2023 Review - East of England

[Deleted]

Interesting glitch on the BCE website. Who would support the constituency of "Nork"?

[greatkingrat]

Good name for a constituency, but probably would be better in Surrey!

[johnloony]

Nov 13, 2022 16:49:16 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

Interesting glitch on the BCE website. Who would support the constituency of "Nork"?

Ive spotted a few of those glitches. The name appears properly if you zoom in further.

[East Anglian Lefty]

I've pretty much decided on my submission for Essex (essentially just trying to find a less bad version of Harwich & North Essex and accepting that some of the other seats are a little sub-optimal) but I'm less sure about Suffolk and Norfolk. My main issue is that I don't like their configuration for Norwich, but because of the way they've done groups of seats near the upper and lower limits, fixing that requires knock-on changes affecting the Suffolk seats.

There are several ways of doing that, but the more I look at the Suffolk seats the less happy I am with those - in particular, the way they've done Suffolk Coastal and CS&NI seems designed to keep all the worst aspects of both seats. I'm also sceptical that keeping Stowmarket and Bury St Edmunds together is actually good, but I suspect altering that is too much of a can of worms. But is it worth proposing more substantive changes to Suffolk Coastal & CS&NI to improve the coherence of the two seats, or am I safer just proposing a minor alteration that isn't great on its own merits to achieve the change I'm more interested in? Or am I better off proposing both, with one as my main suggestion and one as my fallback?

[YL]

Nov 15, 2022 11:26:31 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I've pretty much decided on my submission for Essex (essentially just trying to find a less bad version of Harwich & North Essex and accepting that some of the other seats are a little sub-optimal) but I'm less sure about Suffolk and Norfolk.

What are you going to propose for Essex?

I have never been anywhere near Colchester, which makes me a bit cautious, but looking at the maps my first thoughts were, compared with the revised proposals:

- Clacton loses The Oakleys & Wix
- H & NE loses The Oakleys & Wix, Mersea & Pyefleet, Old Heath & the Hythe; gains Highwoods, Mile End, polling district AT in Lexden & Braiswick (i.e. a little more of that ward than the BCE's version)
- Witham loses Stanway; gains Mersea & Pyefleet
- Colchester gains Old Heath & the Hythe, Stanway; loses Highwoods, Mile End, polling district AT

That leaves everything a bit better connected and has a reasonably coherent-looking chunk of north Colchester going into H & NE, with the railway line as a southern boundary. But on closer inspection the western border of Stanway looks like one of those messy borders through new developments which wouldn't be an ideal choice as a constituency boundary, so perhaps that doesn't really work.

If Stanway stays in Witham and Highwoods in Colchester, then that leaves Witham too big; either Mersea & Pyefleet could go back into H & NE in spite of the connectivity problem, or H & NE could extend further west to take Coggeshall and The Colnes wards of Braintree. In either case there's no longer any room for The Oakleys & Wix in H & NE, so that has to go into Clacton as per the revised proposals.

[greenhert]

Nov 15, 2022 18:24:57 GMT YL said:

Nov 15, 2022 11:26:31 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I've pretty much decided on my submission for Essex (essentially just trying to find a less bad version of Harwich & North Essex and accepting that some of the other seats are a little sub-optimal) but I'm less sure about Suffolk and Norfolk.

What are you going to propose for Essex?

I have never been anywhere near Colchester, which makes me a bit cautious, but looking at the maps my first thoughts were, compared with the revised proposals:

- Clacton loses The Oakleys & Wix
- H & NE loses The Oakleys & Wix, Mersea & Pyefleet, Old Heath & the Hythe; gains Highwoods, Mile End, polling district AT in Lexden & Braiswick (i.e. a little more of that ward than the BCE's version)
- Witham loses Stanway; gains Mersea & Pyefleet
- Colchester gains Old Heath & the Hythe, Stanway; loses Highwoods, Mile End, polling district AT

That leaves everything a bit better connected and has a reasonably coherent-looking chunk of north Colchester going into H & NE, with the railway line as a southern boundary. But on closer inspection the western border of Stanway looks like one of those messy borders through new developments which wouldn't be an ideal choice as a constituency boundary, so perhaps that doesn't really work.

