Let the great boundary rejig commence

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

I did some work on this last year on the Vote UK forum thread "Equal Voting Size".  http://www.vote-2007.co.uk/index.php?topic=3672.0.  We assumed a House of 585 seats.

Some observations:
(1) Getting each constituency to be exactly the same size is an impossible task.  Apart from anything else, it's very unlikely that the electorate will be an exact multiple of 500 or 585 or whatever.

(2) The only way to get each constituency the same size would be to divide at property level, which means that the number of possible counter-proposals becomes for all practical purposes unlimited.  For example, if we need to transfer two electors from Anytown East to Anytown West is there any reason for us to prefer transferring 1 Avenue Road instead of 2 Avenue Road?

(3) Legal precedent is not on the Conservatives' side here.  Back in 1983 Michael Foot (then Leader of the Opposition) took the Boundary Commission for England to judicial review arguing that the Commission had not taken enough weight of having an equal number of voters in each seat.  He lost.  (If you want to know more, google R v Boundary Commission for England ex parte Foot 1983.)

What we may see is the introduction of a tolerance level of something like +/-10% for all parliamentary constituencies except where there is a very good reason to depart from this (I'm thinking Orkney and Shetland, Na he Na h-Eili Western Isles and Wight here).  That's how the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (or whatever they're called this week) work.  However, even though a 10% tolerance sounds large it would create problems in the metropolitan areas and Scotland where ward sizes are very large - wards would almost certainly have to be split, presumably along polling district lines or some such.  The new Scottish Parliament constituencies coming in next year have taken this approach.

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

Would Na-h-Eileanan-an-Iar, Orkney and Shetlands, Ynys Mon and the Isle of Wight be affected by these changes? They're far under Cammy's 77,658 requirement.

Wight is actually a lot bigger than that - it already has more than 100,000 electors.

I suspect Anglesey might well be subject to this.  Anglesey is connected to the mainland by two bridges, which is more than can be said for the rest of the island seats named.  You could combine it with Arfon.  [waits for Al to explain why this is a bad idea]

Trivia time here - there are actually five constituencies which contain no part of the British or Irish mainland.  What's the other one?

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

Would Na-h-Eileanan-an-Iar, Orkney and Shetlands, Ynys Mon and the Isle of Wight be affected by these changes? They're far under Cammy's 77,658 requirement.

Wight is actually a lot bigger than that - it already has more than 100,000 electors.

I suspect Anglesey might well be subject to this.  Anglesey is connected to the mainland by two bridges, which is more than can be said for the rest of the island seats named.  You could combine it with Arfon.  [waits for Al to explain why this is a bad idea]

Trivia time here - there are actually five constituencies which contain no part of the British or Irish mainland.  What's the other one?

One of the Thanet seats? If you consider the Isle of Thanet to be not a part of the British mainland.

Or perhaps Portsmouth South? There's a canal separating Portsmouth from the mainland, but it used to be a part of the mainland.

Edit: You must mean Portsmouth South, as the Thanet seats both contains parts of the original mainland as well (a bit of pro-Tory gerrymandering, that).


Also, Isle of Wight would be affected by it, but by means of having to be split and partially merged with the mainland (or Portsmouth South, since my guess is that they'd connect Ryde to Portsmouth and then leave the rest of Wight intact).

Portsmouth South?

Yes, it's Portsmouth South.

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

I haven't drawn many Welsh ward maps but tend to be fairly useless in my experience - some Welsh wards are absolutely tiny.

Also I can't see this on the ERS website - do you have any further details?

One more thing:

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WTF??!?!?!??  If you're going to combine Cardiganshire with anywhere presumably the Preseli or Machynlleth would be a better idea - at least there aren't a load of mountains in the way.

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

OK, so it looks like it already has the Mynydd Preseli in it.  Still, communication links between Aberystwyth and Rhayader consist of the A44 road via Llangurig.  And, er, that's it.

Surely the ERS Cymru can't be trying for the most insane constituencies they can think of in order to discredit FPTP?  Nah, that can't be right.

