J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,841 
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Post by J.G.Harston on May 17, 2018 23:03:10 GMT
The centuries-old flaw is that High Peak has tried to unify two sides of a set of mountains which are often impassible in the same local authority area.  Former A625 main Hope Valley cross-Pennine road. You can however get round that on the "new" road in, what? ten minutes? or so. I'd have thought the regular closure of the Snake Pass for snow was more of an issue. The "new" road is Winnats Pass which is older than the "old" road and is less than eight feet wide.  The alternate route is an extra 15 or so miles going further south, or looping north to Snake Pass or Woodhead Pass. |
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Eastwood
Non-Aligned
Politically restricted post
Posts: 2,122
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Post by Eastwood on May 18, 2018 10:19:10 GMT
 (An InSider told me, that splitting Fife would be seen as a CapitalSin...) No. Just no. On every level - no! So the major flaws are from north to south: - Shetland (and to a lesser extent Orkney) have links to Grampian as much as to Highland as well as to each other. This makes them very difficult to regionalise so the Northern Isles would be best left Sui Generis outside regions.
- Na h-Eileanan an Iar links better to the Highlands but may still be better as a Sui Generis region if the Northern Isles are.
- Including all of Banffshire in Grampian leads to some odd community linkages in Speyside that the 1974 Moray attempted to correct, albeit that the cuurrent arrangements are clearly unpopular to many ex Banffshire communties as well.
- Including Brechin and Montrose in Grampian is pretty pitchforky
- Splitting up Onich and Ballachulish into two different regions is clearly daft. The 1975 change here was clearly logical.
- Mull, Lismore, Coll and Tiree all clearly look to Oban as their local centre. Putting them in a different region is strange.
- Uniting Helensburgh with Dunbartonshire has a logic to it but why remove the northern part of Helensburgh / Lomond from that? Only justification is to make your map look better when you weirdly try and stick Alloa and Campbeltown into one region and pretend they have anything in common.
- Speaking of which your Central is just an awful, awful region
- Dividing Fife!
- Dividing Forth Valley is less controversial than Fife but equally illogical. Falkirk and Stirling clearly have some shared identity particularly the new hospital.
- If you are dividing Falkirk / Stirling then Larbert and Denny (Eastern no 1 and Central no 2) both clearly need to be on the Falkirk side of the line where you have them on the Stirling side.
- Bishopbriggs is not part of Glasgow / Strathclyde but Wanlockhead is? Bonkers. If anything more of modern Stirling (Strathblane, Killearn, Drymen) should be included in Strathclyde / Greater Glasgow.
- Cumbernauld and Kilsyth being divided is equally odd
- There may be an argument for linking Bute across the Clyde but its links are to Inverclyde not to Ayrshire. Best left in Argyll and Bute overall.
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peterl
Green
Congratulations President Trump
Posts: 8,474
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Post by peterl on May 18, 2018 17:24:13 GMT
If you want a laugh, the HC Delegated Legislation committee is currently considering the Dorset reorganisation order and the Dorset Tories are kicking off over it. It's the Third Delegated Legislation Committee, via parliamentlive.tv. Highly notable that no Dorset MPs ultimately had a vote on this. Shows just how much this government hates democracy that the people representing those affected have no voice. And that they have retrospectively changed the regulations to allow for this. Hopefully Christchurch's legal challenge will overturn these orders and leave the government with egg on their faces. |
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Post by jm on May 19, 2020 12:43:58 GMT
I've been thinking how local government boundaries might look today if the pre-1974 two-tier system of much smaller and compact districts/boroughs had been retained albeit with some aspects of the 1972 reorganisation still taking place, such as the merger of urban districts with their counterpart rural districts and the creation of metropolitan authorities. I have created a map for how this might look in my home county of Nottinghamshire - smaller districts and an enlarged county borough of Nottingham encompassing the entire urban area. The districts have a minimum population of 30,000 and county boroughs should be at least 250,000 in population. This is very much the opposite of recent local government reform, large and remote unitary authorities for entire counties.  |
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,112
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Post by ilerda on May 20, 2020 8:39:47 GMT
This is a very intersting idea, in particular the combination of expanded county boroughs and smaller districts. This seems like an eminently sensible way avoiding the problem of distant local government and people not feeling attachment to their council.
