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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Feb 26, 2022 8:47:46 GMT
There are quite a few comments from people who don't like the proposed new St. Neots constituency very much. Some of this is basically about the name (of the "we're nowhere near St. Neots" type) but especially in the built up areas close to Cambridge several representations want to be in a Cambridge constituency. There are a handful of explicit suggestions of two Cambridge constituencies. Meanwhile it's pretty clear that all three of Cherry Hinton, Queen Ediths and Trumpington want to be in Cambridge. Trumpington has the fewest representations but I suspect that's partly because it's the one which the BCE actually propose being in Cambridge, though I do think it actually has the weakest case. I don't think Cambridge is quite large enough yet, even if you include all the urban spillover, for two Cambridge constituencies really to be a natural idea, but I had a play with the idea anyway: Cambridge "North" Includes the bulk of the actual city, plus the three wards to the north which contain urban spillover: Girton, Histon & Impington, Milton & Waterbeach. (I'm aware that there are areas in them which don't qualify as that.) Electorate 73819. Cambridge South & Sawston Includes the five southern wards of the city and some urban spillover on the south side, but extends past Sawston through more rural areas to the county boundary. Electorate 74208. Other versions are of course possible; e.g. you could draw the boundary roughly along the Cam, which allows the southern seat to extend no further than Sawston but the northern one then stretches along the A14/busway corridor as far as Swavesey. (Not something I'm going to propose, but maybe some Lib Dems or people who care very much about constituency boundaries carving through new developments might like it?) I don't think two Cambridge constituencies is a good idea, but that's a pretty horrible attempt at it, I'm afraid - the Cambridge seats include areas that aren't Cambridge-facing but exclude areas that are and you've still got developments split between constituencies. If you want to do it, the solution is to put Balsham and Linton in with East Cambs, have the northern seat reach as far as Northstowe and the southern seat as far as Duxford and split the seats along the Cam.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2022 12:35:22 GMT
I don't think Cambridge is quite large enough yet, even if you include all the urban spillover, for two Cambridge constituencies really to be a natural idea, but I had a play with the idea anyway: Cambridge "North" Includes the bulk of the actual city, plus the three wards to the north which contain urban spillover: Girton, Histon & Impington, Milton & Waterbeach. (I'm aware that there are areas in them which don't qualify as that.) Electorate 73819. Cambridge South & Sawston Includes the five southern wards of the city and some urban spillover on the south side, but extends past Sawston through more rural areas to the county boundary. Electorate 74208. Other versions are of course possible; e.g. you could draw the boundary roughly along the Cam, which allows the southern seat to extend no further than Sawston but the northern one then stretches along the A14/busway corridor as far as Swavesey. (Not something I'm going to propose, but maybe some Lib Dems or people who care very much about constituency boundaries carving through new developments might like it?) I was having a play with this the other day, and ended up with pretty much the wards you did for your two constituencies, but as a doughnut Cambridge Central and Cambridge Outer. I liked the versions of St Neots / East Cambridgeshire that were left more than what's currently on the table, and thought you could appeal that the only place this has been tried in practice - York - it's been popular and united areas more than it's divided them. A hopeless case or worth submitting? It's interesting you say that, considering at the time it was proposed and created it wasn't exactly lauded. Perhaps something to be borne in mind about proposed changes this time around.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Feb 26, 2022 13:11:35 GMT
York seems to have stuck. Colchester, the only other genuine doughnut, was not maintained in the 2007 boundary changes though it was probably inevitable given population growth.
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ilerda
Conservative
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Post by ilerda on Feb 26, 2022 13:23:06 GMT
Didn’t one of the zombie reviews propose to doughnut Stockton-on-Tees, possibly with the outer taking on some other bits as well?
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Post by islington on Feb 26, 2022 14:15:33 GMT
The BCE's initial proposals doughnut Warwick & Leamington, and I support this (although I favour a different shape and name for the surrounding seat).
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YL
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Post by YL on Feb 27, 2022 14:44:27 GMT
York seems to have stuck. Colchester, the only other genuine doughnut, was not maintained in the 2007 boundary changes though it was probably inevitable given population growth. Bath currently has a doughnut, though it is not likely to survive this review due to ward boundary changes which extend the obvious Bath constituency to the county boundary. There have been many other examples in the past; indeed Cambridge had a doughnut from 1918 until 1983. What is unusual about the York example is that it's regarded, at least as far as the names and the York city boundary are concerned, as two city constituencies, rather than a basically rural/small town constituency which just happens to surround an urban constituency.
