfast takes all of Glengormley from S Antrim. It leads to a few constituencies flying really close to the limit but within the limit nonetheless. So something like this in the Belfast area and County Down:  This version doesn't require the extra flexibility available with the lower limit; that's why I moved Legoniel from Belfast North to Belfast West. It looks like quite a neat solution as long as the move of Derriaghy and Lambeg will fly. |
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Post by islington on Aug 10, 2021 21:52:07 GMT
Or this possibly?
 Similar to the YL scheme above but getting rid of a couple of orphan wards and generally with fewer LA boundary-crossings (although I know this is less of an issue in NI). Again, all within the UK range. |
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Post by heverlee2019 on Aug 11, 2021 11:07:38 GMT
I'll need to post it here at a later date. But in short, as I said in other thread, they look mostly like now so the Add a Peninsula remains in a slightly enlarged Strnagford. North Down takes in most of Dundonald as it did prior to 1995. East Belfast takes woodstock Ravenhill Wynchurch (now part of Cregagh) And hillfoot from S Belfast. South Belfast takes Dunmurry from WB (more SB anyway) along with it neighbouring SB wards of Derriaghy and Lambeg from Lagan Valley. West Belfast just unites the Shankill North Belfast takes all of Glengormley from S Antrim. It leads to a few constituencies flying really close to the limit but within the limit nonetheless. So something like this in the Belfast area and County Down: This version doesn't require the extra flexibility available with the lower limit; that's why I moved Legoniel from Belfast North to Belfast West. It looks like quite a neat solution as long as the move of Derriaghy and Lambeg will fly. Yeah not far off that. Although I had even more of South Down (Ballyward I think) in "Lagan Valley" but that seems like it's optional. I find I didn't need Ligoniel put into WB, but don't really mind others making that argument. You are spot on about wondering if Lambeg and Derriaghy will fly. I agree with that which why I intend on making a special representation on those wards in that they basically belong in whatever constituency Dunmurry finds itself as about 90% of the population of both is concentrated in and around the sprawl from Dunmurry and south Belfast's Lisburn road in general. On a personal level, my late mother was living in Dunmurry in her final month's before passing away. In taking turns being with her I would take a break and walk around the area and drive into the Lisburn Rd to get some takeaways. It struck as much more like a SB ward than a WB one. For one the the road connection and sprawl I mentioned. Second is the train stop which runs through so Belfast and then reaches Dunmurry and Derriaghy before proceeding through Lisburn. Third is the feel of it. It strikes me as a bit like Ballynafeigh with its centrally located orange hall and union flags everywhere for marching season and yet the place is long since passed having anything close to a unionist majority. I won't make the last point officially but it's just an observation. So I think there is reasonable justification for all three to go in a new South Belfast. |
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