Let the great boundary rejig commence

[minionofmidas]

Great Grimsby 69,991+x
While here a split ward couldn't be avoided, at least not without lopping off random parts of Grimsby (I didn't check all possible options, but I did check a few and found no solution). Current constituency plus Sidney Sussex and part of Croft Baker (8625) wards
whatever. Brigg & Immingham 68,174+x
Current constituency minus Sidney Sussex and part of Croft Baker; plus Brigg & Wolds and Broughton & Appleby.

The issue, of course, is that that splits Cleethorpes town right down the middle. There's a reason why Great Grimsby constituency isn't any larger than it is at current.
So... it's not cool, but... what if we split Grimsby down the middle instead of Cleethorpes? We can avoid the split ward that way.

Grimsby East & Cleethorpes 74,556
Sidney Sussex, Croft Baker, Haverstoe (ie Cleethorpes), Humberston & New Waltham, and in Grimsby East Marsh, Heneage, Park, Scartho and South wards
Grimsby West, Immingham & Brigg 72,234
West Marsh, Yarborough, and Freshney wards in Grimsby, and Waltham ward and points west of the Brigg & Immingham described above.

This is really quite unnecessary. Better to breach the UA/Lincolnshire County Council borders.

Actually, no it's not. That results in a weird Gainsborough seat curving around Sc**nthorpe to the Humber, a Cleethorpes & Louth seat that's not so bad actually, and a perfectly weird South Lindsey seat snaking along from Mablethorpe all the way to the area between Lincoln and Gainsborough. To which I say "no. Just no." (I had a pretty Grimsby seat of the current constituency plus Immingham and Wolds wards. Sc**nthorpe had to stay as it was if I didn't want to split wards; I couldn't drop the Ridge ward like I would have liked to.)

So... to restore my sanity...
Great Grimsby 70,221+x
Current constituency plus Immingham and coastal part of Wolds (5714) ward.
Cleethorpes & Brigg 75,411+x
Remainder areas of North and North East Lincolnshire; Yarborough and Caistor wards of West Lindsey (4556 electors) just to connect the donut parts. Sigh. Using Kelsey too would make a nicer map, but I'm not sure how the population in Wolds is distributed, so...

In Lincolnshire... since I've been looking at it anyways now... the number of constituencies is alright, but Boston & Skegness needs to grow so I'm adding the current Louth & Horncastle wards of Spilsby and Halton Holgate for 75,241 inhabitants, reducing Louth to 72,942, and Sleaford & North Hykeham needs to get smaller while after removing those two wards Gainsborough needs to grow again. And Lincoln is also far at the low end. Besides, the rural parts of North Kesteven district have been rewarded. I worked it out that if Lincoln gains all of North Hykeham and drops the non-Lincoln parts it currently includes, its population inches up to 73,924; if Gainsborough gains Skellingthorpe and the new enlarged Eagle, Swinderby & Witham St Hughs ward it's population momentarily rises to 74,688 - so I can drop off that single East Lindsey ward of Wragby and reduce it to 72,879 again while Louth rises back to 74,751; and the thus amended Sleaford is at 77,131.
I recommend no changes to Grantham & Stamford (77,694) and South Holland & the Deepings (76,529).

[minionofmidas]

South Yorkshire... I have decided to try and avoid the ugly Nottinghamshire pairing. That means Nottinghamshire is the next project after this, just to see if I can do it there too. It's not going to be a stable map - it might work now but it probably won't be working next year. But hey, these are the relevant population totals.

Doncaster North at 72,040, this has dipped barely below the threshold.
Doncaster Central is at 73,189 and
Don Valley is 72,880... so using some minor northern or northwestern part of Edenthorpe, Kirk Sandall & Barnby Dun ward (10,688, currently in Central) to get Doncaster North into line. The area belongs there anyways - though the whole of the area that belongs there (the northern half or so of the ward) would be far too much, of course.

Rother Valley is currently fine at 72,168
Rotherham 72,178 gains Wickersley
Wentworth & Dearne 72,586 loses Wickersley and gains the North East ward in Barnsley. This is ugly on a map but more immediate choices like adding Darfield, or exchanging Dearne for Hoyland (Rockingham, Hoyland Milton, and either Wombwell or Worsbrough wards) fell short of the population target. And it doesn't change the constituency's character (of odds and ends between Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster) much, I should think.

