|
|
Post by greenhert on Apr 16, 2016 21:43:29 GMT
Part 2, Wakefield, Kirklees and Calderdale.
1. Hemsworth. The Wakefield wards of Crofton, Ryhill & Walton, Hemsworth, Ackworth, North Emsall & Upton, South Emsall & Kirby, and Featherstone, plus the Barnsley wards of North East and Cudworth. Electorate: 76,712.
2. Normanton, Pontefract & Castleford. Unchanged from current boundaries. Electorate: 78,097.
3. Wakefield. The Wakefield wards of Wakefield East/North/Rural/South/West, Wrenthorpe & Outwood East, and Stanley & Outwood West. Electorate: 76,072.
4. Dewsbury and Ossett. The Wakefield wards of Ossett and Horbury & Ossett South, plus the Kirklees wards of Dewsbury East/West/South and Kirkburton. Electorate: 73,107.
5. Batley & Spen. As the current Batley & Spen minus Cleckheaton ward, but plus Mirfield ward. Electorate: 78,226.
6. Huddersfield. As the current Huddersfield constituency plus Lindley ward. Electorate: 76,540.
7. Colne Valley. As the current Colne Valley constituency minus Lindley ward but plus Denby Dale ward. Electorate: 78,384. 8. Brighouse & Cleckheaton. The Kirklees ward of Cleckheaton plus the Calderdale wards of Ryburn, Greetland & Stainland, Skircoat, Brighouse, Elland, Rastrick, and Hipperholme & Lightcliffe. Electorate: 71,587. 9. Halifax. As the current Halifax constituency minus Skircoat ward but plus Calder and Luddendenfoot. Electorate: 75,414.
|
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
|
Post by YL on Apr 17, 2016 7:10:04 GMT
9. Halifax. As the current Halifax constituency minus Skircoat ward but plus Calder and Luddendenfoot. Electorate: 75,414. Sorry, but that cuts Todmorden off from the rest of the region. |
|
|
|
Post by islington on Apr 17, 2016 10:07:00 GMT
Those random "put two bits of Bradford proper into two Leeds seats" proposals are really quite terrible; ward splits are definitely preferrable to that. I see them as demonstrating what's wrong with the avoiding-split-wards-at-all-costs approach. As you say, in much of Leeds (especially the west of the city council area) there are no combinations of wards which get within the legal range. So to get legal seats covering those parts of Leeds without splitting any wards, you end up having to tack random wards from neighbouring authorities on to get electorates in range without really thinking very much about any other aspect of good seat design. As doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ 's post reminds us, we've been here before with the zombie review. The fall in the electorate of many central Leeds wards means that at least no-one is proposing anything as bad as that thing again. Ah yes, but ward splits don't save you from having to treat bits of Bradford with Leeds. Leeds itself has an entitlement of 6.89 so it could definitely have seven seats to itself; although, with 33 wards of which no combination of four is big enough, much splitting will be needed. But this doesn't solve the problem of Bradford with 4.37; it is thus inevitable that some parts of Bradford are going to have to be treated with an adjoining authority. Presumably Bradford will 'lend' a ward to Calderdale, but even this will only reduce the entitlement to about 4.24 or so (depending which ward you take). So at least one more Bradford ward has to be detached; and with Kirklees in no need of reinforcement, the only plausible place for it to go is Leeds. And all the ward splits in the world won't resolve this basic issue: there are simply too many voters in Bradford to allow it to be treated independently of Leeds. A particularly attractive feature of hullenedge's plan is that it treats the need to cross the Leeds/Bradford boundary not as a problem but as a solution. If you treat two Bradford wards with Leeds, then you have in effect created a virtual 'Leeds' with 35 wards instead of 33, and suddenly the allotment of seven seats has become a much more manageable proposition. Note that both in hullenedge's scheme and my slight modification of it, all seven Leeds seats consist of exactly five wards. So I don't see this as an approach of 'avoiding-split-wards-at-all-costs'; I'd see it more as 'recognising-that-the-Leeds/Bradford-boundary-has-to-be-crossed-anyway' and then trying to do this in a way that creates coherent seats without ward-splitting. There remains the issue of which Bradford wards to take. The choice is limited by the fact that wards in south and west Leeds are so large: in this area, any combination of five is too big, so getting a seat within range means that it has to comprise four Leeds wards plus one rather smaller Bradford ward. In these circumstances, Tong is an almost inevitable choice as one of the Bradford wards. There's more flexibility about the other one: hullenedge suggested Bradford Moor but this ward is clearly integral to Bradford and it led to awkward boundaries in the central Bradford area, so I suggested Eccleshill which, although also very much part of Bradford, is slightly further from the city centre and allowed much better seats of Bradford E, Bradford W and Shipley. If, however, you feel it's essential to retain Eccleshill in a Bradford seat, an option is to take Idle. This is a lot further from the centre of Bradford and has more of the history and character of a distinct town. In this case, Shipley takes Thornton, and Bradford proper then divides into NE and SW seats (SW gets City ward and everything S and W of that; NE the rest). These Bradford seats aren't bad, but I like the simpler East-West split; and Idle is definitely a better fit with Shipley than Thornton. So I still prefer my earlier suggestion. But the alternative is there if you want it, and the numbers are: BRADFORD NORTH EAST - 74447 BRADFORD SOUTH WEST - 72387 SHIPLEY - 71379 PUDSEY - 78030 |