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

Welsh Electoral Reform Society Recommendations for Wales
(published June 9th 2010)

[snip]
Could I ask someone more skilled than me to table that please and could I also ask for a named current ward map of Wales so I can show which wards go into which seats? (please e-mail me direct with map)

Complete with Welsh translations (corrections welcome)

Name of constituency	Con	Lab	Lib Dem	Plaid	UKIP	Green	BNP	Ind	Others	Totals	Electorate	Turnout	Winner
Y Barri a Phenarth - Barry and Penarth	18,106	16,387	8,112	2,433	1,419	485	0	186	306	47,434	73,652	64.40%	Con
Blaenau Gwent a Thredegar - Blaenau Gwent and Tredegar	2,781	16,612	4,198	1,981	623	0	1,227	696	4,675	32,795	78,027	42.03%	Lab
Siroedd Frycheiniog a Threfaldwyn - Breconshire and Montgomeryshire	14,085	3,304	15,520	1,839	994	181	0	152	409	36,485	73,630	49.55%	Lib Dem
Pen-y-Bont ar Ogwr - Bridgend	10,213	15,024	7,870	2,514	796	0	1,072	0	0	37,489	75,991	49.33%	Lab
Caerffili - Caerphilly	6,038	16,700	5,587	4,996	893	0	1,450	985	14	36,662	78,773	46.54%	Lab
Canol Caerdydd - Cardiff Central	10,637	13,184	12,753	1,437	912	532	0	191	341	39,988	74,574	53.62%	Lab
Gogledd Ddwyrain Caerdydd - Cardiff North East	13,568	15,702	10,680	1,589	1,043	479	0	236	361	43,658	75,345	57.94%	Lab
Gorllewin Caerdydd - Cardiff West	13,851	17,175	8,066	2,335	1,125	607	0	106	165	43,428	74,061	58.64%	Lab
Caerfyrddin - Carmarthen	11,546	11,885	5,156	9,011	1,173	13	0	134	16	38,934	75,798	51.37%	Lab
Ceredigion a Rhaeadr - Ceredigion and Rhayader	7,325	3,406	16,990	8,634	980	528	0	34	66	37,963	74,042	51.27%	Lib Dem
Conwy ac Abergele - Conwy and Abergele	13,623	8,667	5,765	5,561	759	0	18	54	194	34,642	74,374	46.58%	Con
Dinbych, Llangollen a Bro Conwy - Denbigh, Llangollen and the Vale of Conwy	12,256	12,428	5,762	3,543	764	0	711	21	80	35,564	74,357	47.83%	Lab
Y Fflint a'r Rhyl - Flint and Rhyl	12,629	15,043	4,982	1,978	571	0	834	0	76	36,114	73,720	48.99%	Lab
Gwynedd a Machynlleth - Gwynedd and Machynlleth	6,367	5,220	4,325	10,863	774	0	0	788	31	28,369	75,318	37.67%	Plaid
Llanelli	7,203	14,349	4,590	10,804	1,063	0	118	0	0	38,127	75,776	50.32%	Lab
Merthyr Tudful ac Ystrad Mynach - Merthyr Tydifl and Ystrad Mynach	4,034	15,421	8,002	3,495	891	0	1,338	1,303	111	34,596	78,860	43.87%	Lab
Yr Wyddgrug a Shotton - Mold and Shotton	12,868	15,638	6,949	1,617	928	0	1,247	0	0	39,247	75,949	51.68%	Lab
Trefaldwyn - Monmouth	18,945	12,211	9,526	1,140	1,017	445	283	0	30	43,598	78,292	55.69%	Con
Castell-nedd ac Aberafan - Neath and Aberavon	4,681	16,768	5,183	3,531	615	0	1,284	556	338	32,955	74,811	44.05%	Lab
Casnewydd - Newport	10,524	14,672	8,710	935	924	238	1,176	0	58	37,237	75,491	49.33%	Lab
Penfro - Pembroke	16,827	12,691	5,414	3,883	1,001	0	0	145	0	39,961	75,339	53.04%	Con
Pontypridd ac Aberdâr - Pontypridd and Aberdare	3,845	15,315	6,302	5,011	1,037	110	0	135	250	32,004	76,594	41.78%	Lab
Rhondda ac Ogwr - Rhondda and Ogmore	3,300	17,213	4,727	4,712	564	41	313	1,648	94	32,612	75,838	43.00%	Lab
Dwyrain Abertawe a Bro Nedd - Swansea East and the Vale of Neath	5,861	15,564	6,960	4,863	806	120	1,286	81	96	35,637	77,901	45.75%	Lab
Gogledd Abertawe a Llwchwr - Swansea North and Loughor	8,123	15,936	7,478	2,280	758	221	1,345	52	25	36,217	74,988	48.30%	Lab
Gorllewin Abertawe a Gŵyr - Swansea West and Gower	9,345	13,539	10,561	1,870	695	272	927	252	120	37,581	77,775	48.32%	Lab
Tor-faen - Torfaen	9,213	16,527	6,474	1,826	922	449	1,492	1,594	0	38,497	78,434	49.08%	Lab
Bro Elai - Vale of Ely	11,178	15,772	8,758	2,776	1,234	479	84	0	374	40,657	73,196	55.55%	Lab
Wrecsam - Wrexham	9,003	12,505	7,744	2,322	787	0	1,124	0	0	33,486	74,020	45.24%	Lab
Ynys Môn a Bangor - Anglesey and Bangor	7,223	10,322	3,105	8,805	1,035	0	0	1,526	123	32,140	74,167	43.33%	Lab