My first map for two seats from the remainder was
Barnsley West & Penistone 74,104
Current Barnsley Central except Royston and Monk Bretton, plus Barnsley portion of Penistone & Stocksbridge
Barnsley East 74,851
Current constituency except North East, plus Royston and Monk Bretton
But that East constituency is really quite ugly.

So how about
Barnsley North & Penistone 74,924
Current Barnsley Central except the actually central parts of Barnsley in it, ie Central, Kingstone, and Old Town wards, plus Barnsley portion of Penistone & Stocksbridge, plus Cudworth ward currently in Barnsley East
Barnsley South 74,031
Current Barnsley East except North East and Cudworth, plus Central, Kingstone, and Old Town.

This turned out a lot easier than I thought it would be.

[minionofmidas]

Oh right, Sheffield. Sheffield has 28 wards, and currently five constituencies à 5 wards plus three wards in a cross-borough constituency, all of which are too small now. It is now to be wholly drawn into five constituencies, so I guess two split wards, four constituencies à 5.5 wards, and eking out a six-ward constituency below the threshold somewhere?

[minionofmidas]

Sheffield Heeley 77,138
gains Manor Castle ward. Heeley is one of the smaller constituencies, and Manor Castle is an undersized ward and fits in well geographically, so that got that issue out of the way. Of course that means Central gets even more of a West Central than it already had at the last review.
Sheffield South East 67,559+x
gains the southern (Brightside) part of Shiregreen & Brightside ward (13,432)
Sheffield Central 67,864+x
loses Manor Castle, gains Hillsborough and the eastern (urban-gridded) part of Crookes ward (13,565)
Sheffield Hallam 67,002+x
loses part of Crookes, gains Stocksbridge & Upper Don ward
Sheffield North East 69,491+x
Loses Hillsborough and the southern part of Shiregreen & Brightside, gains West Ecclesfield and East Ecclesfield
I drew this from the map. How I laughed when I noticed that the areas I wanted to remove from Brightside & Hillsborough were, well, Brightside and Hillsborough (I'd actually kinda hoped they'd include one of them so I could use the other as the name!)

[doktorb]

LOL.

I am now starting on east Lancs, where a lot of the mill towns from Gtr. Manchester could be joined. I may need to ask for your help

[YL]

Sheffield Heeley 77,138
gains Manor Castle ward. Heeley is one of the smaller constituencies, and Manor Castle is an undersized ward and fits in well geographically, so that got that issue out of the way. Of course that means Central gets even more of a West Central than it already had at the last review.
Sheffield South East 67,559+x
gains the southern (Brightside) part of Shiregreen & Brightside ward (13,432)
Sheffield Central 67,864+x
loses Manor Castle, gains Hillsborough and the eastern (urban-gridded) part of Crookes ward (13,565)
Sheffield Hallam 67,002+x
loses part of Crookes, gains Stocksbridge & Upper Don ward
Sheffield North East 69,491+x
Loses Hillsborough and the southern part of Shiregreen & Brightside, gains West Ecclesfield and East Ecclesfield
I drew this from the map. How I laughed when I noticed that the areas I wanted to remove from Brightside & Hillsborough were, well, Brightside and Hillsborough (I'd actually kinda hoped they'd include one of them so I could use the other as the name!)

As someone who lives there, I think it's better to split west Sheffield north/south rather than east/west: a north-west seat with Stocksbridge, Stannington, Hillsborough, Walkley and enough bits of the wards to the south to get it up to quota, and a south-west seat based on Ecclesall, Dore and Nether Edge.

An east/west split makes the western seat a string of communities along the western edge of the city which aren't well connected to each other and don't really have that much in common.  (Putting Stannington in Hallam last time was a mistake IMO: the urban parts of that ward, where most of the population is, are a western extension of Hillsborough and don't really have anything to do with Hallam.)

Otherwise your thoughts are similar to mine.  I'd rename South-East back to Attercliffe (or "Attercliffe and Mosborough" if you want to give a better description of the area it covers), though, and I'd try to find a non-compass point name for what you've called "North East".

[doktorb]

Ecclesfield?

