2018 review - Yorkshire and the Humber

[YL]

Oct 15, 2016 21:46:47 GMT Adrian said:

I've done a Google Map of my S/W Yorkshire. www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1oUM7rKAHqMg_ZjQqJjmn2Mv223c I've changed a few things from my previous ideas. I've reverted to the traditional Doncaster seats. I've added the Haworth ward to my Calder Valley seat. Not ideal, but on balance I think it's better than the 3 split wards I needed before. I'm not happy with the boundary between Central and North Leeds, but moving it will require a split ward.

I like this, except for your use of boring names in Sheffield. I suspect it may go slightly beyond what the Commission are prepared to accept in split wards, though. (Is it three in Sheffield, two in Leeds and one each in Kirklees and Wakefield?)

[andrewteale]

Oct 15, 2016 21:46:47 GMT Adrian said:

Oct 14, 2016 6:35:58 GMT robert1 said:

Yes JG I was there and will be today.

Labour submission was, as with NW, very much a holding position with limited changes to s Humberside.

Tories split 1 ward in Leeds and 3 in Sheffield. This removed need to cross into North Yorkshire and substantially reduces cross authority seats. Many more unchanged or 'unchanged +' seats.
Lib Dems also split a ward in Sheffield to reduce disruption in the city.

This sounds quite hopeful, especially the Tory submission. Is Roger Pratt still presenting for them?

As for Labour, is Greg Cook doing their presenting again? What I saw of him 5 years ago was quite poor. The party might make robust noises about criticising the Review, but the reality is weak.

Yes, Pratt and Cook are still very much in situ.

[Adrian]

Oct 16, 2016 8:06:15 GMT YL said:

Oct 15, 2016 21:46:47 GMT Adrian said:

I've done a Google Map of my S/W Yorkshire. www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1oUM7rKAHqMg_ZjQqJjmn2Mv223c I've changed a few things from my previous ideas. I've reverted to the traditional Doncaster seats. I've added the Haworth ward to my Calder Valley seat. Not ideal, but on balance I think it's better than the 3 split wards I needed before. I'm not happy with the boundary between Central and North Leeds, but moving it will require a split ward.

I like this, except for your use of boring names in Sheffield. I suspect it may go slightly beyond what the Commission are prepared to accept in split wards, though. (Is it three in Sheffield, two in Leeds and one each in Kirklees and Wakefield?)

Yes. Sheffield could be reduced to two splits, and I think it's possible to wangle Wakefield to remove that split. As far as the rest is concerned, it depends entirely on whether the Commission's hard line in its initial proposals was simply a bargaining position. It has said that it's prepared to countenance split wards where they avoid ugly knock-on effects, and it's clearly possible to argue the case in Sheffield, Leeds and Kirklees.

This is partly why the Labour position annoys me. If all three parties were strongly pro ward-splits, the Commission would probably see sense. Labour criticise the process in the media, but they go out of their way to avoid rocking the boat when they make submissions to the BCE. In other words, they don't propose any split wards because such proposals might not be accepted per se. Okay, it makes political sense, but it's still hypocritical and craven.

[J.G.Harston]

Oct 14, 2016 6:35:58 GMT robert1 said:

Tories split 1 ward in Leeds and 3 in Sheffield. This removed need to cross into North Yorkshire and substantially reduces cross authority seats. Many more unchanged or 'unchanged +' seats.
Lib Dems also split a ward in Sheffield to reduce disruption in the city. Also redesigned Bradford and Calderdale.
Tories said they would consider alternative submissions which might reduce need to split and LDs indicated willingness to consider alternatives, essentially, I think, including splits.
Many witnesses from Bradford S complaining of redistribution into other authorities.
John Grogan (former MP) produced alternative plans for Keighley and Shipley and 2 options for rest of Bradford.

Any sketch maps of those proposals? Or word sketches? I'm writing up notes for tomorrow and Tuesday in Sheffield and it would be useful to be able to support options other people have already put in.

[islington]

Oct 14, 2016 6:54:56 GMT YL said:

Glad to hear that at least a couple of the parties are proposing splitting wards in Sheffield (though splitting 3 is more than I expect the Commission to accept).

