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Post by Yaffles on Jun 23, 2024 17:07:22 GMT
BR&L looks a lot more East than West. This is a seat in Portsmouth's orbit, not Brighton's (it gets a bit hazy in the far east of the seat). Which is it? It looks East or it looks to Portsmouth? Never Eat Shredded Wheat |
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,039
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Post by Khunanup on Jun 23, 2024 17:16:19 GMT
BR&L looks a lot more East than West. This is a seat in Portsmouth's orbit, not Brighton's (it gets a bit hazy in the far east of the seat). Which is it? It looks East or it looks to Portsmouth? LOL, just amended. 🤦 |
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Post by wickofthesouth on Jun 23, 2024 17:29:51 GMT
Bognor definitely looks towards Portsmouth. I think once you're in the far East of the seat, Rustington etc. you're very much in the ambit of Worthing/Brighton.
I get the sense that Littlehampton isnt really anchored to either (despite being technically part of the Brighton metropolitan area) and that is part of the reason why Littlehampton remains so down-at-heel.
One of the big challenges if you were ever to turn West Sussex into 2 or 3 unitaries (which I admit I spend more time thinking about than I really should) is what to do with Arun DC. Bognor really needs to be with Chi and Littlehampton with Worthing, but separating Bognor and Littlehampton doesn't feel right.
But a unitary stretching from the edge of Portslade all the way to the Hampshire border (which would be the only way to accommodate the above) wouldn't be right either.
Sorry, didn't mean to stray so far off topic!
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Post by John Chanin on Jun 23, 2024 17:44:06 GMT
Littlehampton is a shithole and has always had a large Labour vote Inelegant and correct as usual |
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Post by finsobruce on Jun 23, 2024 18:06:48 GMT
Bognor definitely looks towards Portsmouth. I think once you're in the far East of the seat, Rustington etc. you're very much in the ambit of Worthing/Brighton. I get the sense that Littlehampton isnt really anchored to either (despite being technically part of the Brighton metropolitan area) and that is part of the reason why Littlehampton remains so down-at-heel. One of the big challenges if you were ever to turn West Sussex into 2 or 3 unitaries (which I admit I spend more time thinking about than I really should) is what to do with Arun DC. Bognor really needs to be with Chi and Littlehampton with Worthing, but separating Bognor and Littlehampton doesn't feel right. But a unitary stretching from the edge of Portslade all the way to the Hampshire border (which would be the only way to accommodate the above) wouldn't be right either. Sorry, didn't mean to stray so far off topic!No apology necessary. These are helpful thoughts for non locals like myself. |
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Foggy
Non-Aligned
Yn Ennill Yma
Posts: 6,141 
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Post by Foggy on Jun 23, 2024 19:44:40 GMT
Bognor definitely looks towards Portsmouth. I think once you're in the far East of the seat, Rustington etc. you're very much in the ambit of Worthing/Brighton. I get the sense that Littlehampton isnt really anchored to either (despite being technically part of the Brighton metropolitan area) and that is part of the reason why Littlehampton remains so down-at-heel. One of the big challenges if you were ever to turn West Sussex into 2 or 3 unitaries (which I admit I spend more time thinking about than I really should) is what to do with Arun DC. Bognor really needs to be with Chi and Littlehampton with Worthing, but separating Bognor and Littlehampton doesn't feel right. But a unitary stretching from the edge of Portslade all the way to the Hampshire border (which would be the only way to accommodate the above) wouldn't be right either. You've fallen into successive governments' trap of a failure of imagination: there's no reason unitarisation should have to mean simple mergers of existing districts just for Whitehall cartographers' administrative convenience. And in the specific case of Sussex, West going unitary while East remains two-tier would be a peculiar arrangement indeed – might as well review the whole area while you're at it and if one new authority is best served by containing bits of Mid Sussex and either Lewes or Wealden, then so be it. |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,800
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jun 23, 2024 20:38:07 GMT
Bognor definitely looks towards Portsmouth. I think once you're in the far East of the seat, Rustington etc. you're very much in the ambit of Worthing/Brighton. I get the sense that Littlehampton isnt really anchored to either (despite being technically part of the Brighton metropolitan area) and that is part of the reason why Littlehampton remains so down-at-heel. One of the big challenges if you were ever to turn West Sussex into 2 or 3 unitaries (which I admit I spend more time thinking about than I really should) is what to do with Arun DC. Bognor really needs to be with Chi and Littlehampton with Worthing, but separating Bognor and Littlehampton doesn't feel right. But a unitary stretching from the edge of Portslade all the way to the Hampshire border (which would be the only way to accommodate the above) wouldn't be right either. You've fallen into successive governments' trap of a failure of imagination: there's no reason unitarisation should have to mean simple mergers of existing districts just for Whitehall cartographers' administrative convenience. This was the failure with the recent Nortyh Yorkshire reforms. The only option on the table was merger of existing districts. The best option other than an 8-way merger would be a three-way split slicing Hambleton in two, annexing Selby to East Yorkshire, and extinguishing NYCC. But the rules were written to forbid that, so the sole remaining option was the 8-way merger. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2024 22:11:59 GMT
Hahahaha we already have this as a tossup lol.
