2018 review - Yorkshire and the Humber

[J.G.Harston]

Apr 17, 2016 14:24:45 GMT YL said:

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's ok, as the polling districts split the old wards to form the new wards.

As other posters have said, submit a plan drawn on the old wards with recommendations to split those old wards which end up not splitting the new wards. In most cases it's a case of the boundary being behind a block of houses instead of in front of a block of houses (eg Base Green No.2, South Road No. 2, St. Timothy's No. 2) and to leave the old ward boundary fossilised would result in loads of tiny polling districts stuck on the ground for 20-30 years.

I understand that the sole thrust of the East Bradwayians to join Dore&Totley was so they could end up in a Hallam constituency. I expect their sole thrust of their submission to the Parliamentary review is that the old ward boundary should be ignored and the new boundary should be used.

[J.G.Harston]

Apr 17, 2016 14:46:46 GMT iain said:

In that case, I'd prefer to split off ED (Commonside) and EE (Harcourt) from Broomhill:
mdfs.net/maps/Sheffield/Wards/2004/Broomhill.gif

ED is now in Walkley. I looked at that initially, and it makes Hallam too small/Hillsborough too big on either old or new wards. Putting in all of Old-Central puts Hillsborough at about 82,000, +10% and Hallam at about 69,000, -10%.

Apr 17, 2016 14:46:46 GMT iain said:

But 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

Is that old-Stocksbridge,Stannington,Hillsborough,Walkley,Central with Crookes PDs? I think that's too big as the old-Central tips it over. It gets to 82,000 or so, +10%

Anything that lumps Stocksbridge,Stannington,Hillsborough,Walkley together doesn't change the on old or new wards as Stocksbridge,Stannington haven't changed and Hillsborough,Walkley have just swapped territory between them and the handful Walkley loses in Kelham is balanced by the handful gained at Commonside.

[YL]

Apr 17, 2016 14:57:51 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Apr 17, 2016 14:24:45 GMT YL said:

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's ok, as the polling districts split the old wards to form the new wards.

As other posters have said, submit a plan drawn on the old wards with recommendations to split those old wards which end up not splitting the new wards. In most cases it's a case of the boundary being behind a block of houses instead of in front of a block of houses (eg Base Green No.2, South Road No. 2, St. Timothy's No. 2) and to leave the old ward boundary fossilised would result in loads of tiny polling districts stuck on the ground for 20-30 years.

I understand that the sole thrust of the East Bradwayians to join Dore&Totley was so they could end up in a Hallam constituency. I expect their sole thrust of their submission to the Parliamentary review is that the old ward boundary should be ignored and the new boundary should be used.

If they're actually using the polling districts in force as of December 2015, then that won't work, as it's before the PD review. So, e.g. polling district EH in old Broomhill (on your map here) has been split by the ward review between Broomhill & Sharrow Vale and Crookes & Crosspool. And Lower Bradway is stuck, as they won't split polling district BG in old Beauchief & Greenhill.

I agree it doesn't make much sense, but my impression was that that was the way they were going to work. I could be wrong...

[Deleted]

If there is any "advantage" from the o!d ward/new ward problem, it's the freedom to create constituencies from streets which just happen to be the boundaries of new wards.

[iain]

Apr 17, 2016 15:14:38 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Apr 17, 2016 14:46:46 GMT iain said:

In that case, I'd prefer to split off ED (Commonside) and EE (Harcourt) from Broomhill:
mdfs.net/maps/Sheffield/Wards/2004/Broomhill.gif

ED is now in Walkley. I looked at that initially, and it makes Hallam too small/Hillsborough too big on either old or new wards. Putting in all of Old-Central puts Hillsborough at about 82,000, +10% and Hallam at about 69,000, -10%.

I don't think so? This is all using old wards. Hillsborough has 70,867 while Hallam has 82,992. Swapping only the two Broomhill PDs would I think still leave Hallam over the limit, meaning the split would have to take more of Broomhill into Hillsborough, or split Crookes instead.