The Nottinghamshire plan seems to work very well. Have you go any plans to try other counties?
And what did you use as your base? Current wards, parishes, or old pre-1974 districts?
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Post by evergreenadam on May 30, 2020 11:03:54 GMT
But the Pennines are a clear natural border, whereas the Sheffield-SubUrbs haven't one. Yes, the Pennines are a clear natural border, which means that the Hope Valley should be bundled up with Sheffield, not with Manchester as it is now. There is a fairly clear culturo-geographic north/south boundary in Derbyshire that puts northern Derbyshire in "The North": (Edit: To clarify, High Peak is in the Manchester City Region area link)  The centuries-old flaw is that High Peak has tried to unify two sides of a set of mountains which are often impassible in the same local authority area. Former A625 main Hope Valley cross-Pennine road. But the Manchester City Region was stripped of the 5 adjacent districts in 2009 and the combined authority and Greater Manchester Metro Mayor only represent the remaining ten Greater Manchester Metropolitan Boroughs in Greater Manchester. |
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Post by evergreenadam on May 30, 2020 11:25:21 GMT
But the Pennines are a clear natural border, whereas the Sheffield-SubUrbs haven't one. It's actually quite easy to get from North Derbyshire into either Sheffield (or the Greater Manchester area tbf) it's further north that you find there are no east-west routes. I think a big flaw of the Sheffield City Region is how close the southern boundary is to the centre of Sheffield. The towns and villages in north Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire are within easy commuting distance but miss out on the advantages that a strategic transport authority would bring to public transport provision within that southern commuter belt. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jun 1, 2020 11:41:02 GMT
I've been thinking how local government boundaries might look today if the pre-1974 two-tier system of much smaller and compact districts/boroughs had been retained albeit with some aspects of the 1972 reorganisation still taking place, such as the merger of urban districts with their counterpart rural districts and the creation of metropolitan authorities. I have created a map for how this might look in my home county of Nottinghamshire - smaller districts and an enlarged county borough of Nottingham encompassing the entire urban area. The districts have a minimum population of 30,000 and county boroughs should be at least 250,000 in population. This is very much the opposite of recent local government reform, large and remote unitary authorities for entire counties. What is the population of your Southwell district there? It looks on the small side to me. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jun 1, 2020 12:55:46 GMT
Alternative regions for England, trying to get them to approximately the same population as Northern Ireland:  |
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peterl
Green
Congratulations President Trump
Posts: 8,474
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Post by peterl on Jun 1, 2020 14:30:35 GMT
If sensible areas like this were used, rather than the unweidly south west, south east etc, it would go a long way towards removing my objections to regional government.
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Jun 13, 2020 19:48:34 GMT
Alternative regions for England, trying to get them to approximately the same population as Northern Ireland: Oh,if this was implemented, I can assure you you would be on a dartboard in an Oxon pub and possibly hitlist if the Thames Valley and South Midlands abominations went ahead. |
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Post by mattb on Jun 13, 2020 20:17:21 GMT
Alternative regions for England, trying to get them to approximately the same population as Northern Ireland: Oh,if this was implemented, I can assure you you would be on a dartboard in an Oxon pub and possibly hitlist if the Thames Valley and South Midlands abominations went ahead. Certainly as a former resident, people in Banbury would be very unhappy with this!! |
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Post by greenhert on Jun 13, 2020 20:28:29 GMT
Alternative regions for England, trying to get them to approximately the same population as Northern Ireland: These are much more workable and sensible regions (look at how European nations do it), although regarding this map Merseyside should be a separate region from Lancashire and Cumbria, as they have a very different regional identity to each other. It is certainly clear that the Isle of Wight, Hampshire and Dorset identify much more with each other than they do their official regions for most purposes. As your map correctly shows, they should be in their own region, not separate unwieldy larger regions. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jun 13, 2020 21:17:09 GMT