The thing to bear in mind, though, before YL and Adrian get too cock-a-hoop about political parties' proposals to split wards, is that the parties' motivations won't have anything to do with the reasons that contributors here want to do it. I really doubt whether political parties have the slightest interest in better community ties and considerations like that - their concern will be solely with partisan advantage, so their split-ward suggestions (like their other suggestions) will not necessarily be an improvement in the terms that matter to contributors here (indeed, they may even be worse).

I'm not blaming political parties for acting in this way - it's in their nature to do so, and we need to recognize that.

[YL]

Oct 16, 2016 13:06:18 GMT islington said:

Oct 14, 2016 6:54:56 GMT YL said:

Glad to hear that at least a couple of the parties are proposing splitting wards in Sheffield (though splitting 3 is more than I expect the Commission to accept).

The thing to bear in mind, though, before YL and Adrian get too cock-a-hoop about political parties' proposals to split wards, is that the parties' motivations won't have anything to do with the reasons that contributors here want to do it. I really doubt whether political parties have the slightest interest in better community ties and considerations like that - their concern will be solely with partisan advantage, so their split-ward suggestions (like their other suggestions) will not necessarily be an improvement in the terms that matter to contributors here (indeed, they may even be worse).

I'm not blaming political parties for acting in this way - it's in their nature to do so, and we need to recognize that.

What partisan advantage do you think the Tories could possibly get from proposing to split three wards in Sheffield, barring some bizarre and totally blatant gerrymander?

[islington]

YL -

Yes, of course you're right (although I'd like to see the gerrymander that could conjure a Tory seat out of Sheffield).

Although, as a general point (but not in Sheffield), I'd still be very wary of the motives of political parties.

[iain]

Oct 16, 2016 13:36:34 GMT islington said:

YL -

Yes, of course you're right (although I'd like to see the gerrymander that could conjure a Tory seat out of Sheffield).

Although, as a general point (but not in Sheffield), I'd still be very wary of the motives of political parties.

Best they could get would be:
Dore & Totley, Fulwood, Stannington, Stocksbridge & Upper Don, Penistone East, Penistone West

On Pete Whitehead's figures that would be:
Labour - 17,834
Lib Dem - 14,992
Conservative - 12,863
UKIP - 7,245
Green - 761
Other - 501

[islington]

That's actually much more Tory-friendly than I thought possible.

So if you split wards to carve a couple of strong Lab or Lib Dem PDs out of that; and shoehorn in a couple of Tory-leaning PDs from other wards - the Tories could actually be in business.

(I hasten to add - I'm not alleging that this is what they've actually sought to do in Sheffield. But it's a striking demonstration of what is possible.)

[YL]

Without crossing the regional boundary and without ward splitting I think the best I can do for the Tories with at least 3 Sheffield wards is Fulwood, Stannington, Stocksbridge & Upper Don, Penistone West, Holme Valley South, Holme Valley North.

If you cross the regional boundary I think you can get a Tory seat. Take Dore & Totley, Fulwood and Ecclesall, then from NE Derbyshire take the Dronfield wards (including Coal Aston and Gosforth Valley) and the three rural wards west of Chesterfield, then add everything in Derbyshire Dales from Chatsworth, Litton & Longstone and Tideswell northwards. I know Electoral Calculus's notionals don't have a great reputation, but it puts the Tories over 1000 ahead of Labour. (You can probably do better if you're more careful about the choice of Derbyshire wards.) And it's no more insane than what the Commission actually proposed...

[J.G.Harston]

Quick summary of Sheffield Day 1. I'll be speaking at Day 2, and will be updating my notes this evening in light of presentations today.

Commissioner
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BC choses to work in regions, this is supported by previous reviews. There is no prohibition on cross-region seats, but this would require overwhelming supporting evidence.

BC is required to take account of external and internal local authority boundaries that existed on 7 May 2015 and is required to use the electorate numebrs as published on 1st Dec 2015.

BC chose to not split any wards in the initial proposal, it believes that this is bacause they are consistant community units, and not splitting them avoids aplitting communities and makes for easier administration by local election officals. Accepts that there can be supporting evidence of splitting wards where it would make for a better solution.

Reminded people that the 5% quota is the sole fixed requirement that cannot be wored around, everything else can be worked around if they form a strong argument to support that one sole fixed requirement within the matters that influence that requirement.

