2018 review - Yorkshire and the Humber

[YL]

Mar 12, 2016 2:28:20 GMT iain said:

Mar 10, 2016 19:31:05 GMT YL said:

Why?

Take the version that J.G.Harston proposed (and that I endorsed in the quoted post, assuming a target of dividing the whole city into five seats): Fulwood, Broomhill (southern part), Dore & Totley, Ecclesall, Nether Edge, Central. Fulwood and Ecclesall both have very strong radial links to Broomhill (including things like school catchment areas as well as communication links). Dore & Totley has good links to Ecclesall, and Ecclesall has strong links to Nether Edge, the boundary between the two being quite weak on the ground. Both Broomhill and Nether Edge have good links to Central, especially the bits of the latter outside the actual centre. It's a good, coherent, south-west Sheffield seat which happens to also include the city centre (which these days with all the student accommodation probably has its strongest links westwards anyway). It's actually quite similar to the pre-1997 Hallam.

It is the removal of Crookes which I dislike, as the area very much looks to the south. However, upon looking more closely I find it quite difficult to create a differing seat that I am happy with. The City Centre in particular is a pain, as different parts of it clearly link to different areas (not entirely unexpected I grant you).

I think it's actually OK for the bulk of Crookes ward (i.e. Crookes proper) as there are good links with northern Broomhill and to some extent with Walkley. The western, more "suburban" part (i.e. Crosspool and Sandygate) is more of an issue, I grant you, but all boundary reviews end up with some anomalies.

However, how about:

Sheffield Hillsborough (84,882-x): Stocksbridge, Stannington, West Ecclesfield, Hillsborough, Walkley, the Chapeltown part of East Ecclesfield. Fairly similar to the pre-2010 seat of the same name.

Sheffield Hallam (82,992-y): Crookes, Fulwood, Broomhill, Ecclesall, Dore & Totley, parts of Nether Edge away from Abbeydale Road. Fairly similar to 1974-1997 Hallam.

Sheffield Heeley (67,011+y): Central, Abbeydale Road side of Nether Edge, Arbourthorne, Gleadless Valley, Graves Park, Beauchief & Greenhill.

Sheffield Brightside (68,753+x): Southey, Firth Park, Shiregreen, Burngreave, Darnall, Ecclesfield village and unparished parts of East Ecclesfield.

Sheffield South East (77,792): Manor Castle, Richmond, Woodhouse, Birley, Beighton, Mosborough. Can't be called Attercliffe as doesn't contain Attercliffe, so suggestions for more creative names welcome.

x=polling districts KC, KD, KE, KH from this map, y=polling districts TC, TE, perhaps TB too, from this map.

The Ecclesfield ward split may be pitchfork bait, but that does give a reasonable "Hallam" including Crookes and five seats covering all of Sheffield with only two split wards. (I think it might be a challenge to defend more than two.)

[iain]

I prefer that Hallam, but that's really the only part of the city I have too much idea about. Purely from looking at a map, the split of East Ecclesfield really doesn't seem that bad. The worse part of the plan seems to be the addition of Central and parts of Nether Edge into Heeley, but, as I say, I don't know much about the links in that part of the city.

[Adrian]

Feb 24, 2016 17:57:00 GMT YL said:

Ceremonial counties:

South Yorkshire 12.74
West Yorkshire 20.30
Lincolnshire (part) 3.11
East Riding 5.74
North Yorkshire (part) 7.89

Total 49.78

I assume "East Riding" here means North Humberside and "Lincolnshire (part)" means South Humberside, and "North Yorkshire (part)" means North Yorkshire. Not sure what the point is of confusing things.

[Crimson King]

I think the confusing thing is the inclusion of S W and N Yorkshire, rather than West riding and North Riding (part) if we are going to have fun with the historic counties where they fall within the current Y&H region

[YL]

Mar 24, 2016 11:21:43 GMT Adrian said:

Feb 24, 2016 17:57:00 GMT YL said:

Ceremonial counties:

South Yorkshire 12.74
West Yorkshire 20.30
Lincolnshire (part) 3.11
East Riding 5.74
North Yorkshire (part) 7.89

Total 49.78

I assume "East Riding" here means North Humberside and "Lincolnshire (part)" means South Humberside, and "North Yorkshire (part)" means North Yorkshire. Not sure what the point is of confusing things.

