Let the great boundary rejig commence

[minionofmidas]

Moar commentz plz.

[doktorb]

MOAR BOUNDREEZ

I mean, er, I have a week off work starting this Saturday, so I intend to finish my Lancs/Gtr Manc combo during that week.

I've had an idea about why I am in a logjam -  I have wanted to stick to two absolute certainties - that Ribble Valley has to go back to curling around Preston, and that Fylde cannot touch Preston at all. Well this seems to be the root cause of my issues; Fylde cannot go north without blocking off western Wyre, and the 111,000 or so Blackpool electorate cannot be divided between itself and just Fleetwood.

Soooo, I've got a provisional idea for "Valleys of Ribble, Wyre and Lune", and "Preston North and Fylde".  I'll let you know how those go.....

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Want a map of your London? Would be easier to comment that way.

[minionofmidas]

Sure!

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

"Valleys of Ribble, Wyre and Lune"

This seat will have to include Preston Rural North in order to make any sense on the ground.  Otherwise you would have a seat containing rural areas around Lancaster, rural areas around Clitheroe and only the Trough of Bowland to link them.

[afleitch]

I plan on getting Scotland ironed out.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

and only the Trough of Bowland to link them.

There's a dirty joke hiding in there somewhere.

[doktorb]

"Valleys of Ribble, Wyre and Lune"

This seat will have to include Preston Rural North in order to make any sense on the ground.  Otherwise you would have a seat containing rural areas around Lancaster, rural areas around Clitheroe and only the Trough of Bowland to link them.

My plan  - I've not looked at the maps properly - is to NOT include Rural North, but to include Wyresdale, Ellel at least and work from there. It's the only way I can fathom out what to do with Blackpool....

[minionofmidas]

Christ, I've had a look at the northeast - just at counties and unitaries so far...

Northumberland 3.24. Meaning Northumberland must be paired. Yes. Which is sort of a shame because
North Tyneside 2.05. Not that that helps much because
Newcastle 2.54.
Gateshead is 1.94, actually, and might be two seats. Although that, of course, is not unproblematic in itself as it would mean that the Gateshead seat takes the eastern areas that have always been in Jarrow and the Blaydon seat expands into Gateshead.
South Tyneside 1.53
Sunderland 2.82.
All together 14 seats that will be on average 1% too large, massively reducing our tolerance, even if grouped all together. Leave Gateshead out and it gets worse, of course. (Though it gets better if you leave North Tyneside out, but that means a weird rurban constituency in Newcastle. Plus a restituted Tyne Bridge that includes less of Gateshead and more of Newcastle than the old one, but that more or less can't be helped no matter what.)

South of that, Durham is 5.17 and can only just about stand alone, Darlington is 1.05 (barely under, actually), Hartlepool is 0.92 and must expand, Stockton is 1.86 and must expand too. Grouped together they're close to 9 seats, but here's the rub:

Middlesbrough 1.33
Cleveland 1.40
What to do with them? North Yorkshire doesn't need them either, it's very close to six seats (and the current arrangement in York is fine, too.) Cumbria can also stand alone at five seats on the large side, btw. There's probably literally no alternative to grouping them in with Durham etc, meaning 12 seats on average 2% too small.


 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah. Not good. I guess that might mean Hartlepool & Billingham or some such horror?

[minionofmidas]

Yeah. Not good. I guess that might mean Hartlepool & Billingham or some such horror?

I guess Hartlepool will probably just have some rural territory slapped on. The horrors will lie elsewhere, in the Tyne & Wear metro mostly. Middlesbrough will also pretty much inevitably look disgusting.
Incidentally, I just noticed that the whole of the area plus Cumbria is exactly the population for 31 seats. Seeing how difficult it is to draw anything sensible if the av. is half your tolerance off the target, I would guess that Durham-Tyne&Wear line will be breached as well.

[doktorb]

Northumberland and Cumbria? HAHA! Oh me oh My!  I would like to see how that would work - Penrith and..... Hexham? No, is that too far out? It would be a great mess...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I guess Hartlepool will probably just have some rural territory slapped on.

Sod all people live in the rural areas around Monkeytown. You'd have to extend north to Blackhall (which has very strong links with Peterlee) or west to Sedgefield proper (blech).

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I was trying not to think about that. Especially given the awful record of post-1983 boundary reviews in the area.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, but it always looks that way. Oh...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That might not be quite so bad, as the boundary is pretty artificial

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

First draft of the Bill published: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmbills/063/2011063.pdf

Here's a rundown of the new Rules for the Redistribution of Seats:

1. There will be 600 constituencies for the UK.

2. The quota will be the parliamentary electorate of the UK minus Orkney and Shetland and Na hEi Na Heail Western Isles, divided by 598.  (So, sorry, we're going to have to work it out all over again.)  Every constituency must be within 5% of the quota except where stated below.

3. No constituencies crossing the boundaries between the four home nations.

4. No constituencies with an area of more than 13000 km^2.  Constituencies with an area of more than 12000 km^2 are allowed to be more than 5% below quota.