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ricmk
Lib Dem
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Post by ricmk on Mar 2, 2022 0:46:11 GMT
I was having a play with this the other day, and ended up with pretty much the wards you did for your two constituencies, but as a doughnut Cambridge Central and Cambridge Outer. I liked the versions of St Neots / East Cambridgeshire that were left more than what's currently on the table, and thought you could appeal that the only place this has been tried in practice - York - it's been popular and united areas more than it's divided them. A hopeless case or worth submitting? I already did submit something like that (see ref. 58939) but I didn't think it was what the people talking about two Cambridge seats mostly had in mind. (And I just used the name "South Cambridgeshire" rather than "Cambridge Outer", because so little of it is actually officially Cambridge.) Of course it doesn't solve the problem of constituency boundaries carving up new developments, but really that's a problem which needs to be fixed by sorting out the City boundary. I notice that this region's Preston spreadsheet, ref. 79444, has a "Cambridge Outer" constituency, with a more northerly arrangement. I've finally got round to looking at this - your Cambs submission is one ward away from what I have come up with across the whole county, I am drafting my first ever consultation response so I will laud praise on your previous submission
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YL
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Post by YL on Mar 21, 2022 15:01:32 GMT
I see the Lib Dems presented a new counterproposal for Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, pairing the latter two, at the hearing. mattb do you have the full details?
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Post by mattb on Mar 21, 2022 18:08:31 GMT
I see the Lib Dems presented a new counterproposal for Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, pairing the latter two, at the hearing. mattb do you have the full details? Yep. We were not impressed with the Conservatives' counter-proposal, especially in Essex where they arbitrarily split Colchester down the middle and unnecessarily massacre Chelmsford district splitting it between five constituencies (is there any other shire district in the country where anyone has proposed such a degree of dismembering?). Both these are entirely avoidable while at the same time leaving several additional constituencies unchanged (or changed only to align with new ward boundaries) and avoiding several instances where the Conservative scheme breaks local ties. We also move significantly fewer electors between constituencies than the Conservative scheme, which in this respect is itself a significant improvement on the Commission's proposals, These are the maps we shared at the hearing. (doesn't show Thurrock but our proposal there aligns with both the Cons and Lab proposals).
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Post by greenhert on Mar 21, 2022 20:30:37 GMT
I see the Lib Dems presented a new counterproposal for Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, pairing the latter two, at the hearing. mattb do you have the full details? Yep. We were not impressed with the Conservatives' counter-proposal, especially in Essex where they arbitrarily split Colchester down the middle and unnecessarily massacre Chelmsford district splitting it between five constituencies (is there any other shire district in the country where anyone has proposed such a degree of dismembering?). Both these are entirely avoidable while at the same time leaving several additional constituencies unchanged (or changed only to align with new ward boundaries) and avoiding several instances where the Conservative scheme breaks local ties. We also move significantly fewer electors between constituencies than the Conservative scheme, which in this respect is itself a significant improvement on the Commission's proposals, These are the maps we shared at the hearing. (doesn't show Thurrock but our proposal there aligns with both the Cons and Lab proposals). The Conservatives' proposals for Cambridgeshire, which I heard about at the 17th March Boundary Commission hearing in Cambridge, were much more moderate by comparison.
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Post by mattb on Mar 21, 2022 21:03:26 GMT
The Conservatives' proposals for Cambridgeshire, which I heard about at the 17th March Boundary Commission hearing in Cambridge, were much more moderate by comparison. Well their proposals for Peterborough are frankly not much better than Colchester - they are proposing to swap 20,000 electors between Peterborough and NW Cambs, breaking local ties in both seats, despite it being completely unnecessary.
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Post by islington on Mar 22, 2022 9:29:51 GMT
Yep. We were not impressed with the Conservatives' counter-proposal, especially in Essex where they arbitrarily split Colchester down the middle and unnecessarily massacre Chelmsford district splitting it between five constituencies (is there any other shire district in the country where anyone has proposed such a degree of dismembering?). Both these are entirely avoidable while at the same time leaving several additional constituencies unchanged (or changed only to align with new ward boundaries) and avoiding several instances where the Conservative scheme breaks local ties. We also move significantly fewer electors between constituencies than the Conservative scheme, which in this respect is itself a significant improvement on the Commission's proposals, These are the maps we shared at the hearing. (doesn't show Thurrock but our proposal there aligns with both the Cons and Lab proposals). The Conservatives' proposals for Cambridgeshire, which I heard about at the 17th March Boundary Commission hearing in Cambridge, were much more moderate by comparison. Doesn't the Benfleet seat (or Castle Point or whatever) come in at 78262? Or am I missing something?