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Post by froome on Jun 24, 2024 6:07:53 GMT
I would expect this to be a Labour gain, and with the Conservative disarray, it might not even be close.
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Post by rcronald on Jun 24, 2024 7:29:07 GMT
Very little insight to offer, tbh. What with one thing and another, I've not been to either Bognor or LA (as the young uns call it) for a while now, and i'm out of the loop on their local politics. We just need people priced out of Worthing to start buying houses in Littlehampton! I suspect that could happen in this decade as part of the general San Francisco Bay Area-ification of the Sussex Coast. It's a bit speculative, but then buying property always is speculative to a degree. The Humboldt county of the UK?   Humboldt county isn’t a part of the Bay Area. It’s heavily Dem because much of its economy is dependent on growing marijuana, and it has a lot of hippie residents (and they aren’t recent, they started to move in the 70s). |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2024 7:45:19 GMT
We just need people priced out of Worthing to start buying houses in Littlehampton! I suspect that could happen in this decade as part of the general San Francisco Bay Area-ification of the Sussex Coast. It's a bit speculative, but then buying property always is speculative to a degree. The Humboldt county of the UK? Humboldt county isn’t a part of the Bay Area. It’s heavily Dem because much of its economy is dependent on growing marijuana, and it has a lot of hippie residents (and they aren’t recent, they started to move in the 70s). That I didn't know. Maybe I'm confusing it with the one further south. I was going to go with Napa as a comparison but it's not on the coast. Hove as San Mateo and Kemptown as Santa Cruz works. Maybe Worthing is Marin County. Given climate change, there's no reason Sussex couldn't become like the Napa valley for wine-growing in the coming decades. Similarly, you could grow marijuana in the South Downs if you really wanted to rig up the hydroponics to do it. Littlehampton is probably as far from Brighton as Sacramento is from SF relatively speaking, but it's more blue collar than most places in the Bay Area. |
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 24, 2024 7:46:43 GMT
We just need people priced out of Worthing to start buying houses in Littlehampton! I suspect that could happen in this decade as part of the general San Francisco Bay Area-ification of the Sussex Coast. It's a bit speculative, but then buying property always is speculative to a degree. The Humboldt county of the UK? Humboldt county isn’t a part of the Bay Area. It’s heavily Dem because much of its economy is dependent on growing marijuana, and it has a lot of hippie residents (and they aren’t recent, they started to move in the 70s). Sounds just like Littlehampton! And yes I do know it pretty well- my son lived there for some decades before his recent death, and I have various family there including two grandchildren in the thirties. And I do know quite a few hippy types in the area for whom selling weed is their main source of income. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2024 7:49:45 GMT
Pavilion = San Francisco
Hove = San Mateo
Kemptown = Santa Cruz
Lewes = Yolo
Eastbourne = Sonoma
Worthing East = Marin
Worthing West = San Joaquin
Bognor Regis = Humboldt
Chichester = Mendocino
I'll get my coat
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Post by rcronald on Jun 24, 2024 7:50:03 GMT
Humboldt county isn’t a part of the Bay Area. It’s heavily Dem because much of its economy is dependent on growing marijuana, and it has a lot of hippie residents (and they aren’t recent, they started to move in the 70s). That I didn't know. Maybe I'm confusing it with the one further south. I was going to go with Napa as a comparison but it's not on the coast. Hove as San Mateo and Kemptown as Santa Cruz works. Maybe Worthing is Marin County. Given climate change, there's no reason Sussex couldn't become like the Napa valley for wine-growing in the coming decades. Similarly, you could grow marijuana in the South Downs if you really wanted to rig up the hydroponics to do it. Santa Cruz is heavily Dem because of UCSC (and heavy hippie influence during the late 60s), it was quite conservative before it was constructed and is a part of the central coast. The closest thing to this constituency would actually be San Joaquin, and Solano counties. (Probably San Joaquin as it is still not politically Bay Area, but has a lot of super-commuters and poor people) |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 24, 2024 7:52:11 GMT
I would expect this to be a Labour gain, and with the Conservative disarray, it might not even be close. It would take a 22% swing for Labour to gain this which is more than even the dire opinion polls indicate - for it to not be close what sort of swing do you envisage? Of course the Conservatives stand to lose a bigger vote share in seats like this than the average (on the 'the bigger they are the harder they fall' principle) but then a large part of that lost Conservative vote is taken up by Reform, in which case this has the potential to be a three way marginal. Reform should really be included in the poll as if they do start to win siezable number of seats this is a prime contender (although its unfortunate that this is where David Kurten is standing as that will split the right-wing vote a bit) |
