Let the great boundary rejig commence

[minionofmidas]

I'd rename a few of these seats. And maybe replace those two urban Wyre wards with rural Fylde ones. I think Blackpool N can take one of them, too.

Yep - Bourne ward is in Blackpool N & Cleveleys at current, and raises the pop. there to 77,863 (I'm taking Doktorbs figures at face value, not doublechecking. )
Adding Staina to Fylde brings that to 81,204 and Preston N & Wyre down to 66,770... moving those four eastern Fylde rural precincts in instead (really the maximum that's feasible, too) brings it to 74,482 and the other down to 73,492. Three of the four would be enough numbers-wise but makes an ugly map. Two is not enough numbers-wise.

 

[doktorb]

I'm liking "Irwell Valley" a LOT, and yeah, think if I'm going to have "...Burnley North" in one seat and "Burnley and..." in another, there's nothing against having "Blackburn and..." with "....and West Blackburn"..... So I'll accept those changes

(Though I have just written my blog with my original names, so once I've played with Gtr Manchester, I'll update the names )

[minionofmidas]

Greater Manchester 25.52 : Wigan 3.09, Bolton 2.59, Bury 1.87, Salford 2.15, Trafford 2.17, Manchester 4.43, Stockport 2.88, Tameside 2.17, Oldham 2.11, Rochdale 2.06
Lancashire 11.74 + Blackburn 1.34 + Blackpool 1.47 = 14.55

Bolton bits transferred are 0.26, Bury bits transferred are 0.33.

Three Wigan seats
Two Rochdale seats as they are currently
Five Stockport/Tameside seats as layed out previously by Andrew
Two current Oldham seats
A Bury Proper seat
Remainder of Bury + Failsworth + Manchester + Trafford + Salford + remainder of Bolton + possibly that one Wigan ward, if that helps to keep the map tidy = 12 seats

[doktorb]

Brilliant, cheers for that. I really hope to keep Wigan together without crossing boundaries.

[minionofmidas]

Meanwhile in Merseyside... (outside the Wirral) 10.20 seats and I intend to draw 10. Possibly dropping a ward into Cheshire if it has to be done, but I'll be trying to avoid it. That means crossing all the borough boundaries.
Two Seats in Sefton, one seat mostly in Sefton with a bit in Liverpool, three seats in Liverpool, one seat mostly in Liverpool with a bit in Knowsley, one seat wholly in Knowsley, one seat mostly in St Helens with a bit in Knowsley, one seat wholly in Saint Helens.

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

Greater Manchester 25.52 : Wigan 3.09, Bolton 2.59, Bury 1.87, Salford 2.15, Trafford 2.17, Manchester 4.43, Stockport 2.88, Tameside 2.17, Oldham 2.11, Rochdale 2.06
Lancashire 11.74 + Blackburn 1.34 + Blackpool 1.47 = 14.55

Bolton bits transferred are 0.26, Bury bits transferred are 0.33.

Three Wigan seats
Two Rochdale seats as they are currently
Five Stockport/Tameside seats as layed out previously by Andrew
Two current Oldham seats
A Bury Proper seat
Remainder of Bury + Failsworth + Manchester + Trafford + Salford + remainder of Bolton + possibly that one Wigan ward, if that helps to keep the map tidy = 12 seats

Would be simpler to say Bury + Bolton + Salford + Wigan - bits removed by doktorb = 9.11 seats.  I'm not doing the rest of the county again unless I have to.  Bury + Bolton - bits removed by doktorb = 3.87 so there should be no change to the Salford and Wigan proposals.

Bury proper is Church, East, Elton, Moorside, Redvales and Unsworth wards so it needs three more wards to bring it up to quota.  The obvious three are the Radcliffe wards - but that leaves the five Prestwich and Whitefield wards with nowhere to go.  So you'll have to divide the town up.