5. The Boundary Commissions can take all the usual factors into account (geographical considerations, local government boundaries, local ties and inconvenience caused by changing boundaries).

6. Orkney and Shetland and Na Healanna Western Isles can stay as they are.

7. Seats in Northern Ireland can deviate from the quota a little more if |(Northern Ireland's electorate) - (UK electoral quota) x (number of seats for Northern Ireland)| is more than one-third of the electoral quota.  This is because Norn Iron is quite small and probably won't work out very evenly.

8. Seats shall be apportioned between the home nations using the Ste-Lague process (but Orkney and Shetland and Western Isles won't count in the Scotland total).

Other boundary-related highlights include:

- The first Boundary Commission reports are due on 1.10.13 with reports every five years afterwards.
- The Boundary Commissions will have to submit annual progress updates to the Speaker while reviews are in progress.
- Reviews must take a maximum of 2 years 10 months (so the next one starts on 1.12.10).
- The next review does not have to take inconvenience caused by changing boundaries into account (although local ties can still be claimed. Work that one out.).
- No more local inquiries - instead the consultation period for provisional and revised recommendations is increased to 12 weeks.
- The link between parliamentary and Welsh Assembly constituencies will be broken, so the Welsh Assembly constituencies will not be affected by any of this.

Getting out the December 2009 electorate figures we have:

England	38,129,082	503 seats
Wales	2,261,269	30 seats
Scotland excluding islands	3,814,502	50+2 seats
Northern Ireland	1,160,757	15 seats
TOTAL	45,365,610	598+2 seats

The electoral quota would be 75,862 with an allowable range of 72,069 to 79,655.  The special provision for Northern Ireland doesn't actually make a difference on these figures.

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

I guess Hartlepool will probably just have some rural territory slapped on.

Sod all people live in the rural areas around Monkeytown. You'd have to extend north to Blackhall (which has very strong links with Peterlee) or west to Sedgefield proper (blech).

My 585-seat draft for Cleveland had the Pools extending south to cover half of Billingham.  Apart from that, it actually worked out quite nicely.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I was trying not to think about that. Especially given the awful record of post-1983 boundary reviews in the area.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, but it always looks that way. Oh...

[/quote]

[doktorb]

No more local inquries!!!!!


But.....but.....I liked going to those =<

[doktorb]

First draft of the Bill published: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmbills/063/2011063.pdf

Here's a rundown of the new Rules for the Redistribution of Seats:

1. There will be 600 constituencies for the UK.

2. The quota will be the parliamentary electorate of the UK minus Orkney and Shetland and Na hEi Na Heail Western Isles, divided by 598.  (So, sorry, we're going to have to work it out all over again.)  Every constituency must be within 5% of the quota except where stated below.

3. No constituencies crossing the boundaries between the four home nations.

4. No constituencies with an area of more than 13000 km^2.  Constituencies with an area of more than 12000 km^2 are allowed to be more than 5% below quota.

5. The Boundary Commissions can take all the usual factors into account (geographical considerations, local government boundaries, local ties and inconvenience caused by changing boundaries).

6. Orkney and Shetland and Na Healanna Western Isles can stay as they are.

7. Seats in Northern Ireland can deviate from the quota a little more if |(Northern Ireland's electorate) - (UK electoral quota) x (number of seats for Northern Ireland)| is more than one-third of the electoral quota.  This is because Norn Iron is quite small and probably won't work out very evenly.

8. Seats shall be apportioned between the home nations using the Ste-Lague process (but Orkney and Shetland and Western Isles won't count in the Scotland total).

Other boundary-related highlights include:

- The first Boundary Commission reports are due on 1.10.13 with reports every five years afterwards.
- The Boundary Commissions will have to submit annual progress updates to the Speaker while reviews are in progress.
- Reviews must take a maximum of 2 years 10 months (so the next one starts on 1.12.10).
- The next review does not have to take inconvenience caused by changing boundaries into account (although local ties can still be claimed. Work that one out.).
- No more local inquiries - instead the consultation period for provisional and revised recommendations is increased to 12 weeks.
- The link between parliamentary and Welsh Assembly constituencies will be broken, so the Welsh Assembly constituencies will not be affected by any of this.

Getting out the December 2009 electorate figures we have:

England	38,129,082	503 seats
Wales	2,261,269	30 seats
Scotland excluding islands	3,814,502	50+2 seats
Northern Ireland	1,160,757	15 seats
TOTAL	45,365,610	598+2 seats

The electoral quota would be 75,862 with an allowable range of 72,069 to 79,655.  The special provision for Northern Ireland doesn't actually make a difference on these figures.

I will have to redraw Wigan, then, I've got a Makerfield seat with 82,000 !

I'm glad that there is a December (ish) start date, that gives me some time to fathom out other regions It does seem like the Commission will be rather pushed for time, and that could mean dismissing cross-county creations out of hand? This could be something to watch, is there any clue about what it means for, say, crossing UA and county boundaries?