Ceremonial counties (as a next level down from the regions). When H*mb*rs*d* and Cleveland county councils were abolished in the 1990s, the ceremonial counties (but not the regions) were re-aligned to the historic borders along the Tees and the Humber. So part of the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire is in this region, and part of the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire is not. The ceremonial county of the East Riding includes the unitary authority of the same name together with the city of Hull; it is not the same as the historic East Riding which includes Filey but not Goole.

"North Yorkshire" could mean three different areas: the ceremonial county which includes both Middlesbrough etc. and York, the current administrative county which includes neither, or the 1974 county and police force area which includes York but not Middlesbrough etc.

[Crimson King]

Ah I see, I was thinking historical

[Adrian]

Insisting on using ceremonial counties as descriptors seems bizarre. North Yorkshire county council still exists, and 100% of its area is in this region. I doubt many people apart from boundary nerds know that there is such a thing as East Riding ceremonial county, and that it's the same as North Humberside. That in itself is annoying since the East Riding was different from North Humberside.

[YL]

Mar 24, 2016 18:07:26 GMT Adrian said:

Insisting on using ceremonial counties as descriptors seems bizarre. North Yorkshire county council still exists, and 100% of its area is in this region. I doubt many people apart from boundary nerds know that there is such a thing as East Riding ceremonial county, and that it's the same as North Humberside. That in itself is annoying since the East Riding was different from North Humberside.

Nobody talks about "North H*mb*rs*d*". If they don't refer to it by its official name, it's "East Yorkshire".

As to your other point, people talk about counties in a way which includes unitaries which are only part of them ceremonially all the time. "Nottinghamshire" is much more likely to include the city of Nottingham than not.

[islington]

I've also been looking at Sheffield, as part of an approach that takes South Yorkshire less Doncaster = 741263 electors = 9.91 = 10 seats.

A ward split is unfortunately unavoidable, but only one. And in fact this is the only completely unavoidable ward split in the whole of England and Wales. There is some choice about which Sheffield ward to split, but I've gone for Central.

You can make a five-ward seat of SHEFFIELD HILLSBOROUGH in the northwest of the city (Walkley, Crookes and points northwest): 71618.

There's a six-ward combination in the south: SHEFFIELD HEELEY, the current seat plus Birley: 78448.

SHEFFIELD ATTERCLIFFE is Sheffield SE minus Birley but plus Manor Castle and Brinsworth & Catcliffe ward from Rotherham: 76165.

SHEFFIELD HALLAM takes the remaining 5 southwestern wards plus PDs GB, GD, GE, GF, GI from Central ward (south and west of the inner ring road): 68048 + (say) 8195 from Central = 76243.

SHEFFIELD BRIGHTSIDE takes the remaining wards to the north of the city centre except W Ecclesfield: 68197 + (say) 5998 from Central = 74195.

I've based the numbers for the Central ward on the figures from 2013, but this is risky because the electorate then was a lot higher (20855 compared with 14193 now); I'm not sure which parts of the ward the numbers have vanished from but there's ample scope to shift PDs either way to get the numbers right.

W Ecclesfield ward is hived off into a Penistone & Wentworth seat but that's a story for another post.

[YL]

Coincidentally, I was trying to see whether I could come up with a map for South Yorkshire which I thought was not too bad with only one ward split. I think this requires two crossings of the Sheffield city boundary, and my choices were to take both Ecclesfield wards out together and to add the two Rotherham wards which cover the rather suburban parish of Aston-cum-Aughton; the disadvantage of the latter choice is that one of them ("Rother Vale") has an eastern extension to Thurcroft which leaves the remains of Rother Valley awkwardly shaped.

This includes Doncaster, so does not need a SY/WY or SY/N Lincs boundary crossing. The two western Sheffield seats are identical to islington 's.

Ultimately, I think you will get a better map if you're prepared to split two Sheffield wards, but it's not disastrous to try to only split one.