Alternative regions for England, trying to get them to approximately the same population as Northern Ireland: These are much more workable and sensible regions (look at how European nations do it), although regarding this map Merseyside should be a separate region from Lancashire and Cumbria, as they have a very different regional identity to each other. It is certainly clear that the Isle of Wight, Hampshire and Dorset identify much more with each other than they do their official regions for most purposes. As your map correctly shows, they should be in their own region, not separate unwieldy larger regions. Yes, the North West is definitely the unhappiest corner on that. I don't like the artificiality of Skelmersdale being separated from Liverpool (and that Southport projection is ridiculous); so I went for one big blob; but it probably needs deblobbing like the rest of the map, with just West Lancashire going with Lancastrian Merseyside (also unsure about what to do with Widnes and Warrington). (The other things I am not quite happy with are (1) that the Midland counties are mainly slightly undersized, but pairing them would be just horrific; (2) that if we're allowing slightly undersized, then splitting Cambridgeshire off East Anglia may work (but Newmarket would look ridiculous).) And yes, Dorset going with Hampshire was one of the really obvious bits (and I find it baffling that the current Government Office Region map does what it does) – half of the population of Dorset lives right next to that boundary, and most of the trains go that way (and on to Waterloo) as well. It's really not a county that has much to do with Bristol or Exeter. Maybe someone from Sturminster Newton infiltrated the Ministry back in the day... Someone else criticised my South Midlands and Thames Valley regions. These seemed pragmatic ways of dealing with clusters of undersized counties, ending up with one region focused on Milton Keynes and another on Reading. We've seen the collapse of county governance in Berkshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire, and the perverse taking it out on the districts in Buckinghamshire. This is my attempt at getting some sort of critical mass authority above the districts. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Jun 13, 2020 21:39:50 GMT
These are much more workable and sensible regions (look at how European nations do it), although regarding this map Merseyside should be a separate region from Lancashire and Cumbria, as they have a very different regional identity to each other. It is certainly clear that the Isle of Wight, Hampshire and Dorset identify much more with each other than they do their official regions for most purposes. As your map correctly shows, they should be in their own region, not separate unwieldy larger regions. Yes, the North West is definitely the unhappiest corner on that. I don't like the artificiality of Skelmersdale being separated from Liverpool (and that Southport projection is ridiculous); so I went for one big blob; but it probably needs deblobbing like the rest of the map, with just West Lancashire going with Lancastrian Merseyside (also unsure about what to do with Widnes and Warrington). (The other things I am not quite happy with are (1) that the Midland counties are mainly slightly undersized, but pairing them would be just horrific; (2) that if we're allowing slightly undersized, then splitting Cambridgeshire off East Anglia may work (but Newmarket would look ridiculous).) And yes, Dorset going with Hampshire was one of the really obvious bits (and I find it baffling that the current Government Office Region map does what it does) – half of the population of Dorset lives right next to that boundary, and most of the trains go that way (and on to Waterloo) as well. It's really not a county that has much to do with Bristol or Exeter. Maybe someone from Sturminster Newton infiltrated the Ministry back in the day... Someone else criticised my South Midlands and Thames Valley regions. These seemed pragmatic ways of dealing with clusters of undersized counties, ending up with one region focused on Milton Keynes and another on Reading. We've seen the collapse of county governance in Berkshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire, and the perverse taking it out on the districts in Buckinghamshire. This is my attempt at getting some sort of critical mass authority above the districts. At very least it is an interesting exercise to show that NI is not far off the population size of some single English counties, including even a defunct one (Middlesex, and post-County of London Middx at that.) I quite like most of those as it happens. It is a shame to split Bucks in two but no worse IMO than the slicing off of the Vale of White Horse from Berks and shoving it into Oxon, which has happened IRL. South Midlands is a bit ghastly but only because that part of the country lacks a strong identity IMO. "The West" is quite a sound region but I hate the name. I'm trying to think of something better but the only thing that comes to mind is Ciderland. (Perhaps you could get away with Severn?) |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jun 13, 2020 21:54:59 GMT