Here's a quick-and-dirty proposal:
Bury and Prestwich East, Moorside, Redvales and Unsworth from Bury; Besses and Pilkington Park from Whitefield; Holyrood, St Mary's and Sedgley from Prestwich; the half of Radcliffe West ward south of the Irwell.  Comes to 73957+x.
Radcliffe-cum-Farnworth 82512-x.  Church and Elton from Bury (the two wards west of the Irwell); the two-and-a-half remaining Radcliffe wards; Little Lever, Farnworth, Harper Green and Kearsley.
Bolton 76903.  Almost all the old County Borough except Heaton; Astley Bridge, Breightmet, Crompton, Halliwell, Smithills, Tonge/The Haulgh, Great Lever, Rumworth.
Westhoughton 79801.  The current Bolton West minus Smithills plus Over and Little Hulton.  This is slightly over quota, so move the boundary between Heaton and Smithills a couple of streets further west.

[minionofmidas]

Greater Manchester 25.52 : Wigan 3.09, Bolton 2.59, Bury 1.87, Salford 2.15, Trafford 2.17, Manchester 4.43, Stockport 2.88, Tameside 2.17, Oldham 2.11, Rochdale 2.06
Lancashire 11.74 + Blackburn 1.34 + Blackpool 1.47 = 14.55

Bolton bits transferred are 0.26, Bury bits transferred are 0.33.

Three Wigan seats
Two Rochdale seats as they are currently
Five Stockport/Tameside seats as layed out previously by Andrew
Two current Oldham seats
A Bury Proper seat
Remainder of Bury + Failsworth + Manchester + Trafford + Salford + remainder of Bolton + possibly that one Wigan ward, if that helps to keep the map tidy = 12 seats

Would be simpler to say Bury + Bolton + Salford + Wigan - bits removed by doktorb = 9.11 seats.  I'm not doing the rest of the county again unless I have to.  Bury + Bolton - bits removed by doktorb = 3.87 so there should be no change to the Salford and Wigan proposals.

Bury proper is Church, East, Elton, Moorside, Redvales and Unsworth wards so it needs three more wards to bring it up to quota.  The obvious three are the Radcliffe wards

Yeah, I figured that.

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Except with Failsworth and bits of Manchester? (I'm still a little unhappy with your very low pop. Manchester seats... ) Though yeah, as what you're saying is feasible too, why not. Least work for us. 3.87+ whatever that one Wigan ward you have in there (and the boundary commission currently has in there, too) comes down to, that is. Probably something like 3.98.

[minionofmidas]

So yeah, Merseyside. The only thing I'm unhappy with is the splitting of Formby, but that was unavoidable once we don't cross the Merseyside-West Lancs border. Walton constituency is abolished.

Southport 77,512
Current constituency plus Harington (really Formby West) ward
Crosby & Magnull 77,203
Sefton Central minus Harington plus Victoria and Church wards
Bootle & Walton 73,755
Bootle minus Victoria and Church wards, plus County and Warbreck wards in Liverpool
Liverpool West Derby 75,353+x
Current constituency plus Clubmoor and Fazakerley wards minus western part of Tuebrook & Stoneycroft ward (10,291). It is hoped that either the railway or Green Lane would do the trick.
Liverpool Wavertree 70,712+x
Current constituency minus Church ward - that's Church ward in Liverpool, not Church ward in Sefton - plus Anfield and Everton. EDIT: Plus remainder of Tuebrook & Stoneycroft o/c, forgot to mention that.
Liverpool Riverside 73,310+x
Current constituency plus western part of Church ward (10,688)
Garston & Halewood 71,346+x
Current constituency plus remainder of Church ward
Knowsley 79,271
Saint Helens North 75,866
Saint Helens South & Whiston 78,705
all unchanged.

[You kip if you want to...]

So yeah, Merseyside. The only thing I'm unhappy with is the splitting of Formby, but that was unavoidable once we don't cross the Merseyside-West Lancs border. Walton constituency is abolished.