[Adrian]

I've done two WYorks plans. One with Leeds on its own and a Kirklees/Bradford/Calderdale group, and another with Kirklees and Calderdale on their own and Bradford paired with Leeds. Dealing with Kirklees and Calderdale on their own involves splitting a ward in each, but otherwise both need an orphan ward from Bradford. The splits are tricky, the way I've arranged them, because all four seats with split wards come in at just over 71,000.

[islington]

Apr 17, 2016 14:40:54 GMT YL said:

Apr 17, 2016 10:07:00 GMT islington said:

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).

As a matter of interest, and putting the ward-splitting issue to one side for the moment:

Assuming that you wish to retain viable Keighley and Shipley seats, where are you going to find enough voters if you are including Wharfedale and Ilkley wards with Leeds? Even if you just take Wharfedale, aren't you still going to come up short on numbers? I'm sure you're right that, taken in isolation, Wharfedale is the most logical place to cross the boundary, but unless there's some arrangement that I've missed, it seems to me to create serious problems on both sides of the line - problems that can be solved by taking a ward further south, such as Eccleshill (or Idle or Bradford Moor if you prefer). 

[East Anglian Lefty]

Even if you don't put Wharfedale with Leeds, you can't avoid Shipley having to reach into the Bradford seats - and frankly, I don't see the issue there, given that it's part of the same urban area anyway.

[islington]

Well, yes you could. And you'd probably end up with something very like the plan posted by YL on 15 April. I agree it crosses the Leeds/Bradford boundary in a more logical place, but on the other hand the linking of Worth Valley and Calderdale is very awkward, Shipley is submerged in what is effectively a Bradford city seat, and although the Morley seat is somewhat more compact than in hullenedge's plan, this is at the price of long straggly seats extending (in the case of Pudsey) from Hawksworth to Farnley and (Leeds NW) from Ilkley to Headingley. And this is without mentioning the ward split.

On balance, therefore, YL's seems to me a less satisfactory plan than the one put forward by hullenedge (subject to the small modification I suggested in the Bradford/Pudsey area). But in the end, it's a judgment.

[YL]

Apr 24, 2016 11:10:21 GMT islington said:

Well, yes you could. And you'd probably end up with something very like the plan posted by YL on 15 April. I agree it crosses the Leeds/Bradford boundary in a more logical place, but on the other hand the linking of Worth Valley and Calderdale is very awkward, Shipley is submerged in what is effectively a Bradford city seat, and although the Morley seat is somewhat more compact than in hullenedge's plan, this is at the price of long straggly seats extending (in the case of Pudsey) from Hawksworth to Farnley and (Leeds NW) from Ilkley to Headingley. And this is without mentioning the ward split.

On balance, therefore, YL's seems to me a less satisfactory plan than the one put forward by hullenedge (subject to the small modification I suggested in the Bradford/Pudsey area). But in the end, it's a judgment.

I don't see the problem with Shipley. It's kept together with two of its current neighbours and it's all part of the same urban area. Snobs who insist they're not part of Bradford and members of the Philip Davies fan club may not like it (not that I'm sure who'd win that Bradford East & Shipley) but neither of those arguments has much standing in the rules. Compared with nibbling off lots of little bits of Bradford into different seats, it seems a small price to pay.

I'd prefer a better plan in Leeds too. It would probably require splitting another ward, which I wouldn't have a problem with, but might be a bit harder to justify. (I did originally have a version which split Pudsey ward instead, which produced a more compact "Pudsey" seat, but I thought that ward looked harder to split.) As for Worth Valley, I acknowledged that wasn't ideal in the original post, though I think the Wyke-into-Halifax alternative is less than ideal too (more nibbling at Bradford). I'd support a two whole seats in Calderdale plan if there was a satisfactory way of doing it.

[islington]

Yes, just to be clear -

I wasn't trying to rubbish YL's plan, far from it. It has its drawbacks, like all plans, but it also has a lot of strengths. But for various reasons, I think hullendge's plan (the modified version of it) is better.

