750 seat House of Commons

[Pete Whitehead]

I have long held that 750 seats is the optimum number for drawing constituencies which match natural communities. The formula is broadly similar to that used in that latest review - the five island constituencies remain protected. I have gone for a more generous 10% threshold and have sought to avoid crossing county boundaries. Where I have done so it is a case of Met boroughs formerly in Warwickshire and Warwickshire, or Met boroughs formerly in Cheshire and Cheshire (Warwickshire has an entitlement to 7 seats but it is virtually impossible to draw 7 seats wholly within the county). I am not wedded to the regions except in as much as the regional boundaries are also county boundaries in most cases. In the case of North/NE Lincolnshire, this area would have been linked with Lincolnshire rather than the East Riding but in the event it was possible to draw four constituencies wholly within the area.
Other cases where I have crossed county boundaries is where there is some ambiguity such as between East and West Sussex and between Herefordshire and Worcestershire. I have avoided ward splitting in most cases although several will be necessary in Scotland.

Starting (naturally) with London, one seat takes wards from three boroughs (Highgate which is a bit of a special case) all the others are contained within one or two boroughs.











Edit: 86 is obviously Bromley

[Pete Whitehead]

I'm generally happy with what I've done in the 'East of England'. I don't care much for all the compass point names in Norfolk but no town dominates enough or is central enough to justify its use - not a problem I had in Suffolk.
Soke of Peterborough is a bit of a gag (both in terms of being a joke and being vomit inducing) but I think the boundaries are sound and I don't like 'Peterborough Outer'. It's obviously possible to divide Peterborough in various other ways - East/West, North/South.
Colchester is a blatant troll. I initially drew this as a doughnut as well (with Lexden, Highwoods and Mile End in the Outer seat) but couldn't settle on a name - again Colchester Outer is unacceptable, Colne Valley is taken and Essex North really isn't a fair description. Tiptree was possible but is in a corner of the seat..













Ignore my entirely inconsistent placing of compass points before/after county names. Obviously for county seats the formulation is compass point + county and the reverse for borough seats.

[Pete Whitehead]

One split ward here to keep Marlow together and the relevant seats in quota (namely Flackwell Heath, Little Marlow and Marlow South East )

[East Anglian Lefty]

Dec 29, 2023 10:56:22 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I'm generally happy with what I've done in the 'East of England'. I don't care much for all the compass point names in Norfolk but no town dominates enough or is central enough to justify its use - not a problem I had in Suffolk.
Soke of Peterborough is a bit of a gag (both in terms of being a joke and being vomit inducing) but I think the boundaries are sound and I don't like 'Peterborough Outer'. It's obviously possible to divide Peterborough in various other ways - East/West, North/South.
Colchester is a blatant troll. I initially drew this as a doughnut as well (with Lexden, Highwoods and Mile End in the Outer seat) but couldn't settle on a name - again Colchester Outer is unacceptable, Colne Valley is taken and Essex North really isn't a fair description. Tiptree was possible but is in a corner of the seat..













Ignore my entirely inconsistent placing of compass points before/after county names. Obviously for county seats the formulation is compass point + county and the reverse for borough seats.

That split of Colchester is about the best one the ward lines allow, in terms of the feel of the area if not the partisan impact.

On the other hand, I think you've made a bit of a mess of Chelmsford and I'm not sure I like the Braintree district seats either. Probably best to start with three seats in Braintree and Uttlesford and four in Epping Forest/Chelmsford/Maldon? Or if not that then pair Witham with Chelmsford district, pair Halstead with Saffron Walden, the south of Uttlesford with Epping and have a second seat entirely in Chelmsford district?

[therealriga]

I started looking through North-West England which gets 83 seats.

Cumbria is fine so all 6 can stay unchanged.

Lancashire gets an extra one. Morecambe, Lancaster, Fylde, Preston, Hyndburn, Pendle and Burnley are all fine. Blackpool South simply needed to gain a ward from north. The new seat was "Bamber Bridge and Leyland." This meant that South Ribble had to expand by gaining 3 wards from West Lancs and 1 Chorley ward. I also added a Southport ward to it. That's dubious but Sefton was at 3.34 and the only alternative was to add 1 ward to Knowsley North and Knowsley worked better by making up the numbers adding Rainhill from St Helens. Ribble Valley gained 3 wards including Garstang from Wyre and 1 ward in the north of Blackburn. The last was a bit ugly but it allowed Blackburn to gain Blackburn South ward, bringing Rossendale and D in quota.

Liverpool (5.12) was easy. 3 of the Liverpool seats are fine. So Liverpool Garston was revived by removing the Halewood wards and adding Mossley Hill ward from Riverside.