[minionofmidas]

The easiest way to do a ten-seat Nottinghamshire was to give Nottingham the Derby treatment... two city constituencies with some wards lopped off. The surrounding county could then be done in a minimum changey way. (Though Rushcliffe is quite redrawn. Ken Clarke won't like it.)

Bassetlaw 78,332
unchanged gains Rampton
Mansfield 79,415
Mansfield was too large, and the obvious solution was to lop off Warsop (the Birklands and Meden wards). That made it too small, though, and after experimenting with villages to the east I eventually just added Sutton in Ashfield North ward (8457) because what I decided to do with Broxtowe suggested that, and was done with it. Given the exact population tallies involved, it may be possible to use only part of the ward.
Ashfield 74,322
Loses Sutton in Ashfield North ward, gains Greasley (Guiltbrook & Newthorpe) ward. Greasley is already divided by the current boundary and remains so.
Broxtowe 78,259
Loses that G(G&N) ward, gains Bulwell ward in Nottingham. This was a fairly random ward to remove, unlike Clifton to the south.
Sherwood 77,241
Yeah, as I got to here I noticed an error; I still had an earlier pop. figure where this gains Warsop but lost a more rural ward to Mansfield instead, but the map I was trying to describe had it gaining Warsop but not otherwise changed. Which is above target. So I had to drop Broughton ward, and because that moved Newark above target I had to move another smaller ward from there to Bassetlaw... which I had previously described as unchanged.
So yeah, gains Warsop, loses Broughton.
Newark 78,385
In the north, loses Rampton, gains Broughton. In the south, gains Wiverton and Nevile from Rushcliffe.
Gedling 78,068
Gains Trent and Manvers from Rushcliffe
Rushcliffe 80,770-x
Loses Wiverton, Nevile, Trent and Manvers. Gains the huge Clifton estate which is across the Trent from Nottingham but included in the city limits. I was stuck at this point for a while because this Rushcliffe was too big - I had dropped Cotgrave (itself a very interesting place; the things you learn on wikipedia when you do redistricting projects...) but it couldn't go into either Gedling or Newark. I could have dropped the rural Wolds ward but that would have looked stone cold ugly (and after catching my Sherwood mistake, the alterations I made to Newark in the north mean it's no longer possible population wise now, either). Cotgrave was obviously not a place suitable for dividing.
Then I notice that Clifton North ward (9681) also includes a quite distinct neighborhood called Wilford, by the banks of the Trent in the northeast part of the ward. And I'm reasonably confident it has between 1105 and 2633 electors and thus fits my bill here nicely.
Nottingham South West 77,022+x
Current Nottingham South except Clifton South and most of Clifton North plus Dales ward from Nottingham East and Aspley and Bilborough wards from Nottingham North.
Nottingham North East 79,488
Current Nottingham East except Dales ward, plus the Basford, Bestwood, and Bulwell Forest wards of the dissolved Nottingham North.

[YL]

Ecclesfield?

Burngreave is hardly "Ecclesfield".  I don't mind using two names, so I'd go for "Burngreave and Ecclesfield"; that way the whole constituency is either in one of them (as long as Ecclesfield is taken to mean the parish rather than the place) or clearly between them.

The SW seat I suggested could be "Ecclesall", reviving a name used in the first half of the 20th century.

[minionofmidas]

An east/west split makes the western seat a string of communities along the western edge of the city which aren't well connected to each other and don't really have that much in common. 

I noticed the obvious transportation issues, but as someone who doesn't live there I got the impression that they (the populated bits anyhow, I guess there must be some very outlying bits that are quite different) had a lot in common structurewise - basically affluent inner suburbs along the edge of the city and along the edge of the Pennines.

But I'll try and see what your suggestion will end up looking like.

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Remind me why they changed that, again. I seem to dimly recall there's an area called Attercliffe that isn't in it anymore, but I'm not at all sure of it.

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Certainly has to be done if Southeast's renamed, yeah. (Ecclesfield is probably the best you can do if you want to go with just one word, but it's the outer edge of the seat and people in Burngreave may not like it.)

[doktorb]

On my way through East Lancs, now.  Don't all shout at once, but I think this could be done WITHOUT crossing into Gtr Manchester after all...