Sheffield LibDems, Andy Sangar
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Recommend rotating Beauchief&Greenhill, Nether Edge, Ecclesall, and remove two PDs from Fulwood to result in:

Hallam: remove B&G, remove Fulwood NB,NC (Endcliffe Edge/Village) add Ecclesall, giving:
Penistone East, Stocksbridge, Stannington, Ecclesall, Dore&Totley, Fulwood sans Endcliffe
Heeley: remove Nether Edge add B&G giving:
Beauchief&Greenhill, Graves, Gleadless, Arborthone, Manor/Castle, Birley
Central: remove Ecclesall add Nether Edge and NB/NC (Endcliffe Edge/Village) giving:
Walkley, Crookes, Central, Broomhill, Nether Edge, Endcliffe from Fulwood

Supporting arguments that Ecc-D&T-Fulwood better tied togather than Ecc links to Broomhill, particularly the narrow neck joining them. Ecc-D&T-Ful have been in the same seat for decades, NE has been in a Central seat since 1993. NE/Ecc boundary (Brincliff Edge) harder than Ecc/D&T boundary.

Recommend keep old names, Hallam, Heeley, Central (not Central & West), etc.

Mrs Dare, Mrs Eagles, Mosborough residents
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Upset they have only found out about this a couple of days ago.
Do NOT want to be in a Rotherham seat, so much that this may dissuade them from voting at all.
Mosborough/Beighton have no commonality of interest with Wales, Kiveton Park, Maltby, etc. The M1 os a strong barrier to their east. Feel like they are being pushed out of Sheffield, should be kept in a Sheffield seat.

Cllr Hanraham, Crookes&Crosspool LD councillor:
Supports including Crookes in with Central, Crookes, particularly the Crookes half of the Crookes&Crosspool ward, has strong ties to Broomhill and Walkley and looks towards the universities and the city centre. Many students and university-related facilities in Crookes, makes a workable model to group student dominated areas together.

Nether Edge, particularly towards Hunters Bar in the north, also has strong student and university ties, supports putting Nether Edge into Central.

Beauchief&Greenhill - Grave Park boundary very pourous, not a strong line on the ground, does not work as a constituency boundary, support including B&G in with Heeley. Also supports old names, Hallam, Heeley, Central, etc.

Vickie Seddon, Sheffield Democracy (speaking for herself)
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Initial points spoken to put on record so that it would be in the report that went to Parliament.
The 5% quota is too tight, as exemplified in Sheffield. 7.5% or 10% would be much better.
Regard should be made for the difference between electorate and population, in some areas the discrepancy may be enough to give different results.
More people have registered since the review started in February with the register published in December.

On the review.
Community boundaries should be strongly respected, the BCE proposals do not do this for Sheffield.
Concerned whether this is the right time to do a boundary review immediately after the EU vote when MPs have got a higher workload, and a smaller number of MPs would have more workload per individual MP.
Part of the problem is that the quota is so tight that with population changes won't we have to do all this again in five years?

Sheffield currently have 5.5 seats. The quota entitles Sheffield to 5.1 seats. Would be most logical to give Sheffield exactly 5 seats, no need to spill out across council boundary and include other council areas. These proposals have two seats in 2 council areas and on seat in 3 council areas. Will increase MP workload having to coordinate between multiple local councils.

Shape of Hallam and Central badly drawn. Hallam stretches from Derbyshire to Wakefield, Central has tight pinch point. Proposals support popular contempt for politcal process. Looks are important, the review has to be seen to look like it's done properly as well as just applying the rules.

Mr Ali, Nether Edge community chair
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Sharrow and Nether Edge should not be split apart. The boundary between the two is blurred, and the community is centred on the Abbeydale Road corridor that runs through the two wards. Community hub is centred on Woolsey Road on the Sh/NE boundary, evidenced by choice to build central mosque on Woolsey Road.

Railway line is a natural strong boundary to the east, there are not links through the railway line boundary (other than a minor road), and all the housing areas are at a distance to the west on the western side and at a distance to the eat on the eastern side.

Support putting Nether Edge in Central to keep NE and Sh together, support the Ecclesall/B&G swap to compensate.