Edited to add: Yes, I am missing something. There's a crafty split of Pitsea SE ward. But isn't that a breach of para 32?
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Post by islington on Mar 22, 2022 16:10:07 GMT
I'm scratching my head to understand what the Lib Dems are trying to achieve here. If they (understandably) don't like the Tory plan, why not simply back the BCE plan? It's not that bad in this region. Herts and Beds are pretty good; Cambs is not bad if the detached part doesn't trouble you; and when it comes to the big strategic decision whether to link Suffolk with Norfolk or Essex, I'd personally favour Norfolk but the BCE's choice of Essex is not crazy and, given that decision, the resulting seats are also not bad overall although there is obviously room to argue about points of detail. So I'm not sure why, at this late stage, you'd unveil a plan that effectively tells the BCE that in most of the region it should go back to the drawing board. Anyway, having said all that, I've no huge issues with your 17-seat Norfolk / Suffolk (some points of detail, though) but I don't like your 18-seat Essex. FWIW, this is my best 18-seat Essex, which I'd be glad to argue the toss over but really I think you'd probably be better off backing the BCE scheme.
(Having to fit 18 seats into an entitlement of 18.38 forces some awkward compromises, e.g. it's hard to justify keeping the BCE's ingenious arrangement of two very small seats in Southend, and the small (but legal) Clacton seat has to expand so that it Harwich loses its road link with the rest of its seat. By removing almost half-a-seat's worth of electors in north Essex to be treated with Suffolk, the BCE avoids these problems, admittedly at the expense of an odd-looking Braintree seat. But we've seen worse seats than that; and overall I thought this was the BCE's best region.)
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 22, 2022 16:19:47 GMT
So here's my revised plan for Essex incorporating many of EAL's suggestions Harlow 70,190 - gains Broadley Common, Epping Upland and Nazeing Epping Forest 72,785 - loses Broadley Common, Epping Upland and Nazeing Brentwood & Ongar 74,937 - unchanged Thurrock 73,347 - loses Chadwell St Mary Basildon South & Thurrock East 74,936 - gains Chadwell St Mary, loses Vange Basildon & Billericay 76,993 - gains Vange Castle Point 76,569 - gains West Leigh Southend West 77,016 - loses West Leigh and St Laurence, gains Kursaal, Milton and Victoria Rochford & Southend East 72,644 - loses Kursaal, Milton and Victoria, gains St Laurence and Hawkwell (plus realigns with new boundaries in Rochford) Rayleigh & Wickford 75,891 - loses Hawkwell etc, gains Rettendon and Runwell and South Hanningfield, Stock and Margaretting Maldon 74,346 - loses the Chelmsford borough wards, gains the remainder of Maldon district plus Tiptree, Marks Tey and Layer and Mersea and Pyefleet Clacton 75,954 - gains The Bentleys & Frating and The Oakleys & Wix Harwich & Essex North 75,954 - loses The Bentleys & Frating, The Oakleys & Wix and Mersea and Pyefleet, gains Lexden, Prettygate and Stanway Colchester 74,520 - comlicated by ward boundary changes but basically loses Prettygate and Lexden Witham 76,943 - loses Colchester and Maldon district elements. gains most of the Chelmsford district wards from Maldon plus Galleywood from Chelmsford, Boreham & The Leighs and Broomfield & The Walthams from Saffron Walden Braintree 74,835 - unchanged Saffron Walden 74,469 - loses Boreham & The Leighs and Broomfield & The Walthams Chelmsford 76,454 - loses Galleywood I went for my revised plan in Maldon because I really like that seat (but Witham not so much)
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 22, 2022 16:20:07 GMT
Yes I thought it looked familiar
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Post by islington on Mar 22, 2022 16:40:50 GMT
Yes I thought it looked familiar Pete - you do realize that compared with your plan I have two wards exchanged in Southend?
This totally alters the complexion of the entire county-wide scheme, as I'm sure you'll agree.