|
Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742 
|
Post by Adrian on Apr 17, 2016 10:36:27 GMT
Ah yes, but ward splits don't save you from having to treat bits of Bradford with Leeds. The plan I was working on last night groups Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale, and treats Leeds separately. Of course you're right that Kirkless should be dealt with on its own, and that's my general preference, but there are certain advantages to adding a ward from Bradford. p.s. Are any Bradford PD electorates on the web? I've found lots of nice PD maps. |
|
|
|
Post by minionofmidas on Apr 17, 2016 10:41:44 GMT
Have you actually looked at a map of Tong ward? I'm only asking because "coherent" and "Leeds" in one paragraph with it is cannot-compute level strange. (Whoever came up with that name for it, or "Wyke" for Low Moor with Wyke for that matter, though that's not that level of strange?) At least Bradford Moor ward is on the road from Bradford to Leeds. The populated parts of Tong ward are suburban developments of Bradford on the road towards Dewsbury and Wakefield. Bradford UA must be paired with Leeds. Bradford itself only needs to be if you want to avoid ward splits at all cost (for in that case, indeed it must. There is no way around it.)
|
|
|
|
Post by islington on Apr 17, 2016 10:55:25 GMT
Sheffield ERO emailed me saying they'd send me the polling district parliamentary electorate, but they haven't got around to it yet, and I'm not inclinded to pester them until after the elections. However, I've done the count manually from the March register: ElectoratePDs2016.xls and I'm updating the maps: 2016 Ward MapsHuge thanks for this. It's evident even to a die-hard non-splitter like me that at least one split is necessary in Sheffield (and many would advocate two or more), so the PD numbers are crucial. But I'm having a little trouble marrying up the PD numbers with the ward maps. Specifically, what I want to do is divide the old Central ward (Parliamentary electorate 14193) by separating out the parts that are now going to be in Nether Edge, but I can't reconcile the PDs on your spreadsheet with the ward map. I am guessing that the unnamed PDs TF and TG on your spreadsheet may constitute the area in question, since these are not shown on the map - is this right? These sum to 4760 Parliamentary voters on your spreadsheet. Confusingly, there's also a Sheffield City Council paper dated 4 Mar 2016 recommending new PDs. This implies that it is PDs TA, TE and TG that are transferred from Central to Nether Edge. These sum to 5976. Can you help? |
|
iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,453
|
Post by iain on Apr 17, 2016 11:49:39 GMT
Sheffield ERO emailed me saying they'd send me the polling district parliamentary electorate, but they haven't got around to it yet, and I'm not inclinded to pester them until after the elections. However, I've done the count manually from the March register: ElectoratePDs2016.xls and I'm updating the maps: 2016 Ward MapsAre those numbers for the new polling districts? Will those be the ones in use for ward splitting in the review? |
|
|
|
Post by islington on Apr 17, 2016 11:56:04 GMT
Have you actually looked at a map of Tong ward? I'm only asking because "coherent" and "Leeds" in one paragraph with it is cannot-compute level strange. (Whoever came up with that name for it, or "Wyke" for Low Moor with Wyke for that matter, though that's not that level of strange?) At least Bradford Moor ward is on the road from Bradford to Leeds. The populated parts of Tong ward are suburban developments of Bradford on the road towards Dewsbury and Wakefield. Bradford UA must be paired with Leeds. Bradford itself only needs to be if you want to avoid ward splits at all cost (for in that case, indeed it must. There is no way around it.) I quite agree that ward names can be misleading and that it's always important to look at the actual content of the ward. When I said that treating Tong with Leeds was 'inevitable', this was because of Tong's geographical location, on the southeastern environs of Bradford and, crucially, abutting the Morley and Pudsey areas of Leeds where the ward sizes are particularly difficult. It wasn't because I thought that Tong ward isn't really part of Bradford; of course it is, and it would be better if it could be kept in a Bradford seat. But since the boundary must be crossed somewhere, Tong is a logical candidate because of its location and also because, if a part of Bradford must be placed in a seat based on Morley, then it makes sense to remove 'suburban developments of Bradford on the road towards Dewsbury and Wakefield', especially since the said road gets to Wakefield via, er, Morley. |
|
iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,453
|
Post by iain on Apr 17, 2016 12:04:09 GMT
I think that for the west of Sheffield the best seats would be a Hallam and Hillsborough.