Mohammad Shaffaq, LD councillor for Ecclesall, formerly Broomhill
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Ecclesall's ties are with Whirlow in D&T, the recent ward review have moved bits between the two wards, the boundary is blurred on the ground. Local groups in Milhouses and Carter Knowle see stronger links with Whirlow area. Ecclesall should be in Hallam, support Nether Edge remaining with Sharrow in Central, and B&G swap to compensate.
As former Broomhill councillor agrees that Encliffe Crescent and Edge fit will with Broomhill, and to ensure all the seats meet the quota putting those two PDs in Central would ensure a workable model.

Broomhill BEST (local community group) considers Endcliffe as part of its Broomhill area.

[J.G.Harston]

Chatting with other people who were at Leeds they say there has been nothing from Labour or Greens, just LibDems, Cons and local residents.

[YL]

If you're going to split wards in Sheffield there really is no good reason to put Penistone East in a seat otherwise wholly in Sheffield.

(Well, actually, you could delete the first eight words of that sentence.)

[J.G.Harston]

Oct 17, 2016 18:55:35 GMT YL said:

If you're going to split wards in Sheffield there really is no good reason to put Penistone East in a seat otherwise wholly in Sheffield.

(Well, actually, you could delete the first eight words of that sentence.)

I'm going to use your two-ward-split model as an example of how Sheffield could get five seats.

[J.G.Harston]

I was so exhausted after yesterday I went straight to bed and didn't wake up until lunchtime today, then went to a university open day. SO, this is my write-up of Day Two.


Peter Clark, on behalf of Barnsley Council
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Barnsley does not support porposals. The methodology has disasvantaged Barnsley disporotionately compared to other council areas.

Dilution of representation. Guidance says BC should have regard to council boundaries. Feel has not been applied across South Yorkshire equitably. Barnsley has been split across six seats, mixing with three councils. Barnsley's MPs would be perceived as representing other areas more than Barnsley. Not equitable that Barnsley is split so much.

Community. Surrounding areas have ties that disrupted by proposed splits, particularly the overlap into Doncaster. Current seats almost wholly within Barnsley, two entirely within Barnsley, and the community split is minimal. Proposals split communites more than acceptable. In particular Dearne North/South and Penistone West/East. These splits work at council level as the two halves are both together for council and parish representation, but are unstuitable for parliamanetary representation to split them apart. Goldthorpe has a particular bad split. The two Penistones would work in a shared Sheffield seat but is particularly innappropriate to have a seat stretching all the way from Hoyland to Jordanthorpe.

Barnsley is the smallest council in South Yorkshire, and consequently has the smallest wards. It appears that Barnsley has been used to fill up seats elsewhere to make up numbers. BC should look at splitting up large wards instead of divvying up small watds. Council boundaries are more important than ward boundaries. Additionally, Sheffield's new ward boundaries should be taken into account. The current proposal is significantly disruptive.

On a query from the commissioner: Barnsley has not put together an alternative proposal, they intend to see what has been submitted and decide whether to submit an alternative.

The commissioner reminded the Barnsley representative that the deadline for submissions is 5 December. There will be a second consultation in Spring 2017 but that will be asking for comments on the submissions made in this round.

My notes after the record: Barnsley conceded there were political disagreements over whether to respond and over what to say.


Paul May, chair Ecclesall Forum
-------------------------------
Has submitted to previous reviews, the forum had an input on the new ward boundaries and had some of their recommendations taken on board.

Would like to see Ecclesall remain in Hallam. BC claims to avoid splitting communities, but has split Ecclesall. Ecclesall has little in commonality with the areas towards the city centre and has stronger ties in the Dore&Totley direction. Porter Valley Friends covers the Porter Valley through Ecclesall and Dore&Totley.

Geography ties Ecclesall to Dore&Totley. The source of the Porter and the Sheaf is in the moors above Dore and they run along each side of Ecclesall ward towards the city. When the Porter passes out of Ecclesall it loses its identity as enters the urban area and merges with other rivers. The landscape runs from Ecclesall into the west. The landscape has a big change as it runs into Nether Edge. The main A roads link Ecclesall with Dore&Totley, Ecclesall Road running along the north and Abbeydale running along the south-east.

Looking wider to balance the numbers: swap Ecclesall with Beauchief & Greenhill. B&G has more in common with its Heeley neighbours than with D&T across the river valley, in a similar way that Ecclesall has more ties to D&T than it does to Nether Edge and the city centre.