Sheffield Heeley 78,366
Sheffield Hillsborough 71,618
Sheffield Ecclesall 82,241-x [1]
Sheffield Brightside 68,753+x
Sheffield Rother Vale 71,378
Penistone & Ecclesfield 71,254
Barnsley North 71,128
Barnsley South & Wentworth 73,430
Rotherham 71,279
Kiveton 72,807 [2]
Conisbrough 72,233
Doncaster 71,118
Hatfield Chase 76,925

[1] I have a mild preference that a seat called "Sheffield Hallam" should contain both Fulwood and Crookes.
[2] There's so little of the actual course of the Rother left in this that it makes sense to change the name.

[islington]

YL: That is a brilliant plan. It completely resolves a problem with which I've been wrestling, namely how to reinforce Doncaster. You've found a way of doing this from within S Yorkshire, which I'd given up as impossible (except by multiple ward splits).

I salute you.

Two very small suggestions if I may:

Your 'Kiveton' would look substantially less horrible if it swapped Sitwell and Valley wards with Rotherham. Incidentally, I'd call it 'Maltby', which is somewhere that people may actually have heard of and is roughly central within the seat. This would give us:

Maltby 72464
Rotherham 71516

Also, in Doncaster, your numbers mean that you have Rossington & Bawtry ward in the Hatfield Chase seat (which I'd prefer to call 'Thorne'). But your map shows it as being in the Doncaster seat, which I suggest is actually the better solution. Doncaster then loses Edenthorpe & Kirk Sandall ward to Thorne, making both seats more compact.

Doncaster 76115
Thorne 71928

These quibbles aside, I'm hugely impressed.

[J.G.Harston]

Mar 25, 2016 10:49:50 GMT islington said:

I've also been looking at Sheffield, as part of an approach that takes South Yorkshire less Doncaster = 741263 electors = 9.91 = 10 seats.
(...)
... and Brinsworth & Catcliffe ward from Rotherham: 76165.
... hived off into a Penistone & Wentworth seat

As Sheffield is entitled to 5.0 seats I'd prefer a model that gives Sheffield 5.0 seats without spilling out across the city borders, and personally fell it a peverse application of the rules to spill out over the borders when you can get an exact whole number of seats entirely within the borders.

[islington]

Sheffield's entitlement is actually 5.10, not 5.0. And while 5.10 is theoretically feasible for 5 seats exactly, it really requires either (a) smaller wards returning one or two councillors each, or (b) a number of bigger (and reasonably evenly-sized) wards that is divisible by 5 (25 or 30). Sheffield doesn't meet either of these requirements.

By swapping in two Rotherham wards in exchange for two much larger Sheffield wards, YL's plan has generated a 'virtual' Sheffield with 372462 electors = 4.98, much nearer the quota for 5 seats.

A further issue is that we have to have regard to the borders not only of Sheffield but also of South Yorkshire as a whole, with an entitlement of 12.74. If you treat Sheffield independently, the rest of South Yorkshire is left with 7.64, well short of the 8 seats it would have to be given. The likely result would be either some truly horrific boundaries or, to avoid this, knock-on disruption of some other part of the Y & H region. On the other hand, if 'Sheffield' has an entitlement of 4.98, the rest of S Yorks is 7.76, and this is a distinctly more manageable task as YL has just demonstrated.

[YL]

Mar 25, 2016 17:11:33 GMT islington said:

Two very small suggestions if I may:

Your 'Kiveton' would look substantially less horrible if it swapped Sitwell and Valley wards with Rotherham. Incidentally, I'd call it 'Maltby', which is somewhere that people may actually have heard of and is roughly central within the seat. This would give us:

Maltby 72464
Rotherham 71516

Also, in Doncaster, your numbers mean that you have Rossington & Bawtry ward in the Hatfield Chase seat (which I'd prefer to call 'Thorne'). But your map shows it as being in the Doncaster seat, which I suggest is actually the better solution. Doncaster then loses Edenthorpe & Kirk Sandall ward to Thorne, making both seats more compact.

