2018 Review - Greater London

[greatkingrat]

68 seats allocated

Barking & Dagenham 1.49
Barnet 2.79
Brent 2.44
Camden 1.74
Ealing 2.79
Enfield 2.57
Hackney 1.98
Hammersmith & Fulham 1.41
Haringey 1.89
Harrow 2.15
Havering 2.37
Hillingdon 2.46
Hounslow 2.13
Islington 1.79
Kensington & Chelsea 1.02
Newham 2.27
Redbridge 2.38
Tower Hamlets 2.02
Waltham Forest 2.08
Westminster 1.49
City of London 0.08
Richmond (north of Thames) 1.05

NORTH LONDON 42.39 (42)

Bexley 2.21
Bromley 3.02
Croydon 3.13
Greenwich 2.15
Kingston upon Thames 1.40
Lambeth 2.52
Lewisham 2.24
Merton 1.74
Richmond (south of Thames) 0.65
Southwark 2.50
Sutton 1.82
Wandsworth 2.69

SOUTH LONDON 26.08 (26)

The North / South split seems to work out well, Twickenham just sneaks in under the quota and can remain unchanged with no need for a cross-Thames seat.

[greenhert]

The awkward thing statistically is that even though Kensington & Chelsea can form a constituency all of its own, the electorate numbers of the nearest surrounding boroughs (Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster) will effectively prevent it from doing so....

[greatkingrat]

Not necessarily. How about

Westminster / City / Camden / Islington = 5.10 (5)
Hammersmith / Brent / Ealing / Hounslow / Hillingdon = 11.23 (11)
Barnet / Harrow = 4.95 (5)
Enfield / Haringey / Waltham Forest / Redbridge = 8.92 (9)
Newham / Havering / Barking = 6.13 (6)

Kensington (1), Hackney (2), Tower Hamlets (2) all stand alone.

[islington]

A lot of these numbers work out very awkwardly. For instance, it's very tempting to keep Lambeth paired with Southwark since that combination has a tidy 5.02. But if you do, and also allot 3 seats each to Croydon (albeit probably with ward-splitting) and Bromley, then you are left with Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley totalling a completely impossible 6.60. The only way to resolve this - unless you want to spoil the neatness of 3 seats for Crodon and Bromley, is to split Southwark from Lambeth. This gives 8.10 for the Southwark/Lewisham/Greenwich/Bexley batch of boroughs, which is fine; but then you need to treat Lambeth with a different grouping of, presumably, Wandsworth, Merton and (since there's nowhere else for it to go) Sutton. Add in Kingston as well and you get a very tempting 10.17 for that group, but then what do you do with the non-Twickenham half of Richmond?

And that's without mentioning the East London conundrum, where Hackney and Tower Hamlets cry out to be left with two whole seats apiece. But if you do this, you've deprived yourself of the most sensible place for a Lea-crossing seat. And the only way to avoid the need for such a seat is to treat the five Essex boroughs as a unit with a very awkward 10.57 - it just about possible, in theory, the allocate 11 seats but they will be perilously close to the minimum size.

Hours of pleasure await.

(New member here, btw)

[islington]

Sorry, my mistake: Southwark/Lewisham/Greenwich/Bexley is 9.1, not 8.1. But the salient point remains.

[John Chanin]

Unfortunately East London still doesn't work (I make it 10.59), so we will have the problem of crossing the Lea again. With Tower Hamlets and Hackney both on quota for 2 seats, it looks like the horrible pairing of Waltham Forest and Enfield may recur. Does anyone have a solution?

[Pete Whitehead]

With that number of seats it is doable to have 11 seats East of the Lea with an average electorate of around 72k. In reality of course, with the ize of wards in that area its going to be impossible to get seats of that size without huge amount of ward splitting and probably with an unfiar knock on effect on the size of seats elsewhere in London. For my money the best bet is to go across the Lea at the Tower Hamlets Newham border as there's precedent for that and there's clearly more links between those areas then there are further down river. The fact that Tower Hamlets may be just right for two seats is unfortunate but should harldy be a deal breaker. Afterall, Leciestershire is good for 10 seats but is going to have to deal with two cross-county seats because both Nottinghamshire and Northants are not up to the mark.