B&G is tied to the rest of Heeley by the A61. The Sheaf Valley is the main boundary between the Ecclesall side and the B&G side.

Various options are available to balance the swap of Ecclesall and B&G. The swap would also have a result much closer to the existing seats. People in Ecclesall consider themselves west-Sheffield-ers, not city-centre-ers.

Clie Betts MP
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Speaking on Mosborough & Beighton being in Rother Valley, and wider Sheffield implications.

Can't see how any critera supports Mos&Bei being in Rother Valley. People look to the city they live in. Rother Valley is mostly Rotherham, Mos&Bei feel no attachment to Rother Valley.

Sometims you do get cross-council seats where the community crosses the council, but this s not one of them. This splits communities. Example, Hackenthorpe is currently in the same constituency now, but will be split by the proposals because Hackenthorpe spreads over two wards. Also, due to the disparity between new and old ward boundaries, some people in Beighton ward will be in Rother Valley constituency and some will be in Sheffield South constituency due to the boundary being used running down the main road.

Mos&Bei have strong ties with Birley and Woodhouse. Bosborough and Beighton came into the city in 1967 along with Birley and Woodhouse. Ever since the subsequent parliamentary review that took this into account in 1974 all four wards have been in the same constituency.

The proposed Hallam is more than 22 miles long. The proposed Rother Valley is also 22 miles long. They are both unacceptable as each other.

The commission disallows detached parts. Mos&Bei are functionally detached parts. The eastern boundary is Rother Valley Country Park with a large lake running the whole length, a significabnt geographical barrier. There is no community of interest between Mos&Bei and the rest of Rother Valley. Travelling between the two parts would involve significant travel through other seats.

Locals, community groups and others have been collecting signitures objecting to the proposal which will be submitted to the commission. We do not belong in a non-Sheffield seat.

To solve this cannot be done without ward splits in Sheffield.

Looking across the rest of Sheffield. The LDs have proposed one ward split, but this does not address all the issues. The Cons have proposed a two-split solution that does address the city-wide issues. The Con proposal also shows that Sheffield can be drawn into five seats within the city if ward splits are used. This supports the argument to use split wards in Sheffield.

The Commission have started with whole wards arguing that wards are communities. This is not certain in Sheffield, where wards are so large that they contain multiple communities. Also, the wards the commission have used no longer exist. If wards splits are done carefully then communities will not be split.

The commission accepts splits if a case can be made for them to keep community ties. Mos&Bei shows that a non-split model does split ties and a aplit-ward model would allow copmmunity ties to remain. Splitting wards also helps prevent a domino effect. The Con proposal also has figures showing a all-Sheffield split ward model would increase the number of people remaining in the same constituency.

Options to split wards. Labour have two initial ideas, a three-ward split and a two-ward split, both of which are a better solution than the proposals and would keep communityes together. Labour are looking at current proposals and will submit a proposal in the current consultation.

My notes: Barnsley will probably end up letting a Sheffield Labour proposal being their helping hand.

Robert Murphy, local Green councillor, City Centre
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Mainly taking about the city centre/central ward/central consituency. The proposal has some improvements on the current central constituency. Removing Manor/Castle makes good sense, there are strong significant geographical boundary between the city centre and Manor/Castel, the river, railway line and station and steep hill. There is also a similarly strong northern boundary along the northern railway line. Both make good sense.

Crookes and Walkley both have good links with the city centre, Crookes also has good links with Broomhill which links with the city centre.

Main objection is removal of Nether Edge from Central Constituency. A solution would be: put Ecclesall back in Hallam, put Nether Edge back in Central, put B&G back in Heeley. The numebrs result in Heeley being ok, Central slightly too small, Hallam slightly too big. An option to balance this is to put Banner Cross polling district into Central. That would be the minimum required to balance numbers. There are links with Nether Edge, Banner Cross Hall is on the Nether Edge side of the boundary.

Banner Cross PD is quite small. To get a better balance of numbers instead of the minimum required Greystones PD could also be put in Central. As you travel down from Greystones you get to Hunters Bar where the communities merge together.