[minionofmidas]

Northumberland and Cumbria? HAHA! Oh me oh My!  I would like to see how that would work - Penrith and..... Hexham? No, is that too far out? It would be a great mess...

You would have put a bit of Cumbria into a huge-anyways rural Northumberland Berwick & Hexham remainder seat, not the other way round.
Since doing so would also force the rurban Newcastle seat further out, I've abandoned the idea.

[minionofmidas]

4. No constituencies with an area of more than 13000 km^2.  Constituencies with an area of more than 12000 km^2 are allowed to be more than 5% below quota.

That's a Highland-only rule. No other area is going to have seats that are even close.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It would have been easier to just fix separate quotas...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

No, that makes perfect sense actually. "But but but - I've always represented that area" is not a valid argument if everywhere is redrawn and the quota changes. In future reviews though, it is.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes. Speeding up the review process is far more sensible than that idiotically tight 5%. Local Inquiries are still a good idea, actually, but you'd have to force the Commissions to hold them much faster and report on them MUCH faster.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, that was sort of obvious. (Though not stated so far IIRC.) When will the Assembly get increased powers?

[doktorb]

What do you think is meant by the "Commission can take account of the extent of the European Parliament electoral regions" thing? Does that imply that counties/UAs/met borough boundaries can be crossed, even if it's not said explicitly?

[minionofmidas]

What do you think is meant by the "Commission can take account of the extent of the European Parliament electoral regions" thing? Does that imply that counties/UAs/met borough boundaries can be crossed, even if it's not said explicitly?

The 5% rule forces that on half the counties in Britain anyways.
I just really, really hope that it's shot down somehow. Because without it (and the cheaply populist reduction in House size), this reform actually makes sense.

[minionofmidas]

Rechecking all of my London, and this is the only area where the new higher quota creates a problem.

After trying around for other configurations in Lambeth and Merton, I was struck by the Wandsworth map, which really makes it quite clear what the least hassle approach is:

Battersea 71,941
unchanged
Tooting 71,993
unchanged. Not only are they the right population already, but Wandsworth wards are huge and expanding undersized Putney eastward makes little geographical sense.
Putney & Wimbledon 75,280
current Putney constituency; Village, Wimbledon Park wards (that's really just part of the Wimbledon part of Wimbledon, I think.)
Merton & Morden 78,392
always nice to have a constituency name retread. Remainder of current Wimbledon constituency (which really "ought" to be called Merton & Wimbledon, anyways) plus Lower Morden, Saint Helier, Ravensbury, Cricket Green
Streatham & Mitcham 73,835
Colliers Wood, Lavender Fields, Figge's Marsh, Graveney, Longmorton, Pollards Hill wards, Merton; St Leonard's, Streatham South, Streatham Wells, Knight's Hill wards, Lambeth (Lambeth wards are larger than Merton wards, and 47% of the constituency is in Lambeth
Vauxhall 71,781+x
Current constituency plus northern half of Coldharbour (10,207) ward
Brixton & West Norwood  72,780+x
Remainder

Can't leave Battersea and Tooting alone anymore. Ugh.

Right. So Battersea gains part of the Nightingale ward from Tooting which makes sense anyways as the current boundary splits Balham; Tooting compensates by gaining part of Southfield ward even though that doesn't make any sense whatsoever; and Putney compensates by gaining the Hillside ward from Merton & Morden which makes sense again as that's in Wimbledon.

Battersea 71,941+x
current constituency plus part of Nightingale (10,785)
Tooting 61,208+x
Current constituency plus parts of Nightingale and Southfield (11,000)
Putney & Wimbledon 70,242+x
current Putney constituency except part of Southfield; Village, Wimbledon Park, Hillside wards in Merton
Merton & Morden 72,430
always nice to have a constituency name retread. Remainder of current Wimbledon constituency (which really "ought" to be called Merton & Wimbledon, anyways) plus Lower Morden, Saint Helier, Ravensbury, Cricket Green

It wasn't strictly *necessary* to move Hillside, but doing so gives some leeway on the northern ward splits (ie, makes it possible to split Nightingale by the railroad line... although it also moves more of Southfield into Tooting) and makes sense in and of itself. The transferred part of Southfield would probably be the northern part.

[doktorb]

Working between 72k and 79k (ish) certainly makes my Lancashire problem seem a little easier now, LOL. Things are looking up!

Can't help but wonder about split wards. Doesn't seem to say anything about that in the new legislation, does it?

[minionofmidas]

Working between 72k and 79k (ish) certainly makes my Lancashire problem seem a little easier now, LOL. Things are looking up!

Can't help but wonder about split wards. Doesn't seem to say anything about that in the new legislation, does it?

IIRC it's not banned right now either; Commissions just have chosen not to due to practical considerations. As long as they had sufficient leeway, they had no reason to.

[doktorb]

Yeah, the current regulations say wards are building blocks and they favour keeping them as whole units. I don't have the figures to hand, but I do look at Birmingham (as one extreme example) and wonder how they are going to divide such huge wards into 72-79k seats!