If Stanway stays in Witham and Highwoods in Colchester, then that leaves Witham too big; either Mersea & Pyefleet could go back into H & NE in spite of the connectivity problem, or H & NE could extend further west to take Coggeshall and The Colnes wards of Braintree. In either case there's no longer any room for The Oakleys & Wix in H & NE, so that has to go into Clacton as per the revised proposals.

In that case you could also call it Harwich & Colchester North, Colchester Colchester Central, and Witham Witham & Colchester South.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Nov 15, 2022 18:24:57 GMT YL said:

Nov 15, 2022 11:26:31 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I've pretty much decided on my submission for Essex (essentially just trying to find a less bad version of Harwich & North Essex and accepting that some of the other seats are a little sub-optimal) but I'm less sure about Suffolk and Norfolk.

What are you going to propose for Essex?

I have never been anywhere near Colchester, which makes me a bit cautious, but looking at the maps my first thoughts were, compared with the revised proposals:

- Clacton loses The Oakleys & Wix
- H & NE loses The Oakleys & Wix, Mersea & Pyefleet, Old Heath & the Hythe; gains Highwoods, Mile End, polling district AT in Lexden & Braiswick (i.e. a little more of that ward than the BCE's version)
- Witham loses Stanway; gains Mersea & Pyefleet
- Colchester gains Old Heath & the Hythe, Stanway; loses Highwoods, Mile End, polling district AT

That leaves everything a bit better connected and has a reasonably coherent-looking chunk of north Colchester going into H & NE, with the railway line as a southern boundary. But on closer inspection the western border of Stanway looks like one of those messy borders through new developments which wouldn't be an ideal choice as a constituency boundary, so perhaps that doesn't really work.

If Stanway stays in Witham and Highwoods in Colchester, then that leaves Witham too big; either Mersea & Pyefleet could go back into H & NE in spite of the connectivity problem, or H & NE could extend further west to take Coggeshall and The Colnes wards of Braintree. In either case there's no longer any room for The Oakleys & Wix in H & NE, so that has to go into Clacton as per the revised proposals.

I think you need the easiest possible change. Old Heath makes no sense in HNE (it doesn't even have good links to Mersea), so it's about working out which bits of Colchester are the least-worst option to remove instead. Mersea also shouldn't be in HNE, but the responses they got wanted that so I'm inclined to let them have that one (especially because the alternatives are Stanway, which makes less sense without Lexden and Prettygate, or reaching into Braintree district, which is a harder sell (even if Colne Engaine is better linked to Rural North than it is to Witham.)

Similarly, I don't like Oakleys & Wix going with Clacton, but it's hard to fix that without more far-reaching changes so I'm inclined to either accept that or at most propose a ward split to keep Little Oakley with Harwich.

I think the easiest option is to accept the principle of Lexden and Braiswick, but propose a different ward split - the rural bits go in HNE and Lexden doesn't, but Braiswick should as well. You can then add Mile End ward, which is the only Colchester ward that is parished (and the Myland parish is largely co-extensive for the ward, except for a small bit warded with Highwoods that shouldn't really be in Myland anyway.) That gives you good boundaries along the railway line and the country park (and an acceptable if weaker boundary along Mill Road.) The hospital is in the ward and is a focal point not just for Colchester but for the entirety of north Essex, there are decent links with Great Horkesley and there's a junction to the A12 so internal connectivity is good.

The ward would definitely still be happier with Colchester, but somewhere has to be dropped and they're the least bad option.

Incidentally, if you did want to keep Stanway together then the bit in Marks Tey & Layer is only about 600 electors so a ward split could work, but I don't want to go down that route.

[YL]

OK, I think I'm convinced that it makes most sense at this stage to simply swap Old Heath & the Hythe for Mile End and Braiswick (polling district AT), leaving Mersea in H & NE.