Hallam:
Dore & Totley, Ecclesall, Fulwood, Nether Edge, Crookes, Broomhill
Hillsborough:
Stocksbridge & Upper Don, Stannington, Hillsborough, Walkley, Central
This leaves Hallam slightly over quota and Hillsborough slightly under. I would then advocate splitting either Crookes or Broomhill. I think taking polling districts A (Cobden) and D (St Timothy's) from Crookes (either new or old PDs) will just about get Hallam under and Hillsborough over quota. Alternatively, there may be a better split of Broomhill, but my confusion over which PDs to use makes it much harder to decide a good split in this ward.
Ideally, both wards would be split, with the two Crookes PDs and probably one or two from northern Broomhill forming a coherent unit which can fit fairly well with the Hillsborough seat. However, this will be a non-starter with the commission.
|
|
|
|
Post by minionofmidas on Apr 17, 2016 12:24:40 GMT
Have you actually looked at a map of Tong ward? I'm only asking because "coherent" and "Leeds" in one paragraph with it is cannot-compute level strange. (Whoever came up with that name for it, or "Wyke" for Low Moor with Wyke for that matter, though that's not that level of strange?) At least Bradford Moor ward is on the road from Bradford to Leeds. The populated parts of Tong ward are suburban developments of Bradford on the road towards Dewsbury and Wakefield. Bradford UA must be paired with Leeds. Bradford itself only needs to be if you want to avoid ward splits at all cost (for in that case, indeed it must. There is no way around it.) I quite agree that ward names can be misleading and that it's always important to look at the actual content of the ward. When I said that treating Tong with Leeds was 'inevitable', this was because of Tong's geographical location, on the southeastern environs of Bradford and, crucially, abutting the Morley and Pudsey areas of Leeds where the ward sizes are particularly difficult. It wasn't because I thought that Tong ward isn't really part of Bradford; of course it is, and it would be better if it could be kept in a Bradford seat. But since the boundary must be crossed somewhere, Tong is a logical candidate because of its location and also because, if a part of Bradford must be placed in a seat based on Morley, then it makes sense to remove 'suburban developments of Bradford on the road towards Dewsbury and Wakefield', especially since the said road gets to Wakefield via, er, Morley. Not via Batley? Meh, there's more than one road option by that point. Who am I to judge people's transport options - as the commission is bound to remind us when it suits them (and only then!), the lack of links between areas paired is not a statutory consideration at all, only the links or relative lack thereof between Tong and its current constituency are. A Morley seat is certainly better than a Pudsey (as at the last review...) or Leeds proper seat. But that's small favors. The point is - these considerations are premeditated on not splitting wards if it can be avoided at all (I *think* it *literally* can not be avoided at all at Sheffield, without crossing into Derbyshire and while remaining technically contiguous that is. I tried pretty hard, and by that I mean I doodled wholly idiotic strings of wards onto the map. There's always a snag somewhere no matter how often you cross the Rotherham and Barnsley lines.) If you're deciding you can't avoid pairing Leeds and Bradford and are looking for a logical place to cross the boundary, there is one and it's in the Wharfedale. Shame it doesn't work too well with Keighley either, though; the case would appear cut and dried otherwise. |
|
J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,841
Member is Online
|
Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 17, 2016 13:14:49 GMT
Sheffield ERO emailed me saying they'd send me the polling district parliamentary electorate, but they haven't got around to it yet, and I'm not inclinded to pester them until after the elections. However, I've done the count manually from the March register: ElectoratePDs2016.xls and I'm updating the maps: 2016 Ward MapsAre those numbers for the new polling districts? Will those be the ones in use for ward splitting in the review? They are the new polling districts on the 2016 register. Stick your finger in the air as to how much the numbers have changed since 1st December. |
|
Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
|
Post by Adrian on Apr 17, 2016 13:50:55 GMT
Here's a stab at Leeds. (The red lines, not the colours.) Only five split wards (!) so the Commission will love it. I haven't paid much attention to current seats, as you can see.