I can't help but think that they may have to revise this 30-seat scheme.  The electorate figures I have for 2009 only give Wales 29 seats.

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

Update: The Welsh ERS have now published all the details, including maps, at http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/downloads/reduce_and_equalise_english_web.pdf.

I'm currently working on a scheme for a 62-seat Cheshire and Lancashire which fits the new requirements.  Anyone interested?

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

OK, it's time to go public.  Here's my plan for the North West:



Click on the map for all the details.

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

Could you list / send me a "how similar each seat is to the last one" tally and I'd be able to create a set of notionals for those suggestions. By that I mean, Wirral : 100% Wirral West + 7% Wirral South

Harry, you have a PM.

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

Thanks Harry.

Pretty much as I was expecting except for Lancaster and Morecambe.  The two predecessor seats (Lancaster & Fleetwood and Morecambe & Lunesdale) both have Tory majorities of less than 1000, and the best Tory areas of both seats are in the new Lunesdale and Wyre.  I would have expected Lancaster & Morecambe to be safeish Labour.

I imagine that Bolton North & Turton and Bury North would have been very close.

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

Thanks YorkshireLiberal.

The make-up of Bury South and Crumpsall is basically, from north to south:
(a) Redvales ward, which covers from the edge of Bury town centre to Blackford Bridge.  This is the only ward in Bury with a significant Muslim population. (Incidentally the Pakistan fast bowler Asif Masood now lives in this ward and used to run Fishpool post office.)
(b) Unsworth ward, the southern end of Bury county borough.  This is a socially mixed ward including the villages of Hollins and Unsworth together with the Sunny Bank estate.
(c) Besses and Pilkington Park wards, the old Whitefield Urban District.  Besses (which used to be well-known for Besses o' th' Barn brass band) is very working-class while Pilkington Park is filthy rich and has a very large Jewish population.
(d) St Mary's, Holyrood and Sedgley wards, which cover Prestwich where I grew up.  Prestwich as a whole is more middle-class than Manchester, and again very Jewish.  (Incidentally Joel Barnett started his political career on the old Prestwich Urban District Council.)
(e) Crumpsall ward, based around Crumpsall tram stop and including the North Manchester General Hospital and the northern end of Cheetham Hill proper.  As I put in the penpic, a lot of parents in Crumpsall ward used to send their kids over the borough boundary down the tram line to Prestwich high school, because of the dodgy reputation of the local high school (Abraham Moss).  The tram line and the 135 bus up Bury Old Road mean that communications between Crumpsall and Prestwich are very good.  That's my justification for crossing the boundary here.
(f) Higher Blackley ward, which to be honest has nothing whatsoever to do with Bury beyond the fact that a lot of people from Prestwich like to relax/exercise in Heaton Park, which is the western half of the ward geographically.  However, a Manchester seat which contained Blackley but not Crumpsall would look very weird indeed.