Back to Nether Edge, the old ward boundary is along Chippinghouse Road. This is not an obvious boundary on the ground and unsuitable for a constituency boundary. Nether Edge has no strong links across the railway with Heeley. B&G is seen as part of Heeley along the Woodseats/Chesterfield Road corridor.


Mike Hobson, Carter Knowle Community Group
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The propsals are particularly radical in the south-west. They bear little regard to community, geography, work areas, etc. Having a Hallam seat running from Totley to Hoyland is extreme, covering a large area, 26 miles long, over six river valleys and 3 major centres.

The proposal in Ecclesall results in Milhouses being in Central constituency and Carter Knowle in Nether Edge in Heeley (South) constuency, neither make sense. The proposals breaks the new ward up. Anomoly due to the BC using wards that have just been abolished.

Parliamentary seats should make sense, these proposals have a danger of bringing the commission and system of parliamentary representation into ridicule.

Alan Whitehouse
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Broomhill resident, former Broomhill councillor and planning board member with Sheffield-wide overview.

Hillsborough is economically vunerlable, and splitting it between two MPs would have a negative impact on the community.

Hallam at 26 miles long is too big. In Sheffield the natural layout is radial along the valleys. Road, rail, buses, etc. all follow radial routes, not the doughnuts suggested by the commission.

An option would be to put Stocksbridge, Stannington, Hillsborough, Walkley in one seat; Hallam could start with Fulwood, Ecclesall, Dore & Totley, Beauchief & Greenhill and make some modifications.

City centre is dominated by students. Previously students occupied local housing in places like Walkley and Crookes, that has changed to purpose-built student accommodation moving closer to the city centre.

Jonathan Harston
----------------
Made a presentation that included slides. I'll put these on my website.

I am currently a Town Councillor in Whitby and for eleven years was a city councillor here in Sheffield. Made submissions to the last two parliamentary reviews, including the aborted review two years ago, and the last local council ward reviews in Sheffield. Commenting on all of Yorkshire here as easier to get to Sheffield than the other hearings.

SLIDE 1
Support avoiding the overlapping Leeds/North Yorkshire seats from last time. Current proposal to use all North Yorkshire minus bits near Castleford best option. Allows review to look at three areas seperately.

Humberside, exactly 9 seats. No specific opinions.

SLIDE 2
Trimmed North Yorkshire with exactly 8 seats.
Support exactly 2 seats in York coterminal with existing seats and coterminal with council area. No opinion on arrangement of those two seats.

SLIDE 3
Scarborough council is slightly over quota for one seat, current Scarborough&Whitby constituency slightly under quota for one seat. Support proposal to just add Filey ward, keeps as much of council in single seat.

SLIDE 4
Particularly support keeping whole Esk Valley in a single consitituency. This is former Whitby Urban District and Whitby Rural district. It has a distinct character and community of its own. It is isolated on all sides, by the moors to the landward side and the sea to the other. Whole valley looks towards Whitby for its focus and local facilities. Proposals that would slice bits out of the Esk Valley would break up the consistant whole the Esk Valley forms.

Moving on to South and West Yorkshire. Support proposals that do not have the sorts of seats overlapping the West Yorkshire/North Yorkshire boundary that the aborted review proposed, with seats streatching from the centre of Leeds out into the North Yorkshire countryside. In south and west yorkshire I will just concentrate on the Sheffield area.

Sheffield has an entitlement to 5.1 seats. That is close enough to a whole number to build a justification to allocate exactly 5 seats entirely within Sheffield. It would result in five seats averaging 2% over quota. With careful work all five could be within the tight 5% quota requirement.

Sheffield has 28 wards, drawn up in 2004 and redrawn in 2013 with the knowledge and expectation that Sheffield would have 5.5 seats in a 650-seat parliament. Unfortunatley, Sheffield is now entitled to 5 seats and dividing 28 by five does not give whole numbers, so to do this wards would have to be split.

Sheffield, along with places like Leeds and Birmingham, have a particular charactarsitc of having very large wards. The Commission have taken this and drawn long straggling seats overlapping into multiple adjoining authorities to include smaller wards driven to meet the required target. By choice rather than compulsion the commision have done this to avoid splitting wards.

The larger a ward is the less likely it will be a submultiple of an ideal constituency size. Conversly, the larger a ward is the more likely that those wards will contiain multiple communities rather than being one whole community that would be split if the ward was split. I will show two examples from Sheffield from areas I used to represent.

