2018 review - Yorkshire and the Humber

[YL]

Sept 10, 2018 21:30:59 GMT greenhert said:

There was no reason to split Grimsby at all. They could have just put the three wards comprising Cleethorpes with it, given that Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes are essentially conjoined twins now geographically.

In another thread therealriga suggested that it would have been better to keep the two towns separate and to cross the regional boundary. So I had a bit of a play to see what I could do with 10 seats in Lincolnshire, including N Lincs and NE Lincs, under the current rules.

Great Grimsby works fine: add Wolds and Immingham wards to the current constituency: 73,317.

The remaining NE Lincs wards in the current Cleethorpes then need to be joined to some wards in East Lindsey. One way to do this is a strip along the coast, generally one or two wards wide. The result could be called Cleethorpes & Mablethorpe: 73,253.

Further west, there's the question of what to do with the Isle of Axholme. Its connections might suggest putting it with Scunthorpe, but I couldn't get a satisfactory seat doing that, so I put it with Gainsborough, which is where it used to be before 1983. To make room for that, Gainsborough needs to lose four wards in the east of West Lindsey, giving Gainsborough & Axholme: 74,343.

Scunthorpe can be exactly as in the BCE's final proposals: 71,820.

Louth & Horncastle has thus lost its coastal strip, but gained some areas in the east of the current Gainsborough seat and also needs to gain the four North Lincolnshire wards the BCE have put in Great Grimsby North & Barton. That makes it a bit too big, so remove Woodhall Spa, Coningsby & Mareham and Halton Holegate wards at the southern end. It could retain its current name, but it's heavily redrawn and follows the Wolds pretty closely, so I'm going to call it Lincolnshire Wolds: 77,436.

Those three wards go into Boston & Skegness, which then doesn't need to cross into North Kesteven: 77,487.

Sleaford then keeps the two North Kesteven wards the BCE have put into Boston & Skegness. That makes it too big, but it's OK if the ward currently in Lincoln it takes is Skellingthorpe rather than Bracebridge Heath & Waddington East: 76,931.

Lincoln then swaps those North Kesteven wards. I don't see the point of adding North Hykeham to the name: 77,663.

Grantham & Stamford and South Holland & the Deepings are both as per the BCE.

I'm sure there are things to criticise here. That Lincolnshire Wolds seat is rather long, and Louth is on the edge of it, while the Isle of Axholme is not well connected to Gainsborough. There are also a lot of crossings of local authority boundaries. On the plus side I think Grimsby works much better, and the Boston & Skegness/Sleaford boundary is also improved.

[East Anglian Lefty]

There's a neater option if you cross the regional border twice.

Scunthorpe is the town itself, Burringham & Gunness and the Axholme wards.

Barton & Gainsborough is the rest of North Lincolnshire UA, plus six wards for West Lindsey - Gainsborough and the three rural wards surrounding it.

Grimsby is as you suggested, then Louth & Cleethorpes is the rest of NE Lincs UA, the coast as far as Sutton on Sea and inland as far as Louth and Legbourne ward.

Boston & Skegness adds three wards on its northern end, South Holland & the Deepings is unchanged and Grantham just realigns to new ward boundaries.

Lincoln gains the entirety of North Hykeham and Waddington but gives up Skellingthorpe to Sleaford.

The old Gainsborough seat makes up for losing the eponymous town by grabbing Horncastle and environs. It's cohesive enough, but given the lack of sizeable towns in it I'd suggest Mid Lincolnshire is probably the most suitable name.

[islington]

Of the rival Lefty plans, I'd prefer EAL's but there's a small glitch with it because by my reckoning his Scunthorpe seat is light on numbers at 70645. A further N Lincs ward needs to be added and the only one that doesn't put the seat over the upper limit is Broughton & Appleby, which brings the seat in at 75662.

To make up for the loss of Broughton & Appleby, EAL's Gainsborough seat picks up the further W Lindsey wards of Waddingham & Spital and Kelsey Wold. The latter in particular improves the boundary in the Brigg area. Incidentally I'd call it 'Gainsborough and Brigg', since both these names have been used before. 72364.

EAL's Mid Lincs seat now comes in at 74912. I don't mind 'Mid' names but if you object to them 'Horncastle' would be a possible alternative.

This is all purely hypothetical stuff, of course, but it reminds us that the use of European constituency boundaries, although strongly hinted at in the legislation, is not 100% mandatory on BCE so IF the next review takes place under the same rules (a big 'if') and IF we leave the EU as scheduled in March (meaning that the EU boundaries will be of historic interest only), then there might be a case for saying that N Lincs and NE Lincs UAs should be treated with E Mids rather than Y&H. If so, I'd suggest that the BCE should announce this intention well in advance of the actual review and invite feedback.

[Adrian]

Sept 24, 2018 9:41:36 GMT islington said:

Of the rival Lefty plans, I'd prefer EAL's but there's a small glitch with it because by my reckoning his Scunthorpe seat is light on numbers at 70645. A further N Lincs ward needs to be added and the only one that doesn't put the seat over the upper limit is Broughton & Appleby, which brings the seat in at 75662.

To make up for the loss of Broughton & Appleby, EAL's Gainsborough seat picks up the further W Lindsey wards of Waddingham & Spital and Kelsey Wold. The latter in particular improves the boundary in the Brigg area. Incidentally I'd call it 'Gainsborough and Brigg', since both these names have been used before. 72364.

EAL's Mid Lincs seat now comes in at 74912. I don't mind 'Mid' names but if you object to them 'Horncastle' would be a possible alternative.

This is all purely hypothetical stuff, of course, but it reminds us that the use of European constituency boundaries, although strongly hinted at in the legislation, is not 100% mandatory on BCE so IF the next review takes place under the same rules (a big 'if') and IF we leave the EU as scheduled in March (meaning that the EU boundaries will be of historic interest only), then there might be a case for saying that N Lincs and NE Lincs UAs should be treated with E Mids rather than Y&H. If so, I'd suggest that the BCE should announce this intention well in advance of the actual review and invite feedback.

The regions (in slightly different form) predate our EU membership, of course, and I assume the government will continue using the regions for various purposes after next March.

[andrewteale]

The BCE have tried the name Mid Lincolnshire before. It got changed in the public inquiry to Sleaford and North Hykeham.

[islington]

Sept 24, 2018 11:13:45 GMT andrewteale said:

The BCE have tried the name Mid Lincolnshire before. It got changed in the public inquiry to Sleaford and North Hykeham.

There was a two-member constituency of exactly this name from 1868 to 1885, extending somewhat into Kesteven but actually not totally dissimilar to the configurations suggested on this thread.

www.visionofbritain.org.uk/maps/sheet/bc_reports_1868/Lincolnshire_1868

[therealriga]

If they continue to use the regions post-Brexit then North and NE Lincolnshire should be moved to East Midlands. Doesn't seem logical to separate them from the rest of Lincolnshire. Obviously, the historical basis for it is the defunct county of Humberside, but that seemed possibly the most artificial of the 1974 local government creations as the Humber seems to divide, not unite, the communities on either side.

[East Anglian Lefty]

It's a divide, but it would probably have been much less of one if the Humber Bridge wasn't tolled. The communities on both sides are focused on the Humber, just not on each other, and it's not like Scunthorpe and Grimsby have particularly close links to the rest of Lincolnshire.