Wirral had 3.77, West Cheshire 4.18 and East Cheshire 4.65. I tried to draw entirely within both the first and last but didn't find a way without ward splits, so I went for "Bebington and Neston." 1 of the new seats was created by splitting Crewe with "Crewe East and Sandbach" the new one. An alternative is keeping Crewe intact and having a "South Cheshire" seat looping round the south edge of Crewe containing Alsager, Sandbach and Nantwich. The Crewe split seemed better.

Halton (1.47) and Warrington (2.45) got 4 seats. The new one was "Warrington South and Norbury" (I'm sure there's a better name) with the existing South seat becoming Warrington West.

Haven't done GM yet but have
Oldham (2.51) and Rochdale (2.48) for 5.
Manchester (5.54) and Trafford (2.63) for 8.
Stockport (3.42) and Tameside (2.65) for 6.
Wigan (3.68), Salford (2.69), Bolton (3.06) and Bury (2.2) for the last 12. Looks messy, I was looking at trying to keep Bolton and Wigan as one pairing and the other two as the second but the numbers are tricky without splitting Westhoughton.

[John Chanin]

Christmas makes us all bored and looking for something to do. But why 750? Why not 450? Or 1000? Or a standard 50,000 regardless of how many it adds up to?

[Pete Whitehead]

Dec 31, 2023 13:51:12 GMT John Chanin said:

Christmas makes us all bored and looking for something to do. But why 750? Why not 450? Or 1000? Or a standard 50,000 regardless of how many it adds up to?

It's fuck all to do with Christmas - I just have the time to post this now. I created these maps weeks ago. 750 is the number because as I said it seems to be the best number to allow normal sized towns like Watford and Hemel Hempstead and Stevenage and Harlow to stand alone and for normal areas of London like Hornchurch and Dagenham to do so

[Pete Whitehead]

Dec 31, 2023 13:47:24 GMT therealriga said:

I started looking through North-West England which gets 83 seats.

Cumbria is fine so all 6 can stay unchanged.

Lancashire gets an extra one. Morecambe, Lancaster, Fylde, Preston, Hyndburn, Pendle and Burnley are all fine. Blackpool South simply needed to gain a ward from north. The new seat was "Bamber Bridge and Leyland." This meant that South Ribble had to expand by gaining 3 wards from West Lancs and 1 Chorley ward. I also added a Southport ward to it. That's dubious but Sefton was at 3.34 and the only alternative was to add 1 ward to Knowsley North and Knowsley worked better by making up the numbers adding Rainhill from St Helens. Ribble Valley gained 3 wards including Garstang from Wyre and 1 ward in the north of Blackburn. The last was a bit ugly but it allowed Blackburn to gain Blackburn South ward, bringing Rossendale and D in quota.

Liverpool (5.12) was easy. 3 of the Liverpool seats are fine. So Liverpool Garston was revived by removing the Halewood wards and adding Mossley Hill ward from Riverside.

Wirral had 3.77, West Cheshire 4.18 and East Cheshire 4.65. I tried to draw entirely within both the first and last but didn't find a way without ward splits, so I went for "Bebington and Neston." 1 of the new seats was created by splitting Crewe with "Crewe East and Sandbach" the new one. An alternative is keeping Crewe intact and having a "South Cheshire" seat looping round the south edge of Crewe containing Alsager, Sandbach and Nantwich. The Crewe split seemed better.

Halton (1.47) and Warrington (2.45) got 4 seats. The new one was "Warrington South and Norbury" (I'm sure there's a better name) with the existing South seat becoming Warrington West.

Haven't done GM yet but have
Oldham (2.51) and Rochdale (2.48) for 5.
Manchester (5.54) and Trafford (2.63) for 8.
Stockport (3.42) and Tameside (2.65) for 6.
Wigan (3.68), Salford (2.69), Bolton (3.06) and Bury (2.2) for the last 12. Looks messy, I was looking at trying to keep Bolton and Wigan as one pairing and the other two as the second but the numbers are tricky without splitting Westhoughton.

I was going to work my way North but may post the North West maps now. I've not been too wedded to pairing this borough and that borough as it becomes proscriptive and you're probably going to need to split wards to do that.

[Pete Whitehead]

As you say no need to change the Cumbria seats

[Pete Whitehead]

Feel free to do a scheme of 450 seats John Chanin I guarantee they will be shit and that will be no reflection on you

[nyx]

I've tried playing around with creating 100,000-elector seats before (i.e. anything from 95000-105000 given 5% deviation), which probably adds up to roughly 450 total, and it seems to work fine.

[andrewteale]

I had a very quick go at a 31-seat Greater Manchester. I agree with Pete's seats in Bolton and Wigan but the rest of the county came out rather different...