Regarding Shipley - As YL says, the snobbishness of Shipley residents isn't a legitimate factor, and nor is protecting the position of a particular MP (however excellent he may be). But 'boundaries of existing constituencies' is a proper consideration (Schedule 2, para 5(1)(c)). Shipley, for instance, in the hullenedge scheme, is simply one ward out (Wharfedale), one ward in (Idle in the modified version - an improvement on Thornton in the original version). The great majority of other seats in W Yorks are subject to similarly modest degrees of change. Of the 22 existing seats: 3 are completely unchanged; 5 add only a single ward; 4 are 'one in, one out'; 4 are 'two in, one out' (which still means that three-quarters or more of the current seat ends up in a clear successor seat). Of the remainder, 4 undergo more substantial changes and 2 (Leeds C and Bradford S) disappear entirely. Considering that W Yorks as a whole goes down from 22 seats to 20, it is striking how the hullenedge plan manages to effect such a substantial reduction in a way that pays so much respect to the existing seat pattern. This is why I am such a strong advocate of it, as compared with, for instance, Pete Whitehead's ingenious scheme which also eschews ward splits but which involves much more change to the current pattern.

[Adrian]

I've put Hullenedge's plan (with Islington's changes) into Plan Builder.

The three orphan wards from Bradford are not to my taste*, but I can easily imagine the Commission presenting this very plan in their initial proposals. There are lots of good things about it, perhaps outweighing problems such as the orphaning+splitting of Ossett.

(*Having said that, it is very tempting to take the Wyke and Tong wards out of Bradford to solve the numbers problems in the neighbouring authorities, and I do it myself in some of the plans I've been working on. When it comes to ethical decisions, it hardly seems like a crime, but it is still ethically dubious to treat people who live near borders as data to be used to top up neighbouring seats.)

[YL]

Here's a summary of the approach to South and West Yorkshire which prioritises minimising the number of constituencies which cross Met Borough boundaries, and is prepared to be pretty free with splitting wards to achieve that. I don't necessarily endorse everything here.

Sheffield: five seats within the City boundary. There are various ways of doing this.

Rotherham/Barnsley: five seats. Rother Valley left unchanged.

Wakefield/Doncaster: six seats, including a single Wakefield ward in a predominantly Doncaster constituency. There are various ways of doing the rest of Wakefield, one (which retains the unfortunate Ossett split) keeps Normanton et al unchanged and adds Wakefield Rural and Horbury & South Ossett to Hemsworth, transferring Wakefield South and the two Outwood wards to Wakefield. Other options seem to split Outwood or Castleford instead.

This map from earlier in the thread covers the South Yorkshire parts, with one particular option in Sheffield:

Mar 2, 2016 8:22:53 GMT YL said:

Kirklees: Batley & Spen and Dewsbury unchanged, transfer part of Lindley ward from Colne Valley to Huddersfield. This is a tricky split, as there are only just enough electors to deal with. But if it's possible to do it in an acceptable way (which depends on the actual numbers within the ward) I think it's a natural solution. One of the other west Huddersfield wards currently in Colne Valley could be considered for splitting instead.

Calderdale: simply transfer part of Hipperholme & Lightcliffe ward from Calder Valley to Halifax. Again, this is rather tight, though not as tight as Lindley.

Bradford excluding Ilkley/Wharfedale: four seats. One way, which only splits one ward, has Keighley taking all of Bingley and the majority of Bingley Rural; the rest of Bingley Rural together with Shipley is added to the existing Bradford West (this is one part I'm not sure I want to endorse!) and the remaining 14 Bradford wards divide easily into two seats, one of which is the existing Bradford South plus Little Horton.

Leeds plus Ilkley/Wharfedale: seven seats. I already posted one way, so here's an attempt at an improvement. The cross border seat, Otley & Ilkley, contains Ilkley, Wharfedale, Otley & Yeadon, Guiseley & Rawdon, Horsforth and the northern end of Calverley & Farsley. The rest of Calverley & Farsley goes into Leeds West & Pudsey with Pudsey, Bramley & Stanningley, Armley and Farnley & Wortley. Leeds South & Morley contains the two Morley wards, Ardsley & Robin Hood, Middleton Park, and the southern end of either City & Hunslet or Beeston & Holbeck (the former probably works better with Middleton Park). Elmet & Rothwell is unchanged, and Leeds East is the same as other proposals, the existing seat plus Burmantofts & Richmond Hill. That leaves a Leeds Central and a Leeds North; this can be done without any more split wards, but it looks much better to have Kirkstall in Central and Roundhay in North, which requires a small part of Weetwood (basically an extension of Headingley) to also go in Central.