SLIDE 5
The ward I used to represent, Walkley, has two clear core areas. Walkley itself to the west and Netherthorpe/Upperthorpe to the east. Before 2004 those two areas were in two different wards. A point of interest is that Walkley currently has the smallest occupied polling district in the entire country, ZI, due to a block of flats being built on top of the old boundary. As long as Walkley and the Crookes part of Crookes & Crosspool end up in the same constituency this anomoly will disappear.

SLIDE 6
Moving to Crookes&Crosspool, this is also two clear communities in a single ward, Crookes itself and Crosspool. Before 2004 half of one of those communites, Crookes, was in my ward of Walkley.

In addition to this, as pointed out yesterday, the quota requirement when drawing wards means that in some areas communities straddle ward boundaries

Bearing this in mind it is possible to come up with many workable possibilities for five whole seats in Sheffield with a minimum of ward splits. The following are some proposals discussed on the Vote UK Forum, a psephological discussion forum where there has been active discussion of boundary proposals over the last six months. These example models are ones that have been discussed on the forum.

SLIDE 7
Slide 7: five seats with only two ward splits, proposed by YL on VoteUK, an update of Dr Jordan's model in the aborted review. Broomhill split neatly into Broomhill itself to the north and Hunters Bar to the south. Burngreave split neatly into Burngreave itself in the main body to the south and Shirecliffe to the north. This has the bonus of uniting the Shirecliffe area south of Herries road with the rest of the community on the other side of Herries Road. The ward boundary was forced to run through the middle of the shopping area to make up numbers. (Note to readers here, that's the model where I said: if you tweek Burngrave and Wincobank, that's Dr Jordan's model from the zombie review)

The five seats would have the following electorates. The names are arbitary and not to be taken as recommended names.
North-West 75750 (+1.3%)
South-West 74964 (+0.3%)
South 77463 (+3.6%)
South-East 74370 (-0.5%)
North 76580 (+2.4%)

The slide also shows how the rest of South Yorkshire could be allocated, but I use the slide just to show the Sheffield arrangement. YL descibed the map as demonstrating that it was possible to draw continuencies in South and West Yorkshire, minimising crossing council borders, and minimising split wards (the result being the sole two in Sheffield).

SLIDE 8
Discussion queried if it was possible to get at least the Crosspool part of Crookes into Hallam and draw a seat similar to the pre-2010 seat. This slide shows how that could be done, again with only two ward splits. The previous Brungreave split and putting the Crosspool half of Crookes&Crosspool in Hallam and the Crookes half in Central. Half of Crookes itself did used to be in Central prior to 2010.

SLIDE 9
Another method using three split wards. However, I think using three or more split wards is going to far when workable solutions can be made with two.

Having five seats entirely within Sheffield would address the concerns raised at having seats crossing the council boundary, at the feeling of being pushed out of Sheffield. I would support any reasonable model that built five seats entirely within Sheffield.

SLIDE 10
I will say a few words about the difference between the old wards and the new wards. In places this has left tiny anomolous polling districts where an old ward has been used for a constituence boundary but the new ward has moved slightly - in some cases a matter of feet. I have looked at all the instances where this occurs and other than two places I feel that the anomolous polling districts are large enough to be manageable. Considering the constituency boundaries are now to be reviewed every five years it is acceptable to leave them tied to the old ward boundary until the next review in five years time.

The two most extreme anomolies are on the Walkley/Crookes border (top left of the slide), but as long as Walkley and the Crookes end of Crookes are in the same constituency they will vanish.

There are two that are along a proposed constituency boundary that are marginal and the commission may feel it best supports community grouping and electoral administration to use the new ward boundary.

This is Seagrave Crescent on the border between Birley and Richmond (middle of the slide). The ward boundary has moved from behind the houses to in front of the houses, leaving half of Seagrave Crescent trapped between two boundaries.

The other is on the border of Crookes and Broomhill (right of the slide) where the boundary has moved from one side of a block of houses to the other side, leaving the block between Ryegate Road and Tapton Crescent trapped between two boundaries.

The commission may find that it would best serve community interst and efficient electoral administration if the new ward boundaries were used here instead of the old boundaries.

