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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 27, 2021 20:18:04 GMT
I've been having a play around with Norfolk and Suffolk. I've not done it quite like that (leave Ipswich alone) but I definitely prefer the Newmarket-Mildenhall-Thetford link up.
The little pixie hat atop Norwich North is ugly but that seems like the least bad option for Norwich
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 27, 2021 20:20:27 GMT
Reading through this, it reinforces my view that there are no really good solutions for Hertfordshire, but some of these are definitely better than mine, whereas some are worse. There is absolutely no point in retaining the poor Hitchin and Harpenden seat, and it is unnecessary, although pretty much all solutions in the south west of the county are crap for at least 1 seat. Harpenden and Tring? Absolutely not. I have constructed a seat which links it with Old Welwyn - putting Northaw & Cuffley into Welwyn Hatfield rather than Hertsmere, which seems more popular. I like the compact urban seat of Hitchin/Letchworth/Baldock even though it makes the cross-county seat a bit of a monstrosity. Luckily you can link Stevenage with anything that is convenient. Bedfordshire is easy, and all the alternatives seem reasonable. So where is your cross-county seat? You've gone for the Dusntable/Berko/Tring option? No it’s north of E Herts, Royston, and Stotfield/Arlesey. Sorry I don’t have a hosting site to post a map. I’ll try and get it together next week. I have wasted 2 days trying to make sense of Hertfordshire. As discussed elsewhere I have not looked at other people’s suggestions before coming up with my own. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 27, 2021 20:32:29 GMT
Its what I posted on the previous page in other words. I don;t understand what you've done with Harpenden though - obviously Old Welwyn isn't enough to bolster it on its own
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 27, 2021 20:34:10 GMT
I've been playing around with assigning 9 seats to Norfolk and 26 to Suffolk and Essex. The former is pretty dull, the latter is a nightmare round Colchester (where the cross-borough seat needs to go) and where you'd likely end up with something that makes the 1983-1997 split of Colchester look reasonable. Worryingly, the map elsewhere is nice and neat, so I'm now fretting that the BCE may seriously consider this.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 27, 2021 20:36:17 GMT
I was actually playing around with a variation of the EAL plan because I'm attracted by the Hitchin/Letchworth link. I'm not actually that averse to it but I think its a bit unlikely to be accepted because of what will be seen as the unnecessary tearing up of Broxbourne and Hertsmere  If you're going with the Dunstable link with Herts it should definitely be with HArpenden rather than Tring/Berko (but they may not feel that way in Harpenden). Stotfold/Arlesley etc links with Hitchin but as I said over the page, not at all with the non-Letchworth territory currently in NE Herts |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 27, 2021 20:49:54 GMT
I've been playing around with assigning 9 seats to Norfolk and 26 to Suffolk and Essex. The former is pretty dull, the latter is a nightmare round Colchester (where the cross-borough seat needs to go) and where you'd likely end up with something that makes the 1983-1997 split of Colchester look reasonable. Worryingly, the map elsewhere is nice and neat, so I'm now fretting that the BCE may seriously consider this. Maybe the fact that Babergh is good for one quota (and more or less matches the current South Suffolk) means they will leave well alone there. Are there other options? Haverhill and Saffron Walden - that will provoke the pitchforks for sure and plenty of them in that area |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 27, 2021 21:08:54 GMT
There really aren't any feasible links between Saffron Walden and Haverhill. You could get away with a seat combining Sudbury and Halstead, but then there's nowhere for the rest of Babergh to go. All the decent transport links are between Colchester and Ipswich, along the railway line and the A12.
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Post by mattb on Jan 27, 2021 22:48:15 GMT
I had this Essex/Suffolk scheme but I hadn't dared to post it.  |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jan 27, 2021 23:03:03 GMT
That is a bit pitchforky, what with the Harwich and Constable country seat (and also you've split Sudbury between seats). But taking Manningtree and the rural areas north and east of Colchester into a cross border Suffolk seat does have a logic.