Pendle and Burnley North (78,931)
I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW. Just hold on. I didn't want to split Ribble Valley, the wards are too awkward, so I looked at the boroughs of the East, realised they were all fairly undersized, so have tried to work out what best to do by taking wards in-and-out, and this was the best result I could draw (for now). This takes three Burnley wards - Lanehead, Queensgate, and Daneshouse. I didn't go for Briercliffe, my first option, because that closed down options for other seats.

Burnley and Accrington (77,316)
The rest of the Burnley borough, all of it, plus Accrington ('cept Church ward, which I will assume looks towards Clayton-le-Moors........doesn't it?)


So no......rest of Hyndburn, do your worst.......

[minionofmidas]

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As someone who lives there, I think it's better to split west Sheffield north/south rather than east/west: a north-west seat with Stocksbridge, Stannington, Hillsborough, Walkley and enough bits of the wards to the south to get it up to quota, and a south-west seat based on Ecclesall, Dore and Nether Edge.

Sheffield Hillsborough
69,230 for the four wards you listed plus Crookes; plus the northern parts of Broomhill (12,347)
Sheffield Ecclesall
69,640 for the three wards you listed plus Fulwood and Central; plus the southern parts of Broomhill.
The graphically most pleasing solution would probably be to split both Broomhill and Central wards, with the southern two thirds of both going into Ecclesall.
Yet another option would be to leave Crookes in the southern constituency (which would then be quite similar to the pre-2010 Hallam and should probably retain that name), put the Central ward in Hillsborough, and split Broomhill east-west.

[Harry Hayfield]

We seem to be making rapid progress. These are based on the 598 seat electorate calculations correct? And don't forget that for me to calculate these seats, express them as %ages o the old seat (for instance 65% of Leicester South, 17% of Leicester East)

[doktorb]

Harry, I'll message you what I have for western Lancashire later on, see if I can work out that sort of thing, get all the prep done for 2011 !

[YL]

An east/west split makes the western seat a string of communities along the western edge of the city which aren't well connected to each other and don't really have that much in common.  

I noticed the obvious transportation issues, but as someone who doesn't live there I got the impression that they (the populated bits anyhow, I guess there must be some very outlying bits that are quite different) had a lot in common structurewise - basically affluent inner suburbs along the edge of the city and along the edge of the Pennines.

Well, they have some similarities (except Stocksbridge, which is really a separate town) but in practice Sheffield's geography makes it a very "radial" city: if you look at services people use (things like schools, shops, buses) Ecclesall and Nether Edge have more in common with each other than they do with Stannington and Hillsborough respectively.  The ideal boundaries would run along the valleys, but I don't think you can get anywhere near the quota that way.

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Remind me why they changed that, again. I seem to dimly recall there's an area called Attercliffe that isn't in it anymore, but I'm not at all sure of it.
[/quote]

Attercliffe is in Darnall ward, which they were going to take out at the last review before there was a fuss about splitting Handsworth.  So they had to come up with a new name, and stuck with it even when Darnall was put back in, presumably on the grounds that the southern part of the seat (Mosborough et al) is nowhere near Attercliffe.  (Those areas have been in the seat since 1983, I think.)  I think of Darnall as more NE than SE, though.

[YL]

Sheffield Hillsborough
69,230 for the four wards you listed plus Crookes; plus the northern parts of Broomhill (12,347)
Sheffield Ecclesall
69,640 for the three wards you listed plus Fulwood and Central; plus the southern parts of Broomhill.
The graphically most pleasing solution would probably be to split both Broomhill and Central wards, with the southern two thirds of both going into Ecclesall.
Yet another option would be to leave Crookes in the southern constituency (which would then be quite similar to the pre-2010 Hallam and should probably retain that name), put the Central ward in Hillsborough, and split Broomhill east-west.

The bit I've bolded is what I'd do.

[minionofmidas]

We seem to be making rapid progress. These are based on the 598 seat electorate calculations correct?

Yes.

And don't forget that for me to calculate these seats, express them as %ages o the old seat (for instance 65% of Leicester South, 17% of Leicester East)

Given the problems with that simplistic method of calculating, which I could anyways do just as easily myself anyways I think I'll pass. Now... if you could calculate notional general election results for each ward in the areas that held local elections on the day of the general election... that would be a worthwhile enterprise!

[minionofmidas]

Attercliffe is in Darnall ward, which they were going to take out at the last review before there was a fuss about splitting Handsworth.  So they had to come up with a new name, and stuck with it even when Darnall was put back in.