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YL
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Post by YL on Mar 22, 2022 18:18:39 GMT
I'm scratching my head to understand what the Lib Dems are trying to achieve here. If they (understandably) don't like the Tory plan, why not simply back the BCE plan? It's not that bad in this region. Herts and Beds are pretty good; Cambs is not bad if the detached part doesn't trouble you; and when it comes to the big strategic decision whether to link Suffolk with Norfolk or Essex, I'd personally favour Norfolk but the BCE's choice of Essex is not crazy and, given that decision, the resulting seats are also not bad overall although there is obviously room to argue about points of detail. So I'm not sure why, at this late stage, you'd unveil a plan that effectively tells the BCE that in most of the region it should go back to the drawing board. I get the impression, both on here and from those who have submitted representations, that there's a fairly widespread view among people who know the three counties well that a Norfolk/Suffolk crossing works better than the BCE's Suffolk/Essex crossing. One point is that it could be seen to be sensible to put forward alternatives to the Tory plan in Essex, to make it less likely that it gets adopted in the event of the Assistant Commissioners deciding to go with the Norfolk/Suffolk crossing. I suspect it's received enough criticism that it won't, though.
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Post by mattb on Mar 22, 2022 18:30:27 GMT
I'm scratching my head to understand what the Lib Dems are trying to achieve here. If they (understandably) don't like the Tory plan, why not simply back the BCE plan? It's not that bad in this region. Herts and Beds are pretty good; Cambs is not bad if the detached part doesn't trouble you; and when it comes to the big strategic decision whether to link Suffolk with Norfolk or Essex, I'd personally favour Norfolk but the BCE's choice of Essex is not crazy and, given that decision, the resulting seats are also not bad overall although there is obviously room to argue about points of detail. So I'm not sure why, at this late stage, you'd unveil a plan that effectively tells the BCE that in most of the region it should go back to the drawing board. Anyway, having said all that, I've no huge issues with your 17-seat Norfolk / Suffolk (some points of detail, though) but I don't like your 18-seat Essex. FWIW, this is my best 18-seat Essex, which I'd be glad to argue the toss over but really I think you'd probably be better off backing the BCE scheme. (Having to fit 18 seats into an entitlement of 18.38 forces some awkward compromises, e.g. it's hard to justify keeping the BCE's ingenious arrangement of two very small seats in Southend, and the small (but legal) Clacton seat has to expand so that it Harwich loses its road link with the rest of its seat. By removing almost half-a-seat's worth of electors in north Essex to be treated with Suffolk, the BCE avoids these problems, admittedly at the expense of an odd-looking Braintree seat. But we've seen worse seats than that; and overall I thought this was the BCE's best region.)
The main downside of your map from our point of view is the division of Leigh-on-Sea (which also creates an unnecessary second crossing of the Southend Unitary boundary). This was the one area in Essex for which we made a counter-proposal in the initial consultation. There are also a large number of other responses opposing the division of Leigh. We recognise that the proposal to have the cross-county seat Suffolk-Norfolk instead of Suffolk-Essex enables better maintenance of existing ties and moves significantly fewer electors between constituencies. So we have to at least consider the possibility that the Commission might be persuaded to adopt this. In that case, we want to show that it is both possible and desirable to retain the core of the town of Colchester in a single constituency and to avoid the mangling of Chelmsford district proposed by the Tories - while at the same time further improving community ties and further reducing the number of electors moved between constituencies. Of course there are some compromises - but overall our scheme meets the requirements of Rule 5 better than the Conservative plan and better than the Commission's initial proposals.
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Post by islington on Mar 22, 2022 19:20:03 GMT
I'm scratching my head to understand what the Lib Dems are trying to achieve here. If they (understandably) don't like the Tory plan, why not simply back the BCE plan? It's not that bad in this region. Herts and Beds are pretty good; Cambs is not bad if the detached part doesn't trouble you; and when it comes to the big strategic decision whether to link Suffolk with Norfolk or Essex, I'd personally favour Norfolk but the BCE's choice of Essex is not crazy and, given that decision, the resulting seats are also not bad overall although there is obviously room to argue about points of detail. So I'm not sure why, at this late stage, you'd unveil a plan that effectively tells the BCE that in most of the region it should go back to the drawing board. Anyway, having said all that, I've no huge issues with your 17-seat Norfolk / Suffolk (some points of detail, though) but I don't like your 18-seat Essex. FWIW, this is my best 18-seat Essex, which I'd be glad to argue the toss over but really I think you'd probably be better off backing the BCE scheme. (Having to fit 18 seats into an entitlement of 18.38 forces some awkward compromises, e.g. it's hard to justify keeping the BCE's ingenious arrangement of two very small seats in Southend, and the small (but legal) Clacton seat has to expand so that it Harwich loses its road link with the rest of its seat. By removing almost half-a-seat's worth of electors in north Essex to be treated with Suffolk, the BCE avoids these problems, admittedly at the expense of an odd-looking Braintree seat. But we've seen worse seats than that; and overall I thought this was the BCE's best region.)