[lennon]

Given Waltham Forest is also in quota at 2 seats now it adds complications if anything. I am tempted to cross the Thames at Woolwich to solve the conundrum, and believe that it should also help South of the river as well but I need to look in more detail.

Clearly a cross Thames seat this far East is suboptimal so it comes back to a question of better n good seats and 1 really poor one, or n+1 mediocre seats?

[Deleted]

Astonishing in the raw data that Tower Hamlets has shrunk in electorate terms.;-)

[John Chanin]

Feb 25, 2016 4:37:26 GMT lennon said:

Given Waltham Forest is also in quota at 2 seats now it adds complications if anything. I am tempted to cross the Thames at Woolwich to solve the conundrum, and believe that it should also help South of the river as well but I need to look in more detail.

Clearly a cross Thames seat this far East is suboptimal so it comes back to a question of better n good seats and 1 really poor one, or n+1 mediocre seats?

You want to recreate Mersey Banks!?  That's even worse.

[Deleted]

"Thames Banks" doesn't quite have the same thing to it....

[lennon]

Feb 25, 2016 8:09:25 GMT John Chanin said:

Feb 25, 2016 4:37:26 GMT lennon said:

Given Waltham Forest is also in quota at 2 seats now it adds complications if anything. I am tempted to cross the Thames at Woolwich to solve the conundrum, and believe that it should also help South of the river as well but I need to look in more detail.

Clearly a cross Thames seat this far East is suboptimal so it comes back to a question of better n good seats and 1 really poor one, or n+1 mediocre seats?

You want to recreate Mersey Banks!?  That's even worse.

In fairness, at least there's a genuine river crossing - both Ferry and DLR - where I'm suggesting (Woolwich), so they aren't totally discontinuous.

[greatkingrat]

And a foot tunnel.

[islington]

I've now had a chance to sleep on this and do some proper adding up.

My initial thinking was to squeeze 11 seats into 'metropolitan Essex' (the five boroughs east of the Lea). With 792150 voters, i.e. 10.59=11 seats, it would have been a tough assignment, but I was very anxious to avoid a Lea-crossing seat. The most logical place to put such a seat is in the Newham - Tower Hamlets area, which stops you assigning two whole seats not only to Tower Hamlets but also (because of the knock-on effects) to Hackney as well.

But once I'd decided on 11 seats east of the Lea, I hit another snag, this time on the other side of London. Basically, it makes an enormous amount of sense to continue to treat Richmond and Kingston together: 230982 electors, 3.09 seats, and the existing 3 seats have logical boundaries, avoid crossing the river, and are all within range. But once you've decided this, and assuming you don't have a cross-Thames seat elsewhere, you are left with 10 South London boroughs totalling 24.03 seats - which is fine - and 15 boroughs (and the City) north of the Thames but west of the Lea with a total of 30.75. But - and here's the rub - you only have 30 seats left for them.

Perhaps this isn't completely out of the question but it would mean that over a very wide area seats would constantly be pressing against the upper limit and awkward boundaries and widespread ward-splitting would be unavoidable. Moreover, attractive logical combinations such as Barnet / Harrow with 4.92 seats cease to be available because they leave an even higher average for the rest.

At this point I threw in the towel and accepted that a cross-Lea seat is unavoidable. But the arguments for leaving Hackney and TH alone remain compelling so I am forced, with great reluctance, to cross the Lea between Enfield and Waltham Forest. I know this will create a horribly ugly Chingford & Edmonton seat, but I'd argue for it on the grounds that all the alternatives are worse.

It allow boroughs across the whole of London to be bunched in a coherent manner that I'll circulate in a moment.

[islington]

I promised some suggested groupings (some borrowed with thanks from greatkingrat). I'll start in SE London and work round clockwise.