Southport 77,512
Current constituency plus Harington (really Formby West) ward
Crosby & Magnull 77,203
Sefton Central minus Harington plus Victoria and Church wards
Bootle & Walton 73,755
Bootle minus Victoria and Church wards, plus County and Warbreck wards in Liverpool
Liverpool West Derby 75,353+x
Current constituency plus Clubmoor and Fazakerley wards minus western part of Tuebrook & Stoneycroft ward (10,291). It is hoped that either the railway or Green Lane would do the trick.
Liverpool Wavertree 70,712+x
Current constituency minus Church ward - that's Church ward in Liverpool, not Church ward in Sefton - plus Anfield and Everton.
Liverpool Riverside 73,310+x
Current constituency plus western part of Church ward (10,688)
Garston & Halewood 71,346+x
Current constituency plus remainder of Church ward
Knowsley 79,271
Saint Helens North 75,866
Saint Helens South & Whiston 78,705
all unchanged.

No "cross-mersey" required?

[minionofmidas]

A cross-Mersey doesn't make sense numberswise as the areas on either side are overquota for the number of seats they're going to get. Wirral will be paired with Cheshire.

[YL]

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.

The closest approximation to Westmorland using whole wards has an electorate of 73,554 according to my calculations, which is within the target range, but given that Cumbria as a whole is a bit over five quotas it's not going to be possible to do the rest of the county, so it's going to need a bit more territory from somewhere.  Here's what I ended up with:

1. Westmorland and Alston (77831): from South Lakeland Ambleside and Grasmere, Arnside and Beetham, Burneside, Burton and Holme, Crooklands, all the Kendal wards, Lyth Valley, Milnthorpe, Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale, both Staveleys, Whinfell, the Windermere wards; from Eden Alston Moor, the Appleby wards, Askham, Brough, Crosby Ravensworth, Eamont, Hartside, Kirkby Stephen, Kirkby Thore, Long Marton, Morland, Orton with Tebay, Ravenstonedale, Shap, Ullswater, Warcop.  [Staveley-in-Cartmel is Lancashire, but has to go here to get the numbers right.  Sedbergh is Yorkshire of course.]

2. Barrow and Furness (78432): the rest of South Lakeland; all of Barrow district.

3. Whitehaven and Workington (79542): all of Copeland; from Allerdale Clifton, Harrington, Moorclose, Moss Bay, St. John's, St. Michaels, Seaton, Stainburn.

4. Penrith, Keswick and Maryport (78152): rest of Allerdale; rest of Eden; from Carlisle Burgh, Dalston.

5. Carlisle and North Cumberland (76421): rest of Carlisle.

(I hope I haven't made any blunders here.)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A cross-Mersey doesn't make sense

fyp

[minionofmidas]

A cross-Mersey doesn't make sense

fyp

Yeah, I meant "not even numbers-wise". We all know it doesn't make sense in any other respect.

[minionofmidas]

I suggest that we just deport all the rich idiots from the Home Counties who have been ruining Northants for decades back to where they came from. That's what my late Grandma would have argued for, anyway.

But, yeah, any constituency would be ugly. But as ugly as the current one?

Possibly worse.

Corby + anything in Kettering borough west of Kettering proper (Desborough etc) + those three Daventry wards listed above + the fairly empty northernmore bits of East Northants to just north of Oundle (73,031) vs
Kettering proper + the central and south central bits of East Northants from Irthlingborough north to Oundle (78,580)?

What do you say, Al? Best I can do.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I suggest that we just deport all the rich idiots from the Home Counties who have been ruining Northants for decades back to where they came from. That's what my late Grandma would have argued for, anyway.

But, yeah, any constituency would be ugly. But as ugly as the current one?

Possibly worse.

Corby + anything in Kettering borough west of Kettering proper (Desborough etc) + those three Daventry wards listed above + the fairly empty northernmore bits of East Northants to just north of Oundle (73,031) vs
Kettering proper + the central and south central bits of East Northants from Irthlingborough north to Oundle (78,580)?

What do you say, Al? Best I can do.

It would make more sense than keeping the current division, yeah.