The main downside of your map from our point of view is the division of Leigh-on-Sea (which also creates an unnecessary second crossing of the Southend Unitary boundary). This was the one area in Essex for which we made a counter-proposal in the initial consultation. There are also a large number of other responses opposing the division of Leigh. We recognise that the proposal to have the cross-county seat Suffolk-Norfolk instead of Suffolk-Essex enables better maintenance of existing ties and moves significantly fewer electors between constituencies. So we have to at least consider the possibility that the Commission might be persuaded to adopt this. In that case, we want to show that it is both possible and desirable to retain the core of the town of Colchester in a single constituency and to avoid the mangling of Chelmsford district proposed by the Tories - while at the same time further improving community ties and further reducing the number of electors moved between constituencies. Of course there are some compromises - but overall our scheme meets the requirements of Rule 5 better than the Conservative plan and better than the Commission's initial proposals. Well, the heart of Leigh - both the old town in the High Street area and the modern area along the Broadway - is in Leigh ward, and West Leigh ward is more in the nature of urban sprawl between Leigh and Hadleigh. Ideally, it goes better with Leigh, but it's not as if separating it amounted to cutting Leigh in half. I don't think keeping W Leigh with Leigh is enough to justify a ward split, especially one that breaches the BCE guidance.
But a bigger worry is that an 18-seat Essex doesn't work all that well overall - even if you fiddle with wards in Southend, you still have the Clacton/Harwich problem. So it's understandable that the BCE chose to cross the Suffolk/Essex boundary, thus relieving the pressure on numbers. And on the whole, since in effect the choice is between a 9-seat Norfolk and an 18-seat Essex, I'd say the BCE's 9-seat Norfolk works better than any 18-seat Essex plan.
The other issue is that it is very late in the process to introduce such a sweeping proposal affecting more than half the region. I've noticed that this has happened in other regions as well - a political party has, in effect, reserved its position at the initial stage only to come up with far-reaching proposals later on. The problem with this is that other parties, and the general public, are then left with very little time to analyse the proposal and provide considered criticism.
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Post by mattb on Mar 23, 2022 0:34:57 GMT
Well, the heart of Leigh - both the old town in the High Street area and the modern area along the Broadway - is in Leigh ward, and West Leigh ward is more in the nature of urban sprawl between Leigh and Hadleigh. Ideally, it goes better with Leigh, but it's not as if separating it amounted to cutting Leigh in half. I don't think keeping W Leigh with Leigh is enough to justify a ward split, especially one that breaches the BCE guidance. But a bigger worry is that an 18-seat Essex doesn't work all that well overall - even if you fiddle with wards in Southend, you still have the Clacton/Harwich problem. So it's understandable that the BCE chose to cross the Suffolk/Essex boundary, thus relieving the pressure on numbers. And on the whole, since in effect the choice is between a 9-seat Norfolk and an 18-seat Essex, I'd say the BCE's 9-seat Norfolk works better than any 18-seat Essex plan.
The other issue is that it is very late in the process to introduce such a sweeping proposal affecting more than half the region. I've noticed that this has happened in other regions as well - a political party has, in effect, reserved its position at the initial stage only to come up with far-reaching proposals later on. The problem with this is that other parties, and the general public, are then left with very little time to analyse the proposal and provide considered criticism.
If you (or the Commission) really can't bear the ward-split, the fallback (as discussed in our submission at the initial stage) is to take a whole ward from Rayleigh to make up the numbers in Castle Point. That is clearly sub-optimal, but is it less bad than crossing the County Council boundary and dividing Leigh. (there is no knock-on impact because both Basildon S / East Thurrock and Rayleigh & Wickford remain in quota if you do that, leaving both Southend seats intact as we propose). The substantial number of responses to the initial consultation (as well as contributions at the Southend hearings this week) against dividing Leigh suggests this is not an arcane point. On the wider point - I don't think it is unreasonable for anyone to review their position in light of the responses at the initial stage. Especially if, as in this case, a counter-proposal is made which technically works better against the statutory criteria; but which in our view is unacceptable in places. Our counter-proposal in fact demonstrates an improvement against each aspect of Rule 5 when compared against the Commission’s initial proposals or against the Conservatives’ counter-proposals. Our proposals provide for more unchanged constituencies; more constituencies changed only to align with new ward boundaries; and more constituencies gaining or losing only 1-2 wards compared with the Commission’s proposals and compared with the Conservatives’ proposals. We achieve better alignment with local government boundaries and respect for community ties; while at the same time moving substantially fewer electors between constituencies. The improvements are seen within each of the three county areas individually as well as across the area as a whole.
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