|
|
J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,841
Member is Online
|
Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 17, 2016 13:59:01 GMT
I think that for the west of Sheffield the best seats would be a Hallam and Hillsborough. Hallam: Dore & Totley, Ecclesall, Fulwood, Nether Edge, Crookes, Broomhill Hillsborough: Stocksbridge & Upper Don, Stannington, Hillsborough, Walkley, Central This leaves Hallam slightly over quota and Hillsborough slightly under. I would then advocate splitting either Crookes or Broomhill. I think taking polling districts A (Cobden) and D (St Timothy's) from Crookes (either new or old PDs) will just about get Hallam under and Hillsborough over quota. Splitting Crookes&Crosspool into Crookes (Cobdens/St.Tim/St.Tom/Toftwood) and Crosspool (Crosspool/Sandies/Taptons) gives:  Alternatively, there may be a better split of Broomhill, but my confusion over which PDs to use makes it much harder to decide a good split in this ward. Splitting Broomhill&Sharrow Vale into Broomhill+Hunters Bar/Universities+Broomhall gives the model I proposed a couple of weeks ago:  |
|
iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,453
|
Post by iain on Apr 17, 2016 14:02:24 GMT
I think that for the west of Sheffield the best seats would be a Hallam and Hillsborough. Hallam: Dore & Totley, Ecclesall, Fulwood, Nether Edge, Crookes, Broomhill Hillsborough: Stocksbridge & Upper Don, Stannington, Hillsborough, Walkley, Central This leaves Hallam slightly over quota and Hillsborough slightly under. I would then advocate splitting either Crookes or Broomhill. I think taking polling districts A (Cobden) and D (St Timothy's) from Crookes (either new or old PDs) will just about get Hallam under and Hillsborough over quota. Splitting Crookes&Crosspool into Crookes (Cobdens/St.Tim/St.Tom/Toftwood) and Crosspool (Crosspool/Sandies/Taptons) gives: Alternatively, there may be a better split of Broomhill, but my confusion over which PDs to use makes it much harder to decide a good split in this ward. Splitting Broomhill&Sharrow Vale into Broomhill+Hunters Bar/Universities+Broomhall gives the model I proposed a couple of weeks ago: I believe we have to use the old wards though? I think you've split off slightly more of Crookes than I was thinking, but doesn't make too much difference. |
|
J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,841
Member is Online
|
Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 17, 2016 14:15:35 GMT
I believe we have to use the old wards though? I think you've split off slightly more of Crookes than I was thinking, but doesn't make too much difference. It's difficult to split Crookes&Crosspool any other way, even ignoring polling district boundaries. There's better ways to split Broomhill&Sharrow Vale around Broomhill itself, but I've stuck to PD boundaries. You have to use the electorate from the December 2015 register, which was drawn on the old wards. If you look at the map carefully you'll see that each seat is almost entirely old wards anyway. This is what it looks like on old wards:  |
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
|
Post by YL on Apr 17, 2016 14:24:45 GMT
The BCE have been quite clear that they will use the wards in force as of December 2015. My impression is that, if they split those wards, they will also use the polling districts in force then.
|
|
iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,453
|
Post by iain on Apr 17, 2016 14:37:56 GMT
I believe we have to use the old wards though? I think you've split off slightly more of Crookes than I was thinking, but doesn't make too much difference. It's difficult to split Crookes&Crosspool any other way, even ignoring polling district boundaries. There's better ways to split Broomhill&Sharrow Vale around Broomhill itself, but I've stuck to PD boundaries. You have to use the electorate from the December 2015 register, which was drawn on the old wards. If you look at the map carefully you'll see that each seat is almost entirely old wards anyway. This is what it looks like on old wards: But the BCE has said they will be using the old wards as building blocks. While your approach makes far more sense, using the old wards (the only real change of consequence is leaving all of Central together) will see your plan actually looked at by the commission. |
|
Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742
|
Post by Adrian on Apr 17, 2016 14:38:14 GMT
Yes, the Commission will present proposals based on the wards that were valid in May 2015.