Yes, the North West is definitely the unhappiest corner on that. I don't like the artificiality of Skelmersdale being separated from Liverpool (and that Southport projection is ridiculous); so I went for one big blob; but it probably needs deblobbing like the rest of the map, with just West Lancashire going with Lancastrian Merseyside (also unsure about what to do with Widnes and Warrington). (The other things I am not quite happy with are (1) that the Midland counties are mainly slightly undersized, but pairing them would be just horrific; (2) that if we're allowing slightly undersized, then splitting Cambridgeshire off East Anglia may work (but Newmarket would look ridiculous).) And yes, Dorset going with Hampshire was one of the really obvious bits (and I find it baffling that the current Government Office Region map does what it does) – half of the population of Dorset lives right next to that boundary, and most of the trains go that way (and on to Waterloo) as well. It's really not a county that has much to do with Bristol or Exeter. Maybe someone from Sturminster Newton infiltrated the Ministry back in the day... Someone else criticised my South Midlands and Thames Valley regions. These seemed pragmatic ways of dealing with clusters of undersized counties, ending up with one region focused on Milton Keynes and another on Reading. We've seen the collapse of county governance in Berkshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire, and the perverse taking it out on the districts in Buckinghamshire. This is my attempt at getting some sort of critical mass authority above the districts. At very least it is an interesting exercise to show that NI is not far off the population size of some single English counties, including even a defunct one (Middlesex, and post-County of London Middx at that.) I quite like most of those as it happens. It is a shame to split Bucks in two but no worse IMO than the slicing off of the Vale of White Horse from Berks and shoving it into Oxon, which has happened IRL. South Midlands is a bit ghastly but only because that part of the country lacks a strong identity IMO. "The West" is quite a sound region but I hate the name. I'm trying to think of something better but the only thing that comes to mind is Ciderland. (Perhaps you could get away with Severn?) That is the same as my region and I always had a problem with naming that one - I went for Upper Wessex (withe Wessex region above being Lower Wessex). I'd also considered a Severn region which would combine Bristol and Gloucestershire with the West Mercia region on that map and maybe Monmouthshire too, but it doesn't make much sense to separate North Somerset from Bristol. That region of Bristol/Glos/Somerset/Wilts makes the most perfect sense in terms of boundaries but has no satisfactory name, whereas there are good names like Essex or Mercia which are hard to apply to a satisfactorily drawn region |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,841
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jun 13, 2020 23:57:08 GMT
Alternative regions for England, trying to get them to approximately the same population as Northern Ireland: Oh,if this was implemented, I can assure you you would be on a dartboard in an Oxon pub and possibly hitlist if the Thames Valley and South Midlands abominations went ahead. To give him his due, it's a lot better than many region models. It would be an acceptable first stab for some sort of 50-member "thing" representing England. Such as the English Tourist Board or summut. I'll throw in my spanner and reiterate that The Lakes and Lancashire/etc are really two different places. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2020 8:52:16 GMT
I'd amend North West:
1) Cumbria, Morecambe, Lunesdale into "Cumbria"
2) Lancaster, Blackpool, Fylde, Preston, Wyre, Blackburn, Hyndburn, Pendle, Burnley, Southport, West Lancs, Chorley, Wigan into "Lancashire"
3) Rest of Merseyside + Halton + Warrington into "Mersey"
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 39,067
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Post by The Bishop on Jun 14, 2020 9:15:07 GMT
Or even a "Mersey and Cheshire" region?
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jun 14, 2020 9:39:54 GMT
At very least it is an interesting exercise to show that NI is not far off the population size of some single English counties, including even a defunct one (Middlesex, and post-County of London Middx at that.) Resurrecting Middlesex wasn't intended as wholly frivolous – Greater London is at once far too large and far too small, rather like the old Seine department in France – and so this is a sort of take on the Petite Couronne. Middlesex is a good idea in the same way that Hauts-de-Seine is. Yes, I was definitely struggling for a name there! I'm not sure Severn would be much of an improvement – the river goes through all sorts of places not in that region (Worcester, Shrewsbury, Llanidloes...) and nowhere near many in it (Cirencester, Salisbury, Taunton...). There must be a good name for places within a day's travel by combine harvester from Bristol! |
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