[YL]

Adrian 's North Yorkshire post:
ukelect.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/2018-review-north-yorkshire/

I think my preference is for the simple option expressed earlier in the thread by J.G.Harston : re-align to new ward boundaries and then transfer Thornton Dale ward from Thirsk & Malton to Scarborough & Whitby to bring the latter up to quota.

I'm also going to make a somewhat half-hearted defence of York Outer. I think it makes sense for a city of the size of York to have one wholly urban seat rather than to split the urban area in two and group both sides with rural areas, even when those rural areas happen to be included in the city council's area. Yes, it means the doughnut seat is a bit of a mishmash of parts of the urban area which didn't fit in York Central together with said rural areas, but I don't think an east/west split would be that great either.

[Adrian]

In this case I think I was more interested in showing an alternative than the obvious option. But I do think each large town needs to be taken on its merits. It's pretty clear that Exeter, Oxford, Ipswich, Telford shouldn't be split, but in York's case the argument was much weaker.

[islington]

And moving onto the last leg of our tour of England, we arrive in Y&H.



YH-A (N Yorks): 442491 = 5.92 = 6

There's very little to see here: the county already has its correct allocation of six seats and they are all in range except Scarborough, which can be rectified by a minor exchange of territory with Thirsk.

HARROGATE AND KNARESBOROUGH - 74319
RICHMOND - 76649
SCARBOROUGH - 72771. I've dropped 'Whitby' to deter Filey, now in the seat, from also demanding headline billing.
SELBY AND THE AINSTY - 72685
SKIPTON AND RIPON - 74270
THIRSK AND MALTON - 71797

YH-B (York): 147364 - 1.97 = 2

Even less to see here; just some ward realignment. I've never been a great fan of these seats but on reflection, I've concluded that it isn't the boundaries I dislike so much as the names, so I've changed them.

VALE OF YORK - 71218
YORK - 76146



YH-C (Humberside): 661995 = 8.85 = 9

I've come up with my own arrangement for Grimsby/Cleethorpes but everywhere else, this is exactly the plan posted by Pete Whitehead a long way upthread, so my thanks to him.

BEVERLEY - 71322
BRIDLINGTON - 71243
BRIGG - 71820. I've called it 'Brigg', which has history on its side as a constituency name. But the town itself is quite small and is tucked right into one corner of this ungainly, meandering seat. My E Mids plans include seats of E and W Lindsey so 'N Lindsey' would be a very reasonable possibility.
GOOLE AND HOWDEN - 73241
GRIMSBY AND CLEETHORPES - 75028. This is my contribution and I'm reasonably happy with it as a solution to this tricky area. Other plans tend to involve either ward-splitting or driving a boundary through the middle of one of the towns. I've avoided these problems, although at the (lesser) cost of (i) splitting off Scartho (which I agree is part of Grimsby but which used to be a separate town and still has something of that character), and (ii) making the Brigg seat even more weirdly misshapen than it might be otherwise (but surely it is already a lost cause in terms of coherence or internal connectivity).
HALTEMPRICE - 74545. Takes three wards displaced from northwestern Hull.
HULL WEST - 73424
HULL EAST - 77568
SCUNTHORPE - 73804. S Axholme not a good fit (needed for numbers) but otherwise a logical seat.   

[islington]

Apr 26, 2016 12:14:41 GMT Adrian said:

I've put Hullenedge's plan (with Islington's changes) into Plan Builder.

The three orphan wards from Bradford are not to my taste*, but I can easily imagine the Commission presenting this very plan in their initial proposals. There are lots of good things about it, perhaps outweighing problems such as the orphaning+splitting of Ossett.