Southwark / Lewisham / Greenwich / Bexley = 679543 = 9.09 = 9 seats

Bromley = 266093 = 3.02 = 3 seats

Croydon / Sutton = 370192 = 4.95 = 5 seats (My first thought was to treat Croydon by itself but its 3 seats would average 78062, too close to the upper margin)

Lambeth / Wandsworth / Merton = 519258 = 6.94 = 7 seats

Richmond / Kingston = 230982 = 3.09 = 3 seats

Brent / H&F / Ealing / Hillingdon / Hounslow = 839903 = 11.23 = 11 seats

K&C = 76454 = 1.02 = 1 seat

Barnet / Harrow = 367736 = 4.92 = 5 seats

City / Westminster / Islington / Camden = 381622 = 5 seats

Tower Hamlets = 151151 = 2.02 = 2 seats

Hackney = 148344 = 1.98 = 2 seats

Haringey / Enfield / Waltham Forest / Redbridge = 667078 = 8.92 = 9 seats

Newham / B&D / Havering = 458598 = 6.13 = 6 seats

[lennon]

OK - So I've got some alternative groupings based on a willingness to cross the Thames, but not the Lee...

Starting in the South-West and working clockwise:

Richmond / Kingston - 3.09 = 3 seats (All unchanged)
Ealing / Hounslow - 4.93 = 5 seats
Brent / Harrow / Hillingdon - 7.05 = 7 seats
H&F / Wandsworth - 4.10 = 4 seats (a 'Putney Bridge' Constituency)
K&C - 1.02 = 1 seat
City / Westminster / Islington / Camden - 5.10 = 5 seats
Barnet / Enfield / Haringey - 7.25 = 7 seats
Tower Hamlets - 2.02 = 2 seats (Unchanged)
Hackney - 1.98 = 2 seats (Unchanged)
Waltham Forest - 2.08 = 2 seats
B&D / Havering / Redbridge - 6.24 = 6 seats
Newham / Greenwich / Lewisham / Bexley - 8.86 = 9 seats (a 'Woolwich Reach' Constituency)
Bromley - 3.02 = 3 seats
Lambeth / Southwark - 5.01 = 5 seats
Croydon / Merton / Sutton - 6.69 = 7 seats

[Deleted]

I hope to God they suggest "Putney Bridge" and "Woolwich Reach"

[lennon]

So I've got an initial plan for Ealing/Hounslow as follows:

Ealing North: - Unchanged (73,703)

Acton and Chiswick: Take the existing Ealing Central & Acton seat and add the 3 'Chiswick' wards from Brentford & Isleworth. Remove Ealing Broadway and Walpole = 74,930

Brentford & Isleworth: Remove the 3 'Chiswick wards'; Add Ealing Broadway / Walpole from Central and Acton; Add Elthorne / Northfield from Ealing Southall; Remove Hounslow Heath / Hounslow Central = 76,706

Southall and Heston: Take the existing Ealing Southall seat and remove Elthorne / Northfield; Add Heston East / Heston Central / Heston West; Add ~1,000 Electors from Hounslow Heath or Hounslow Central = ~71,492

Feltham and Hounslow: Take the existing Feltham and Heston seat and remove Heston East / Heston Central / Heston West. Add the majority of Hounslow Heath / Hounslow Central less the 1,000 Electors moved to Southall = ~71,665

This seems to work reasonably well in terms of only having 1 split ward, and reasonably coherent communities / groupings but does require 3 cross-borough seats rather than just 1. I don't know what weight the Boundary Commission put on single borough seats vs community links vs not splitting wards though?

One alternative would be

Ealing North: - Unchanged
Ealing Central and Acton: - Add 1/2 of Northfield ward from Ealing Southall
Brentford & Isleworth: - Remove Hounslow Heath
Feltham and Heston: - Gain Hounslow Heath; Lose Heston East and Heston West
Ealing Southall: - Lose 1/2 of Northfield ward; Gain Heston East and Heston West

This has the benefit of just a single cross-borough seat, minimal changes to the existing seats - but with the disadvantage that Heston ends up a total mess with Central in Feltham and both East and West in Southall.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Adam Gray's suggestion

[Sibboleth]

I'm sure that the carving up of McDonnell's seat is entirely coincidental