Ah. Yeah, that's just the way they roll. The renaming was probably just not made an issue of in the local hearing because the issue wasn't actually Sheffield Attercliffe people complaining about what had happened to their constituency, so the provisional recommendation remained unchallenged on this point, and thus passed into the final recommendations even as the reason for it evaporated.

[minionofmidas]

Cumbria is the only northern area still missing. Cumbria needs to lose a seat and have quite oversized seats as a result, so this ought to be a lot of work for five seats. We'll see how it goes. All six constituencies are currently undersized, Workington worst of all.

[doktorb]

Yeah, I had an earlier idea to combine Cumbria with Lancashire, but it doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure of the extent of Westmorland or Lonsdale, so an attempted Lonsdale/Lunesdale tie-in to maintain Lancaster & Morecambe was a non-starter....

[minionofmidas]

Hmmm... either I could try to include Ulverston in Westmorland & Lonsdale, the emptyish stretch of coast in southern Copeland in Barrow, and built a relative tight Whitehaven & Workington seat... or I could try to restore the old northern boundaries of Westmorland, expand Barrow eastwards, Copeland northwards and eastwards... pretty much no matter what I do Penrith will probably end up in a huge and disparate constituency with beachfront. Whether that's just randomly including the coast between Carlisle and Workington (or worse part of it) in the Penrith seat, or eating off so much of Penrith & the Borders that there'll be a Workington & Penrith Leftovers constituency in the end.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, I'm far too lazy to work out where Westmorland used to end.

Westmorland & Lonsdale 76,005
South Lakeland District except for the new Broughton, Conistoke & Crake Valley, and Ambleside & Grasmere wards, which is identical in territory to the old Broughton, Coniston, Lakes Grasmere, western (ie, the side on which the town is) half of Lakes Ambleside, and northernmost parish (Lowick) of Crake Valley wards. Yeah, this is not just shifting Ulverston in  but also shifting a considerable bit of Lake District out - figures wouldn't add up otherwise. Not if the Mid Furness ward (rough equivalent of the old Crake Valley, but shifted south) was to move along with it.
Barrow-in-Furness 77,473 (yeah well, the "and Furness" part was a reference to Ulverston, wasn't it?)
Remainder of district, whole of Barrow borough, and the five southernmost wards of Copeland as far as Bootle.
Whitehaven & Workington 78,214
Remainder of Copeland district, southern coastal parts of Allerdale district as far as Dalston inclusive, Broughton St Bridget's exclusive, Ellen inclusive.
Carlisle and the Border 79,535
All of Carlisle district except Great Corby & Geltsdale and Hayton wards
Penrith & Solway Firth 79,133
Remainder of Allerdale, all of Eden, two wards of Carlisle

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Greater Manchester coming up, piecemeal like Lewis is doing it.

First up, Botchdale with 3.93 quotas.  Rochdale could stand alone, but Bury is too small for 2 seats now.  The main problem here is that Bury North is too small while Heywood/Middleton is right at the top of the allowable range.

Bury North 67421+x.  Bury North needs to take half a ward out of Heywood/Middleton to bring it within tolerance.  I was going to suggest Norden, but in fact all of Norden ward's population is concentrated in the eastern bulge north of Bamford ward, with the rest being moorland.  So I'm going to move in half of West Heywood ward instead - Heap Bridge and the Darn Hill area should be enough.
Bury South 74313.  Unchanged.
Heywood and Middleton 79031-x.  As above.
Rochdale 77471.  Unchanged.

[doktorb]

I'm stuck in Blackburn now. If I keep Burnley and Accrington, which I want to keep because Pendle is such a nightmare, then that leaves chunks of Hyndburn in need of a partner. Rossendale is just too.....Daley......and I have plans to involve Bury.....so I'm stumped. How much of "Blackburn"  IS "Blackburn" ?

[minionofmidas]

I'm stuck in Blackburn now. If I keep Burnley and Accrington, which I want to keep because Pendle is such a nightmare, then that leaves chunks of Hyndburn in need of a partner. Rossendale is just too.....Daley......and I have plans to involve Bury.....so I'm stumped. How much of "Blackburn"  IS "Blackburn" ?

Everything that isn't Darwen AFAIK.