What it does mean if ward-splitting is allowed, is that counterproposals can be made on the basis of the 2016 wards (especially if the 2015 wards are problematic) since it can be regarded as a kind of ward-splitting. So there might be one or two places where it'd be reasonable to submit side-by-side proposals using both the 2015 and 2016 wards, to show the benefits of using the latter. If the local MP(s) and/or council agrees with you, the Commission *might* give it some consideration. But they probably won't.
|
|
YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
|
Post by YL on Apr 17, 2016 14:40:54 GMT
I see them as demonstrating what's wrong with the avoiding-split-wards-at-all-costs approach. As you say, in much of Leeds (especially the west of the city council area) there are no combinations of wards which get within the legal range. So to get legal seats covering those parts of Leeds without splitting any wards, you end up having to tack random wards from neighbouring authorities on to get electorates in range without really thinking very much about any other aspect of good seat design. As doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ 's post reminds us, we've been here before with the zombie review. The fall in the electorate of many central Leeds wards means that at least no-one is proposing anything as bad as that thing again. Ah yes, but ward splits don't save you from having to treat bits of Bradford with Leeds. Leeds itself has an entitlement of 6.89 so it could definitely have seven seats to itself; although, with 33 wards of which no combination of four is big enough, much splitting will be needed. But this doesn't solve the problem of Bradford with 4.37; it is thus inevitable that some parts of Bradford are going to have to be treated with an adjoining authority. Presumably Bradford will 'lend' a ward to Calderdale, but even this will only reduce the entitlement to about 4.24 or so (depending which ward you take). So at least one more Bradford ward has to be detached; and with Kirklees in no need of reinforcement, the only plausible place for it to go is Leeds. And all the ward splits in the world won't resolve this basic issue: there are simply too many voters in Bradford to allow it to be treated independently of Leeds. A particularly attractive feature of hullenedge's plan is that it treats the need to cross the Leeds/Bradford boundary not as a problem but as a solution. If you treat two Bradford wards with Leeds, then you have in effect created a virtual 'Leeds' with 35 wards instead of 33, and suddenly the allotment of seven seats has become a much more manageable proposition. Note that both in hullenedge's scheme and my slight modification of it, all seven Leeds seats consist of exactly five wards. So I don't see this as an approach of 'avoiding-split-wards-at-all-costs'; I'd see it more as 'recognising-that-the-Leeds/Bradford-boundary-has-to-be-crossed-anyway' and then trying to do this in a way that creates coherent seats without ward-splitting. There remains the issue of which Bradford wards to take. The choice is limited by the fact that wards in south and west Leeds are so large: in this area, any combination of five is too big, so getting a seat within range means that it has to comprise four Leeds wards plus one rather smaller Bradford ward. In these circumstances, Tong is an almost inevitable choice as one of the Bradford wards. There's more flexibility about the other one: hullenedge suggested Bradford Moor but this ward is clearly integral to Bradford and it led to awkward boundaries in the central Bradford area, so I suggested Eccleshill which, although also very much part of Bradford, is slightly further from the city centre and allowed much better seats of Bradford E, Bradford W and Shipley. I just don't think you'd be thinking that way if you weren't trying too hard to avoid ward splitting. To me, it's so much better, if you're forced to take two Bradford wards and put them in Leeds seats, it's better to take a coherent pair of Bradford wards, preferably ones which aren't really part of "Bradford proper", and put them in the same Leeds-based seat, so that you only have one seat crossing the border and that it doesn't feel like you're carving out lots of small bits of Bradford proper to solve Leeds's problems. As I said, Wharfedale and Ilkley (which no-one would think of as part of Bradford proper) fit the bill; then Tong and Eccleshill and so on can stay in Bradford proper based seats where they belong. Yes, you need to split a Leeds ward to make it work, but to me that is less of a problem (and note that Leeds is beginning a ward boundary review: by the time these constituencies are introduced the wards they're based on will be history). |
|
iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 11,453
|
Post by iain on Apr 17, 2016 14:46:46 GMT
The BCE have been quite clear that they will use the wards in force as of December 2015. My impression is that, if they split those wards, they will also use the polling districts in force then. That was the impression I got. In that case, I'd prefer to split off ED (Commonside) and EE (Harcourt) from Broomhill: mdfs.net/maps/Sheffield/Wards/2004/Broomhill.gifBut I'm not sure whether or not that gets both seats in quota. If not, then, rather than adding on the two other eastern Broomhill PDs, it'd probably be better to split off the four eastern Crookes PDs (Crookes proper) mdfs.net/maps/Sheffield/Wards/2004/Crookes.gif |
|