Doncaster 76115
Thorne 71928

These quibbles aside, I'm hugely impressed.

I'm minded to agree with you about those swaps, especially the Rotherham one. I've corrected the mistake on the map in the original post; well spotted.

And, yes, I was probably being a bit over-creative with the names...

[islington]

Regarding the names of seats in Sheffield:

I support YL's plan for a seat consisting of four wards in SE Sheffield plus two from Rotherham. Regarding a name, I'd suggest that Sheffield contributes nearly three-quarters of its electors so it ought to be regarded as a Sheffield seat and named on the same basis as the others: i.e. 'Sheffield' followed by the name of a suitable district of the city. It's unfortunate that 'Sheffield Handsworth', which has history as a constituency name, can't really be used because the Handsworth area is only partly in the seat. So I'd suggest 'Sheffield Woodhouse' as the Woodhouse area is very centrally located in the seat as a whole.

Also, on reflection, I agree that 'Sheffield Hallam' isn't the most suitable name for the seat in SW Sheffield that YL and I both proposed, and I'm happy to adopt his suggestion of 'Sheffield Ecclesall' (although I'm tempted (mischievously) to suggest that, in this case, we ought really also to have a seat of 'Brightside Carbrook').

[J.G.Harston]

Mar 25, 2016 17:56:30 GMT islington said:

A further issue is that we have to have regard to the borders not only of Sheffield but also of South Yorkshire as a whole, with an entitlement of 12.74.

That's why South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire should be addressed as one 33-seat unit. A single SouthYorks/WestYorks crossing seat is a better solution that glueing bits of Rotherham-facing bits of Rotherham into Sheffield seats.

Noting there's a desire for Crookes to be in a south-west seat, swapping Crookes and City and rotating Broomhill gives this:

I don't have access to the numbers, but I expect it also groups up more areas of, ahem, the same colour into one seat. This is using these elector numbers from the 2016 register.

[J.G.Harston]

Mar 25, 2016 11:44:24 GMT YL said:

Sheffield Ecclesall 82,241-x [1]
Sheffield Brightside 68,753+x

I think that /just/ works by splitting City Centre along the ring road - just lopping off Edmund polling district. It would give:
Sheffield Brightside: 68753+8151 = 76904 (+2.9%)
Sheffield Hallam: 82241-8151 = 74090 (-1.0%)

[YL]

Mar 31, 2016 0:16:23 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Mar 25, 2016 17:56:30 GMT islington said:

A further issue is that we have to have regard to the borders not only of Sheffield but also of South Yorkshire as a whole, with an entitlement of 12.74.

That's why South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire should be addressed as one 33-seat unit. A single SouthYorks/WestYorks crossing seat is a better solution that glueing bits of Rotherham-facing bits of Rotherham into Sheffield seats.

Noting there's a desire for Crookes to be in a south-west seat, swapping Crookes and City and rotating Broomhill gives this:

I don't have access to the numbers, but I expect it also groups up more areas of, ahem, the same colour into one seat. This is using these elector numbers from the 2016 register.

It's pretty clear from the BCE's notes of their meeting with the political parties that they're not going to use the new wards. So that would have to count as three split wards, unless you put all of old Central into Hillsborough.

As to the other issues, we don't really know what BCE policy will be. Will they prefer to protect the local government boundaries or the county boundary? Will they prefer a model with only one split ward if they think it's acceptable even if it involves more border crossing? There's also the question of what works in West Yorkshire: posts on that county so far tend to suggest that it works better if you don't cross the county boundary. So I think it's worth trying various options.

I think much of the west of the current Rother Valley is reasonably Sheffield-focussed, so I don't think crossing that border should be unthinkable if it makes the rest of Yorkshire work better. But it can be avoided if they're prepared to split two Sheffield wards.

[islington]

Mar 3, 2016 23:23:32 GMT hullenedge said:

The ladies of Ainley Top will revolt if you move Elland into Huddersfield! A v.long story.