[therealriga]

Dec 31, 2023 13:56:43 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Dec 31, 2023 13:47:24 GMT therealriga said:

Haven't done GM yet but have
Oldham (2.51) and Rochdale (2.48) for 5.
Manchester (5.54) and Trafford (2.63) for 8.
Stockport (3.42) and Tameside (2.65) for 6.
Wigan (3.68), Salford (2.69), Bolton (3.06) and Bury (2.2) for the last 12. Looks messy, I was looking at trying to keep Bolton and Wigan as one pairing and the other two as the second but the numbers are tricky without splitting Westhoughton.

I was going to work my way North but may post the North West maps now. I've not been too wedded to pairing this borough and that borough as it becomes proscriptive and you're probably going to need to split wards to do that.

Traditionally they do use local authorities (obviously less so in the recent review due to the more proscriptive 5% threshold) and a 10% threshold seems more like a step back to the previous system. Anyway, I was able to do it for Salford/Bury and Bolton/Wigan pairings and the rest of GM without ward splits. 10% gives you decent wriggle room.

[J.G.Harston]

Dec 31, 2023 14:24:55 GMT nyx said:

I've tried playing around with creating 100,000-elector seats before (i.e. anything from 95000-105000 given 5% deviation), which probably adds up to roughly 450 total, and it seems to work fine.

Something I've been gathering data for is to draw population-based seats rather than electorate-based seats. My initial expectation is that proportionally London would shoot up, and non-London would drop down.

[Pete Whitehead]

Dec 31, 2023 20:22:39 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Dec 31, 2023 14:24:55 GMT nyx said:

I've tried playing around with creating 100,000-elector seats before (i.e. anything from 95000-105000 given 5% deviation), which probably adds up to roughly 450 total, and it seems to work fine.

Something I've been gathering data for is to draw population-based seats rather than electorate-based seats. My initial expectation is that proportionally London would shoot up, and non-London would drop down.

Not if you went for citizens only (and you have indicated you would limit the franchise to UK citizens)

[Pete Whitehead]

[YL]

I like a lot of this, but in Cambridgeshire wouldn't it be better to use the Cam as the boundary north-east of the city? Was the point to avoid the exclave?

[Pete Whitehead]

Jan 2, 2024 9:54:07 GMT YL said:

I like a lot of this, but in Cambridgeshire wouldn't it be better to use the Cam as the boundary north-east of the city? Was the point to avoid the exclave?

It was more to allow the South East Cambridgeshire seat to be a de facto Cambridge Outer but I did want to avoid the exclave (I've abolished the one in Norwich as well)

[mattb]

Dec 31, 2023 13:54:40 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Dec 31, 2023 13:51:12 GMT John Chanin said:

Christmas makes us all bored and looking for something to do. But why 750? Why not 450? Or 1000? Or a standard 50,000 regardless of how many it adds up to?

It's fuck all to do with Christmas - I just have the time to post this now. I created these maps weeks ago. 750 is the number because as I said it seems to be the best number to allow normal sized towns like Watford and Hemel Hempstead and Stevenage and Harlow to stand alone and for normal areas of London like Hornchurch and Dagenham to do so

Surely the thing that actually makes the difference is moving to 10% variance rather than 5% ?
With 650 seats but a 10% variance you avoid almost all the cross-county seats (and you're not worried about crossing met boroughs as you've said).
750 happens to fit towns in Herts - but it happens not to work for others e.g. Bedford, Basingstoke, Crawley, Basildon, Chelmsford ....

[Pete Whitehead]

Jan 2, 2024 11:41:59 GMT mattb said:

Dec 31, 2023 13:54:40 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

It's fuck all to do with Christmas - I just have the time to post this now. I created these maps weeks ago. 750 is the number because as I said it seems to be the best number to allow normal sized towns like Watford and Hemel Hempstead and Stevenage and Harlow to stand alone and for normal areas of London like Hornchurch and Dagenham to do so

Surely the thing that actually makes the difference is moving to 10% variance rather than 5% ?
With 650 seats but a 10% variance you avoid almost all the cross-county seats (and you're not worried about crossing met boroughs as you've said).
750 happens to fit towns in Herts - but it happens not to work for others e.g. Bedford, Basingstoke, Crawley, Basildon, Chelmsford ....

It works some places better than others of course (and I've tried many other different sets of numbers which work less well in most places). Bedfordshire generally was a little awkward and as you say the 10% threshold helps. I'm actually happy with Basildon as although not all of the town is in a single seat, most of it is and it's avoided the mess we've had really since 1983 in that area. Basingstoke's porblem is mainly to do with the way the wards are drawn there.