[ricmk]

On Colchester, I thought that the River Colne should be used as a boundary and that reconfiguring N-S would produce neater seats than a long E-W one as proposed. This works on the numbers - it is very tight on Clacton but I wonder if you think it has legs?

[Pete Whitehead]

Nov 16, 2022 17:50:55 GMT ricmk said:

On Colchester, I thought that the River Colne should be used as a boundary and that reconfiguring N-S would produce neater seats than a long E-W one as proposed. This works on the numbers - it is very tight on Clacton but I wonder if you think it has legs?

Why didn't you use it as the boundary then? And it isn't 'tight' on Clacton. You've removed part of the town..

[minionofmidas]

Certainly doesn't *look* neat.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Nov 16, 2022 17:50:55 GMT ricmk said:

On Colchester, I thought that the River Colne should be used as a boundary and that reconfiguring N-S would produce neater seats than a long E-W one as proposed. This works on the numbers - it is very tight on Clacton but I wonder if you think it has legs?

No, I'm afraid that's just really bad. Splitting Clacton is completely unnecessary. The wards chosen in Colchester also aren't the best (and you're better off sticking with the ward split, because it makes sense), but that's secondary to dividing a town completely unnecessarily.

[ricmk]

Fine, let’s leave that one on the drawing board then. Thank you!

[East Anglian Lefty]

If you do want to have Mersea in a Colchester seat (and I don't think it's a very good idea, but nevertheless) then I suspect E-W is still the best bet. Keep Clacton as in the revised proposals, and let the western seat have the remaining Tendring wards plus Wivenhoe, Greenstead, St Anne's and St John's, Highwoods, and enough villages from Rural North as you need to get both seats in quota. It's still inferior to having a seat solely made up of bits of Colchester, but the boundary between the two seats isn't entirely inexplicable.

[islington]

Given that there's no good solution here, I'd suggest the least bad is Clacton as the BCE has it (75959), and the following changes compared with the BCE revised plan: H&NE loses Old Heath and Mersea, gains the rest of Lexden (i.e. the ward now not divided) plus Prettygate and Stanway (75954); Witham loses Stanway and gains Mersea (71794); Colchester everything else (74520).

Now I know what you're going to say: that's a terrible boundary in the Stanway area. Yes it is. But it's surely a damned sight less terrible than putting Old Heath and Mersea in a seat from which they are separated by an unbridged tidal estuary.

[mattb]

Nov 16, 2022 20:22:08 GMT islington said:

Given that there's no good solution here, I'd suggest the least bad is Clacton as the BCE has it (75959), and the following changes compared with the BCE revised plan: H&NE loses Old Heath and Mersea, gains the rest of Lexden (i.e. the ward now not divided) plus Prettygate and Stanway (75954); Witham loses Stanway and gains Mersea (71794); Colchester everything else (74520).

Now I know what you're going to say: that's a terrible boundary in the Stanway area. Yes it is. But it's surely a damned sight less terrible than putting Old Heath and Mersea in a seat from which they are separated by an unbridged tidal estuary.

This is exactly the LD submission at the last stage which was sadly rejected by the Commission.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Nov 16, 2022 20:22:08 GMT islington said:

Given that there's no good solution here, I'd suggest the least bad is Clacton as the BCE has it (75959), and the following changes compared with the BCE revised plan: H&NE loses Old Heath and Mersea, gains the rest of Lexden (i.e. the ward now not divided) plus Prettygate and Stanway (75954); Witham loses Stanway and gains Mersea (71794); Colchester everything else (74520).

Now I know what you're going to say: that's a terrible boundary in the Stanway area. Yes it is. But it's surely a damned sight less terrible than putting Old Heath and Mersea in a seat from which they are separated by an unbridged tidal estuary.

Those are basically the initial proposals, and the BCE got enough negative feedback about that that they're unlikely to change course (especially because Lexden is a lot more middle-class than Old Heath and hence generates more outraged objections.) I'm inclined to think that as the Lexden ward is leftovers, you're much better off leaving it split - the question is whether you split it between the rural bits and the Colchester bits, or between Lexden on the one hand and Braiswick and the villages on the other.