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Jan 27, 2021 23:16:59 GMT
I hadn't considered making any changes to the Ipswich seat, but doing so might be the key to unlocking a neater Suffolk. The question is whether the BCE would swallow that. The plan posted by mattb has a remarkably tidy North East Essex, but it looks at first glance like Saffron Walden has an orphan ward and that Chelmsford is doughnutted. Like Pete I ended up with a 'Witham & Woodham' constituency in order to avoid the latter, but having a friend from South Woodham Ferrers I realise how problematic that could prove to be. |
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Post by greenhert on Jan 27, 2021 23:20:24 GMT
I had this Essex/Suffolk scheme but I hadn't dared to post it. This map illustrates why the idea of adding Colchester and the surrounding area to Suffolk (to unite the Stour estuary, actually a dividing line between Essex and Suffolk) would was a bad idea; thankfully this never made it into the Local Government Act 1972. Had it remained in that Act the constituency map of Suffolk during 1983-97 would have looked not too dissimilar to this. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 28, 2021 6:56:38 GMT
I think Neath West's Broadland seat above is a little too long and thin for comfort. I've been trying to avoid shapes like that if possible. As David points out it is the boundary of the current seat but I do recall being pretty horrified by that when it was created ahead of the 2010 election. One way to avoid that is to go for my long-mooted plan to cross the boundary between Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. Because Great Yarmouth is in quota it seems like a non-starter but as well as appealing to me because the areas added to Lowestoft are historically in Suffolk, the rest of the plan actually works quite well and sorts out the North Norfolk/Broadland boundary by hiving North Norfolk wards to Great Yarmouth instead  |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 28, 2021 8:11:40 GMT
That is a bit pitchforky, what with the Harwich and Constable country seat (and also you've split Sudbury between seats). But taking Manningtree and the rural areas north and east of Colchester into a cross border Suffolk seat does have a logic. Harwich and Constable Country isn't that bad an idea, because there are shared interests round the Stour Estuary, but it would have to include Dedham etc. and that screws up N Essex. Splitting Sudbury from Great Cornard is a much bigger issue, and you're probably better off pairing Sudbury with Haverhill than Bury (although for numbers you might have to add Newmarket, which is a much worse link.) |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 28, 2021 8:19:39 GMT
It's awful - let's just not go there  |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 28, 2021 8:22:09 GMT
How about linking Harwich and Felixstowe via the Shotley peninsula. We could call it a doktorbian 'Estuaries of the Stour and Orwell'
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 28, 2021 8:54:03 GMT
How about linking Harwich and Felixstowe via the Shotley peninsula. We could call it a doktorbian 'Estuaries of the Stour and Orwell' Honestly, you could get approval for pretty much any plan in that bit of the world if you combined it with either upgrading the Harwich foot-ferry to take motor vehicles, a new bridge over the Colne or an A120 upgrade. |
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 28, 2021 9:49:05 GMT
I hadn't considered making any changes to the Ipswich seat, but doing so might be the key to unlocking a neater Suffolk. The question is whether the BCE would swallow that. The plan posted by mattb has a remarkably tidy North East Essex, but it looks at first glance like Saffron Walden has an orphan ward and that Chelmsford is doughnutted. Like Pete I ended up with a 'Witham & Woodham' constituency in order to avoid the latter, but having a friend from South Woodham Ferrers I realise how problematic that could prove to be. My Witham is compact but does take wards from 4 local authorities - not ideal. I am coming round to linking Witham with South Woodham, which I originally dismissed as ridiculous. |
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Jan 28, 2021 9:57:20 GMT
I hadn't considered making any changes to the Ipswich seat, but doing so might be the key to unlocking a neater Suffolk. The question is whether the BCE would swallow that. The plan posted by mattb has a remarkably tidy North East Essex, but it looks at first glance like Saffron Walden has an orphan ward and that Chelmsford is doughnutted. Like Pete I ended up with a 'Witham & Woodham' constituency in order to avoid the latter, but having a friend from South Woodham Ferrers I realise how problematic that could prove to be. My Witham is compact but does take wards from 4 local authorities - not ideal. I am coming round to linking Witham with South Woodham, which I originally dismissed as ridiculous. I've been prioritising making seats that cover as few districts as possible in my most recent revisions, perhaps excessively to the detriment of community links. On my one visited to South Woodham Ferrers I stayed with a shareholder of Southend United FC whose sister had moved to Wickford and who looked to Basildon and ultimately London for shopping, services and entertainment, and resented that the town falls under the Chelmsford council area. Since the place looks exclusively south and west rather than to the north and east, Maldon is already arguably a bad fit for it to share a constituency with, let alone somewhere further afield in that direction. On the other hand, my first go at Essex that didn't link it with Witham produced an even worse map. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 28, 2021 12:14:03 GMT
It's awful - let's just not go there Swap Bentley for St. Osyth and split Colchester north-south and you've got something that is, I fear, horribly, brutally possible. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 28, 2021 13:13:14 GMT
Alternate solution for Essex:  Saffron Walden 76748 Harlow 73479 Epping Forest 74553 Brentwood & Ongar 74937 Chelmsford 76454 Rayleigh & Wickford 75891 Basildon & Billericay 76993 S Basildon & E Thurrock 74936 Thurrock 73347 Castle Point 76569 Southend W 77016 Rochford & Southend E 72644 Maldon 75126 Witham 75706 Braintree 74871 Colchester 74520 Harwich & N Essex 74056 Clacton 70942 On the downside, Uttlesford district is split and Harlow now stretches across 3 districts. Putting Boreham in Maldon is also a little ugly. On the plus side, Epping Forest, Brentwood & Ongar, Braintree and Clacton are unchanged after re-alignment and disruption to most other seats is minimised. On a partisan level, I'm really not keen on Harlow adding any more electors than it absolutely has to, but on a practical level I'm finding it hard to see things here that the BCE would object to. |
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