A slightly different West Yorks scheme with no split wards and less disruption:-

Keighley - existing plus Wharfedale 76636
Shipley - existing but loses Wharfedale and gains Thornton 71379
Bradford West - Heaton, Toller, Queensbury, Clayton, G.Horton, Wibsey, Royds 74305
Bradford East - existing but loses Bradford Moor and gains City and Manningham 73483
Halifax - loses Sowerby Bridge and gains Hipperholme and Wyke 78151
Calder Valley - gains Sowerby Bridge loses Hipperholme 74587
Colne Valley - loses Lindley gains Denby Dale 78384
Huddersfield - gains Lindley 76540
Batley & Spen - unchanged - 75961
Dewsbury - loses D Dale gains Ossett 76667
Leeds North West - existing plus Guiseley 73429
Leeds North East - existing plus Hyde Park 78304
Elmet & Rothwell - unchanged - 77287
Leeds East Central - existing East plus Burmantofts - 76213
Leeds West Central - City, Beeston, Armley, Kirkstall, Wortley - 76459
Pudsey - existing less Guiseley gains Bramley and Bradford Moor - 77076
Morley - Morley, Ardsley, Middleton, Tong - 77642
Wakefield - four city wards, two Outwoods and Horbury - 74408
Normanton, Pontefract & Castleford - unchanged - 78097
Hemsworth - existing less South but gaining W Rural - 72647

Leeds NW remains Lib Dem?

If West and South Yorks to be combined put the Bingleys in different constituencies - Bradford NW/SW seven wards apiece, East gains City, Tong into the above Pudsey, Wortley and an Outwood to Morley, Middleton to Leeds WC...creates some leeway in Wakefield/Hemsworth to add Barnsley (?) wards.

I'd prefer to treat W Yorks and S Yorks separately if it's possible.

And it is. We have a plan for 13 seats in S Yorks with only the one unavoidable ward split in Sheffield. And we also know it's possible to assign 20 seats to W Yorks with no splits at all.


Regarding W Yorks, I was initially much taken with Pete Whitehead's plan posted on 8 March but on further consideration I've increasingly favoured the scheme suggested by hullenedge a few days earlier (above). Compared with the Whitehead plan, hullenedge's proposal involves less disruption to existing seats and fewer crossings of LA boundaries. In fact, it treats Kirkless and Wakefield together (532704 = 7.12 = 7 seats), leaving  Bradford, Calderdale and Leeds (984951 = 13.17 = 13 seats).

Moreover, the ward swaps between boroughs are kept to a minimum: one Wakefield ward (Ossett) is treated with Kirkless; while Bradford lends one ward (Wyke) to Calderdale and two (Bradford Moor and Tong) to Leeds. And that's it: everywhere else, the LA boundary is respected.

However, I suggest a couple of adjustments. Compared with hullenedge's scheme above, I propose:

Shipley - Idle seems a better fit than Thornton and this leaves Shipley town much more centrally located in the seat: 71974.
Bradford West - Thornton stays in Bradford West and Wibsey drops out: 75526.
Bradford East - Gains Wibsey and loses Idle (compared with hullenedge's plan, not the current seat). You could leave it at that, but this switch creates the further opportunity to leave Bradford Moor in the seat, and instead put Eccleshill into a Leeds seat. This leaves Bradford East much more compact than in hullendge's proposal, besides recognising that Bradford Moor is surely an integral part of Bradford. 71607.
Pudsey - Takes Eccleshill as its Bradford ward instead of Bradford Moor. Admittedly Eccleshill's links to Leeds aren't great, but they do exist and I think the drawbacks of this arrangement are easily outweighed by a much better map in Bradford itself, without the awkward 'bite' out of Bradford East in hullendge's proposal. Pudsey 77136.

Everything else as per hullenedge's scheme except I'd call his central Leeds seats 'Leeds South West' and 'Leeds East' (or perhaps even 'Leeds South East' for symmetry with the other Leeds seats which would be NE, NW, and SW). 
 

[hullenedge]

Thanks islington - your Bradford proposals are v.good - better than mine. Have to admit that I rather like the idea of resurrecting Brighouse & Spenborough but not to be. We were expecting Queensbury to be added to Halifax but that's a no-no given the new electorates. Surely the BComm will produce a map with minimum disruption.