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 24, 2024 8:12:37 GMT
Littlehampton is a shithole and has always had a large Labour vote Inelegant and correct as usual trouble is I feel Pete really means "because" rather than "and" |
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Post by batman on Jun 24, 2024 9:04:20 GMT
I am quite sure that Pete would be willing to concede that there are shitholes where Labour does not have a particularly good vote
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Post by froome on Jun 24, 2024 9:08:31 GMT
I would expect this to be a Labour gain, and with the Conservative disarray, it might not even be close. It would take a 22% swing for Labour to gain this which is more than even the dire opinion polls indicate - for it to not be close what sort of swing do you envisage? Of course the Conservatives stand to lose a bigger vote share in seats like this than the average (on the 'the bigger they are the harder they fall' principle) but then a large part of that lost Conservative vote is taken up by Reform, in which case this has the potential to be a three way marginal. Reform should really be included in the poll as if they do start to win siezable number of seats this is a prime contender (although its unfortunate that this is where David Kurten is standing as that will split the right-wing vote a bit) This is the sort of seat I can see being in the "We didn't see that one coming" type of reaction from the media and others, as I cansee it having a very large swing. This is obviously dependent on Labour actually working it hard, which not being local I don't know. Littlehampton is probably moving quickly into the Sussex coast Labour influence that is spreading from its east. I would expect the Conservative vote to hold reasonably well in the large private estates around Bognor, but the rest of the area could see Labour making big inroads. I agree that Reform will be a major factor here as well, though I don't think it is a realistic seat for them to win. So it could end up with a split something like Labour 35%, Conservative 25%, Reform 25% and the rest, inc Kurten, 15%. |
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Post by jamesdoyle on Jun 24, 2024 9:38:02 GMT
Bognor definitely looks towards Portsmouth. I think once you're in the far East of the seat, Rustington etc. you're very much in the ambit of Worthing/Brighton. I get the sense that Littlehampton isnt really anchored to either (despite being technically part of the Brighton metropolitan area) and that is part of the reason why Littlehampton remains so down-at-heel. One of the big challenges if you were ever to turn West Sussex into 2 or 3 unitaries (which I admit I spend more time thinking about than I really should) is what to do with Arun DC. Bognor really needs to be with Chi and Littlehampton with Worthing, but separating Bognor and Littlehampton doesn't feel right. But a unitary stretching from the edge of Portslade all the way to the Hampshire border (which would be the only way to accommodate the above) wouldn't be right either. Sorry, didn't mean to stray so far off topic! I too once spent far more time than was justifiable thinking about West Sussex unitaries. If you're looking at a coastal urban unitary, then everything between the Arun and the Adur is core. On the west side Littlehampton is included, but Bognor isn't. They don't really like each other much, partly because both being in Arun sets them against each other for funding, but also because Littlehampton looks to Worthing and Bognor to Chi. On the east side, Lancing and Sompting are definitely Worthing-facing. Southwick and Shoreham much less so, and I think given the choice they might well choose to be in B&H instead; certainly that would have been the case a few years back and I find it hard to imagine they've moved away from that view since. So that gives a thorny issue of crossing county boundaries. There's also an issue of how far north you go - although the Downs would seem a natural barrier, there are villages along the north side of the Downs who look towards Worthing and/or Shoreham as their nearest centre, and there's certainly an anti-Horsham feeling there. But current ward boundaries aren't helpfull, because they are so rural and extended, wihout ward or parish splitting you'd either exclude places that would want to be in the unitary, or include places that didn't want to. I do have a map somewhere of this... The final problem is that then you end up with either everything else in a West Sussex unitary with a strong imbalance between the urban parts in the north and the rural elsewhere, or you split off Crawley and Horsham into another urban unitary. And that would go down so well... |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 24, 2024 10:22:10 GMT
I'd just have three unitaries for the whole of Sussex:
East Sussex as per the county council area now but less Peacehaven/Telscombe/Saltdean
A coastal unitary covering Brighton & Hove, Adur Worthing and including from Arun, Litthampton and the coastal strip between there and Worthing - possibly also to include Angmering and Findon. In the East it would expand only so far as Peachehaven (though I can see an argument for extending it to Newhaven or even to Seaford)
West Sussex being the remainder of West Sussex
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