Though if you do want to try to convince the BCE they're wrong, your plan would be much improved if you split Marks Tey & Layer ward to put the 600 odd electors in the West Stanway polling district into HNE.

[islington]

Nov 17, 2022 9:22:52 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Nov 16, 2022 20:22:08 GMT islington said:

Given that there's no good solution here, I'd suggest the least bad is Clacton as the BCE has it (75959), and the following changes compared with the BCE revised plan: H&NE loses Old Heath and Mersea, gains the rest of Lexden (i.e. the ward now not divided) plus Prettygate and Stanway (75954); Witham loses Stanway and gains Mersea (71794); Colchester everything else (74520).

Now I know what you're going to say: that's a terrible boundary in the Stanway area. Yes it is. But it's surely a damned sight less terrible than putting Old Heath and Mersea in a seat from which they are separated by an unbridged tidal estuary.

Those are basically the initial proposals, and the BCE got enough negative feedback about that that they're unlikely to change course (especially because Lexden is a lot more middle-class than Old Heath and hence generates more outraged objections.) I'm inclined to think that as the Lexden ward is leftovers, you're much better off leaving it split - the question is whether you split it between the rural bits and the Colchester bits, or between Lexden on the one hand and Braiswick and the villages on the other.

Though if you do want to try to convince the BCE they're wrong, your plan would be much improved if you split Marks Tey & Layer ward to put the 600 odd electors in the West Stanway polling district into HNE.

I don't think that's sufficient justification to split a ward.

But it's immaterial anyway, because I don't propose to make any representations in this area.

[East Anglian Lefty]

I would say that splitting the ward in some way is highly likely to improve both the seats it falls into, because I don't see any feasible configuration that includes all of Lexden, Eight Ash Green and Braiswick in the same seat that isn't horrible. If it was just one bit of Colchester and some villages then keeping it whole would make sense, because part of Colchester has to come out of the Colchester seat. But it's two different disconnected bits of Colchester which are on opposite sides of the major dividing lines within the city.

[YL]

Nov 15, 2022 11:26:31 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I've pretty much decided on my submission for Essex (essentially just trying to find a less bad version of Harwich & North Essex and accepting that some of the other seats are a little sub-optimal) but I'm less sure about Suffolk and Norfolk. My main issue is that I don't like their configuration for Norwich, but because of the way they've done groups of seats near the upper and lower limits, fixing that requires knock-on changes affecting the Suffolk seats.

There are several ways of doing that, but the more I look at the Suffolk seats the less happy I am with those - in particular, the way they've done Suffolk Coastal and CS&NI seems designed to keep all the worst aspects of both seats. I'm also sceptical that keeping Stowmarket and Bury St Edmunds together is actually good, but I suspect altering that is too much of a can of worms. But is it worth proposing more substantive changes to Suffolk Coastal & CS&NI to improve the coherence of the two seats, or am I safer just proposing a minor alteration that isn't great on its own merits to achieve the change I'm more interested in? Or am I better off proposing both, with one as my main suggestion and one as my fallback?

For what it is worth it is possible to return to the initial proposals in Norwich without disturbing the revised proposals' Suffolk seats at all. I'm not sure any of the ways I've found of doing it are actually worth considering, but it's definitely possible.

For example, compared with the revised proposals:
- move Wicklewood, Hingham & Deopham, Maltishall from Mid Norfolk to South Norfolk
- move Guiltcross, Harling & Heathlands from SW Norfolk to Mid Norfolk
- move Fakenham area from Broadland (& Fakenham) to North Norfolk
- move three wards at the west end of Broadland district to Mid Norfolk
- move four wards at the east end of North Norfolk district (which have some broads!) to Broadland

The resulting Mid Norfolk looks a bit awkward (but it is a "Mid"...) and Maltishall would be an orphan ward. Broadland would be changed quite substantially but actually looks better in some respects...