(*Having said that, it is very tempting to take the Wyke and Tong wards out of Bradford to solve the numbers problems in the neighbouring authorities, and I do it myself in some of the plans I've been working on. When it comes to ethical decisions, it hardly seems like a crime, but it is still ethically dubious to treat people who live near borders as data to be used to top up neighbouring seats.)

Adrian very kindly posted a map of my proposal (reposted here) so my thanks to him. And I stress that this plan is essentially Hullenedge's; all I did was tweak a few wards in the Bradford/Pudsey area. Because this scheme was discussed at length upthread, I'm not going to say much more about it but for completeness' sake I'll list the seats.

YH-D (Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale): 984,951 = 13.17 = 13

BRADFORD EAST - 71607
BRADFORD WEST - 75526
CALDER VALLEY - 74587
ELMET AND ROTHWELL - 77287
HALIFAX - 78151. Some plans upthread have suggested two whole seats for Calderdale, with a ward split to achieve it. But even if you don't mind ward splits, I don't this will work because the numbers are so tight (entitlement 1.91, average 71432) that it's almost certain that whichever ward you choose will fail to divide nicely in the very precise way that it needs to in order to keep both seats above the minimum. If you're going to split wards, I suggest that you need a reasonable amount of leeway (say about 1500-2000 voters either way) to allow you to effect a sensible split along PD boundaries. Since that leeway isn't available here, I think it's inevitable that Calderdale is going to have to 'borrow' some numbers from Bradford.
KEIGHLEY - 76636
LEEDS NORTH EAST - 78304
LEEDS NORTH WEST - 73429
LEEDS SOUTH EAST - 76213. All right, I admit I've succumbed to my liking of symmetry here. This seat is much more 'E' than 'SE'.
LEEDS SOUTH WEST - 76459
MORLEY - 77642. Tong ward from Bradford is not a great fit, but it's not such an outrageously bad fit as some comments upthread would suggest.
PUDSEY - 77136
SHIPLEY - 71974

YH-E (Kirklees, Wakefield): 532704 = 7.12 = 7

This is 100% Hullenedge's fine plan.

BATLEY - 75961
CASTLEFORD AND PONTEFRACT - 78097
COLNE VALLEY - 78384
DEWSBURY - 76667
HEMSWORTH - 72647
HUDDERSFIELD - 76540
WAKEFIELD - 74408

[AustralianSwingVoter]

North Lincolnshire (THIS IS NOT HUMBERSIDE, THIS IS LINCOLNSHIRE)

Grimsby 71855
North Lincolnshire 71348
Scunthorpe 71820

[greenhert]

AustralianSwingVoter, your North Lincolnshire plans still leave parts of North Lincolnshire out, since it is entitled to 3.11 seats (the three seats you have listed are undersized). Mine do not. You can keep East Yorkshire separate if you separate Goole from it, since Goole was originally in the West Riding of Yorkshire and not the East Riding. Add Selby to this and pair it with South Yorkshire (which was also all in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as was Selby) and this will make drawing that map slightly easier. (14.18 seats as opposed to 12.74 seats)

[markgoodair]

May 12, 2016 19:00:51 GMT YL said:

Here's a summary of the approach to South and West Yorkshire which prioritises minimising the number of constituencies which cross Met Borough boundaries, and is prepared to be pretty free with splitting wards to achieve that. I don't necessarily endorse everything here.

Sheffield: five seats within the City boundary. There are various ways of doing this.

Rotherham/Barnsley: five seats. Rother Valley left unchanged.

Wakefield/Doncaster: six seats, including a single Wakefield ward in a predominantly Doncaster constituency. There are various ways of doing the rest of Wakefield, one (which retains the unfortunate Ossett split) keeps Normanton et al unchanged and adds Wakefield Rural and Horbury & South Ossett to Hemsworth, transferring Wakefield South and the two Outwood wards to Wakefield. Other options seem to split Outwood or Castleford instead.

Anyone that thinks that Horbury should be in the Hemsworth constituency is clearly off their rocker.