[minionofmidas]

Warrington North 70,953+x
While there is a ward along the constituency boundary that could be transferred whole (Latchford East), doing so makes little sense, and splitting Bewsey & Whitecross (7716) ward in the centre of Warrington proper is far more reasonable.
Warrington South 71,917+x
Remainder

[minionofmidas]

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

The part of Westmorland in Eden district seems to be Long Marton, Kirkby Thore, Eamont and Askham wards, the part of Ullswater ward around the head of the lake (Glenridding and Patterdale), and everything in Eden to the south of those.

The closest approximation to Westmorland using whole wards has an electorate of 73,554 according to my calculations, which is within the target range, but given that Cumbria as a whole is a bit over five quotas it's not going to be possible to do the rest of the county, so it's going to need a bit more territory from somewhere.  Here's what I ended up with:

1. Westmorland and Alston (77831): from South Lakeland Ambleside and Grasmere, Arnside and Beetham, Burneside, Burton and Holme, Crooklands, all the Kendal wards, Lyth Valley, Milnthorpe, Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale, both Staveleys, Whinfell, the Windermere wards; from Eden Alston Moor, the Appleby wards, Askham, Brough, Crosby Ravensworth, Eamont, Hartside, Kirkby Stephen, Kirkby Thore, Long Marton, Morland, Orton with Tebay, Ravenstonedale, Shap, Ullswater, Warcop.  [Staveley-in-Cartmel is Lancashire, but has to go here to get the numbers right.  Sedbergh is Yorkshire of course.]

2. Barrow and Furness (78432): the rest of South Lakeland; all of Barrow district.

3. Whitehaven and Workington (79542): all of Copeland; from Allerdale Clifton, Harrington, Moorclose, Moss Bay, St. John's, St. Michaels, Seaton, Stainburn.

4. Penrith, Keswick and Maryport (78152): rest of Allerdale; rest of Eden; from Carlisle Burgh, Dalston.

5. Carlisle and North Cumberland (76421): rest of Carlisle.

(I hope I haven't made any blunders here.)

Clearly better than my map. I salute you.
Though I disagree with most of your names. 1 could be simply Westmorland. The bits and pieces added are just too tiny and anyways situated in all directions. With all of Copeland in, I think 3 should be Copeland & Workington. And Keswick is tiny and sort of redundant as a naming component (the third largest settlement would be Cockermouth... or if the name's supposed to be geographically descriptive we'd need some place in the northern part of Allerdale, but there don't seem to be any of relevance. Anyways there's not really anythign wrong with Penrith & Maryport). And I want 5 to be called Carlisle & the Border (it's not just a pretty name - Border was also the name of the rural district in the area from the 30s to the 70s.)

[minionofmidas]

Wirral 240,390
Cheshire West & Chester 251,933
Halton 91,631
Cheshire East 288,796
Shropshire 230,844
Telford & the Wrekin 119,968

All of these have been grouped together. Cheshire E can actually (barely) stand alone for four seats, but doing so forces all sorts of weird little territorial transfers. Shropshire (UA) could, too, but that creates problems north and south. In addition, I tried to also pair Herefordshire with this but that created even worse horrors than I now have. (The issue with Herefordshire is that it can essentially stay as is but some non-Herefordshire territory - either in Shropshire or in Worcestershire - needs to be slapped onto the N Herefordshire constituency to bring it up to quota. Depending on the size of the territory used, maybe some wards near Hereford may be shifted to the S constituency, which is barely large enough as is. So yeah. I've settled on Worcestershire for now.)

New ward maps for Cheshire and Shropshire.

Wallasey 76,427
gains Hoylake & Meols
Birkenhead 75,220
gains Upton
That was the easy part (well, the first one of the easy parts).
For suburban Wirral and Ellesmere Port & Neston, I could either randomly slap one Wirral ward onto EPN - but after I had moved the non-former-EPN-district parts of that constituency into Chester, this left EPN undersized - or draw one seat along the Mersey and one seat along the Dee. Alas, that didn't work out too well either as there's more people along the Mersey:
Wirral West & Neston 76,027
West Cheshire wards of Neston & Parkgate and Ledsham & Willaston; three remaining Wirral West wards of West Kirkby & Thurstaston, Greasby, Frankby & Irby and Pensby & Thingwall; Wirral South wards of Heswall and (sigh ) Clatterbridge.
Ellesmere Port & Bebington 73,374
Remainder of Wirral and the four Ellesmere Port wards