Query from the commissioner: Slide 7 shows a single colour running from Stocksbridge to Mosborough. Is that intended to be a single seat? Answer: No, that is an accident of the colouring, the city centre railway line is the boundary. Map modified to clarify.


Joan Mills, Nether Edge local resident
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Looking at Sheffield South. Sheffield follows valleys and hills, transport goes into and out of city centre along the valleys. There is the Abbeydale Road corrider and the Cesterfield Road corrider. New seats should recognise Sheffield's geography.

Seats should be based on population not on electorate. Central has the highest percentage of students of any constituency in Sheffield.

Why the proposals for fewer MPs? Is this just to save money? Reducing MPs will just increase their workload.

Changes to boundaries would be better made after changing the voting system, not before. A better voting system would get more people to register to vote and to vote. Disparity in voting power discourages registration and voting. Change should start locally with changing local government election system, For example, Conservative votes have no representation in Sheffield council, in many Shire counties Labour voters have no representation on their council.

Commissioner reminded respondants that some of these issues were outside their remit, but acknowledged that respondants wanted to get their concerns into the verbatim record that would go in the report and be seen by Parliament.

Jack Carrington
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Manor/Castle local resident, active in local community groups

These proposals are based on wards that no longer exist, as an example Central Ward has changed drastically. Should use the new wards as they will outlast the new constituencies. Recognition of communities would recognise the new wards.

Nether Edge should be in same seat as City Centre, Ecclesall does not fit with city centre, this is a profound mismatch. A simple fix is to put Ecclesall in Hallam and Ranmoor in Central, Ranmoor has student interests in common with Broomhill and along to the City Centre.

Hallam ends further north than Barnsley, baffling for anybody seeing it. There are bad transport links between the disparate areas with the proposed seat.

The border with Rotherham is also unsatisfactory, splitting Sheffield seats with Rotherham seats.

The boundary review does not make votes equal as that is not its pervuiw of the review. A different voting system would do that, for instance a single multi-member seat for Sheffield, which would also minimise boundary changes needed at reviews.

[J.G.Harston]

Good to see something from Labour, I was starting to think they'd thrown their toys out of their pram. Kudos to Clive Betts, he does tend to kick the party's arse on things like this. I wish Labour weren't being so cagey about proposals. It's not as though it's a disadvantage to have your plan "stolen" by somebody else, the contrary, it supports your plan if somebody else also recommends it.

Similarly, because I didn't go to the Leeds hearings I don't know what the Conservative proposals look like, other than five seats, two ward splits. But that is still another argument on the huge pile of arguments showing a ward-split all-sheffield model is workable and supportable.

I was the only person* to say: yes this is ok, well done, but that was because this was my opportunity to make comments on other bits of Yorkshire. Most people here were just talking about Sheffield, other people making comments on the rest of Yorkshire are likely to do so at the other hearings. (*except Rob Murphy's support for removing Manor/Castle).

[Adrian]

Very impressive, both from you JG and from the various speakers. Lots of excellent points raised.

p.s. How long was J Harston's presentation? Are they keeping people to 10 minutes? This is bizarre sometimes when they hurry people up and then announce that they have a two-hour gap with no-one to speak...

[J.G.Harston]

Slides uploaded to mdfs.net/maps/Sheffield/per2018/HearingJGH/

[J.G.Harston]

Oct 19, 2016 22:01:16 GMT Adrian said:

Very impressive, both from you JG and from the various speakers. Lots of excellent points raised.

p.s. How long was J Harston's presentation? Are they keeping people to 10 minutes? This is bizarre sometimes when they hurry people up and then announce that they have a two-hour gap with no-one to speak...

Half the allocated time was spent in adjurnment due to nobody being present to speak, so the commissioner allowed people to continue as long as they wanted where reasonable. We went back at one-hour intervals for the recording equipment to be turned on, the commissioner ajurning for an hour, and the recording equipment turned off again.

[J.G.Harston]

After the hearings closed we had a bit of a chat. One of us (what are we called? witnesses? petitioners?) asked what tools there were available for experimenting with various models. The commissioner said the only thing they had publically available was the browsable proposals map. I described Boundary Assistant to the other petitioner, mentioning it was nothing to do with the commission, and a BCE assistant agreed it was a useful tool. So, they've come across it. So, BA may be having an upswing in usage.