City of Chester 75,446
Current constituency and remainder of Mickle Trafford ward (which is currently split between City of Chester, Ellesmere Port & Neston, and Eddisbury). This leaves Gowy ward split.
Halton 79,349
Gains Ditton and Halton Lea wards
Northwich & Wilmslow 84,234-x
Current Tatton constituency plus Northwich West and Northwich part of Northwich E & Shakerley (the part outside Northwich town is in Tatton already)
Macclesfield 74,595+x
Population is the current constituency. The current constituency boundaries split Alderley ward.
Slicing these two to be both within quota is going to be a challenge. The former ward of Alderley Edge and that (major) part of the former ward of Chelford currently in Alderley might just be the right size, though. (That still leaves the current Alderley ward split - the former ward of Fulshaw, which really belongs with Wilmslow, is left with Northwich & Wilmslow.) Total population of Alderley ward 10,556, of which 1994 are in Macclesfield already.

Now to the other easy part:
Congleton 74,806
unchanged
Crewe & Nantwich 78,469
unchanged

And for some comic relief, we cut to my inept attempts at drawing Shropshire:
Telford 74,734
Current constituency and Muxton and Donnington wards
Wellington, Newport & Market Drayton 73,234
Remainder of Telford & Wrekin; in northern Shropshire, Shawbury, Wem, and points east.
Ludlow 77,157
All of the former Bridgnorth and South Shropshire districts, ie gaining the Shifnal area from Wrekin
Shrewsbury & Atcham 75,076
Unchanged
Oswestry 79,500
The remaining wards in northwestern Shropshire (a somewhat larger area than the former Oswestry district), and from the abolished Eddisbury constituency the East Cheshire ward of Cholmondesley and the Cheshire West & Chester ward of Broxton and most of Gowy (see above, City of Chester).

Ooh, I forgot to list one of the Cheshire seats:
75,914
Remainder of Halton; Frodsham & Halston, Weaver, Eddisbury, Abbey, Winsford
Broadly a successor seat to Weaver Vale, but exchanging Northwich (and a bit of Halton) for the northern part of Eddisbury constituency. I haven't named it yet. Vale Royal & Halton East?

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

Damn, you got to Cheshire before me.

Vale Royal and Halton East would probably be better as just Vale Royal.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And for some comic relief, we cut to my inept attempts at drawing Shropshire:
Telford 74,734
Current constituency and Muxton and Donnington wards
Wellington, Newport & Market Drayton 73,234
Remainder of Telford & Wrekin; in northern Shropshire, Shawbury, Wem, and points east.
Ludlow 77,157
All of the former Bridgnorth and South Shropshire districts, ie gaining the Shifnal area from Wrekin
Shrewsbury & Atcham 75,076
Unchanged
Oswestry 79,500
The remaining wards in northwestern Shropshire (a somewhat larger area than the former Oswestry district), and from the abolished Eddisbury constituency the West Cheshire ward of Cholmondesley and the Cheshire East & Cheshire ward of Broxton and most of Gowy (see above, City of Chester)

Alrighty then.

Adding Donnington to Telford makes a lot of sense, adding Muxton less so. Part of the problem with Telford is that it doesn't have anything like a normal urban structure; thus Donnington might belong in the Telford constituency and Muxton might belong with Donnington, but Muxton does not really belong in the Telford constituency.
An alternative would be add the Hadley part of Hadley & Leegomery into Telford instead of Muxton. Hadley is very much part of Telford proper (insofar as there is such a thing) and Muxton isn't.
Actually, if I were drawing the boundaries I'd also split the Wrockwardine ward to include Little Wenlock (and thus the summit of the Wrekin) in the constituency, and cross the river to include Broseley and unite the Gorge in one constituency. Broseley ought to be in Telford & Wrekin UA anyway. Or you could base a constituency on the former Liberty of Great Wenlock

Wellington, Newport & Market Drayton is a horror. You might be better off scrapping the current order of constituencies and trying to unite Shrewsbury and Wellington and working things out around that. Figures might not work though. So maybe not.

That thought out of the way... you're combining with Cheshire in the wrong places, I think. If Oswestry isn't Shropshire its Welsh; it doesn't have much to do with anywhere in Cheshire. The area around Whitchurch and Market Drayton however... yeah. That would be a better way of going about things. Hope that doesn't wreck the Cheshire map, though.

[minionofmidas]

Wellington, Newport & Market Drayton is a horror. You might be better off scrapping the current order of constituencies and trying to unite Shrewsbury and Wellington and working things out around that. Figures might not work though. So maybe not.

That thought out of the way... you're combining with Cheshire in the wrong places, I think. If Oswestry isn't Shropshire its Welsh; it doesn't have much to do with anywhere in Cheshire. The area around Whitchurch and Market Drayton however... yeah. That would be a better way of going about things. Hope that doesn't wreck the Cheshire map, though.

Never mind what it does in Cheshire (whichever part of Cheshire goes into a Shropshire-dominated seat won't be happy. I think. Though yeah, it'd do strange things to the Crewe & Nantwich constituency) that means either extending the current Wrekin seat southward, adding the rural bits of Shrewsbury & Atcham to Ludlow, and trying to draw a Shewsbury & Oswestry seat; or else going with that Shrewsbury & Wellington idea, another seat from Newport to Ludlow, and a third all along the Welsh border. Either way it's possible that you're slicing by Shrewsbury so finely that you need to exclude some areas that really belong with the town.
Either could be tried, for all that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hmm... how far south would the East Shropshire seat have to go? Because the whole of the eastern fringe of the county has a lot in common, so that might not be so bad. And the current boundary between Shrewsbury & Atcham and Ludlow makes no sense on the ground, fwiw. You could probably extend as far north as Hanwood without too many problems if it was necessary.

[minionofmidas]

The former North Shropshire district, plus St Martin's parish (formerly of Oswestry, but united in a ward with areas to the east) minus Ruyton & Baschurch ward, is 47,520 electors and actually fits quite nicely with my cutoff bits of Cheshire. I seem to recall having actually calculated that earlier, then shied away from what it meant for Shrewsbury.
Former Oswestry district, minus St Martin's, is 28,172. Ruyton & Baschurch is 2919.
The rural parts of Shrewsbury & Atcham have only 19,195 electors - 15,789 outside of Tern ward which for obvious graphical reasons needs to stay with Shrewsbury.
Shrewsbury town (and Bayston Hill parish which is included in a Shrewsbury ward) is 55,881, plus 3406 in Tern, so Shrewsbury & Oswestry is certainly going to be too large.

Will get back to you on the merits of the Shrewsbury & Wellington idea in a minute.

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

New ward maps for Cheshire and Shropshire.

Actually, those are the current Cheshire wards - the two Cheshire councils are having new wards drawn up.  I think the relevant Boundary Commission has finalised its recommendations and the report is on Eric Pickles' desk waiting to be signed off.

[minionofmidas]

Market Drayton & other naming particles 76,409
Shawbury, The Meres, Saint Martin's and points east, two and a half random rural Cheshire wards as described earlier
Shrewsbury & Wellington 79,350
All Shrewsbury town wards, Tern, Shropshire; all the wards west of Whitchurch Drive (including the rural Wrockwardine ward), Telford & Wrekin
Telford 77,292
Current constituency plus Donnington and Hadley & Leegomery
Bridgnorth & Newport 72,565
Remainder of Telford & Wrekin, all of the former Bridgnorth district, and also the Cleobury Mortimer ward spanning the former Bridgnorth - South Shropshire boundary and the Clee ward formerly in S Shropshire, thus bringing us to right outside of Ludlow (or alternatively the Severn Valley ward formerly in Shrewsbury & Atcham, for 341 fewer inhabitants)
Oswestry & Ludlow (or maybe just Shropshire West) 74,085
Everything else