The problem with calling 20 "Crosby and Burscough" is that Burscough is really just an overgrown village and nobody outside the general area knows where it is, or even how to pronounce it.  Burscough was never important enough to have its own Urban District, but was part of West Lancashire Rural District (along with Maghull).  If you want to put two towns in the name Formby would be a better bet - it's bigger than Burscough and full of powerful millionaires - but "Crosby and Formby" would imply that the seat only contained the coastal strip.

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

Not from me for a while.  I have another project which is consuming much of my spare time at the moment.

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

Some blogger called Penddu has had a go at 29 seats for Wales: http://syniadau--buildinganindependentwales.blogspot.com/2010/06/wales-29.html#

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

I am working on Lancashire and Gtr Manchester. Now that I know 80,000 is the very maximum of a seat, I will have to revisit some of my creations to cut them down a bit.

Does any one have a blank Lancashire, and blank Gtr Manchester, ward map? It would come in very handy!

Cheers...

I can throw Cheshire in as well: http://www.andrewteale.me.uk/fantasy/ches_lancs_wards.png.  It is a very, very large outline map tho'.

I'm going to have a go at this as well at some point, but not before the end of next week.

BTW doktorb, good to see you posting again.

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

Right, close to giving up with this =<

All was working well until I got - AGAIN - to Blackpool and Fleetwood. REALLY p1ssed off here, just can't move on from this same old log jam....

I've got a new Lancaster and Morecambe at 78,808; then a Wyre and Lunesdale at 77,898. But this leaves Fleetwood and the whole of Blackpool, into which both will not go - I've got a core urban Blackpool seat at 74,283....and a Fleetwood plus Bits at, erm, 59,926.

STUCK

Had a go at Lancashire this morning and I think it's actually the easiest bit of the North West to do.  Throw in Sefton as well (as you have to to avoid splitting Formby) and you have 17.32 quotas.

As far as I can see Fleetwood and Blackpool do go into two if you're prepared to keep the current boundary between the Blackpool North and Wyre seats.  Move Fleetwood back into Blackpool North and move a couple of wards from Blackpool North into Blackpool South to even up the electorates.

So far I've ended up with:
Accrington and Blackburn North 77,911 (this is the 'bits and pieces' seat as Padiham is in there too)
Blackburn and Darwen 76,800
Blackpool North and Fleetwood 78,166
Blackpool South 74,144
Bootle 71,995 (unchanged, but I'll probably throw half a Liverpool ward in there at some point)
Burnley and Nelson 76,611
Chorley and Bamber Bridge 78,501 (also has a rural ward from Blackburn)
Colne and Clitheroe 78,171
Fylde 78,706 (expands north of Preston)
Lancaster and Morecambe 78,808
Preston 77,401 (all the urban wards except Ingol)
Rossendale and Oswaldtwistle 76,104
Sefton Central 77,202 (now includes the countryside west of Ormskirk)
South Ribble 79,239 (Penwortham, Leyland and Euxton)
Southport 78,531 (goes east to the River Douglas)
West Lancashire 77,504 (expands northeast as far as Coppull).
Wyre and Lunesdale 75,930

The rest of the NW will be more difficult.  Cumbria comes to 5.16 seats so it can have five seats of its own. The Wirral comes to 3.18 seats so it'll have to be moved in with Cheshire, but that leaves 25.57 seats for Greater Manchester, 13.52 seats for Cheshire + Wirral and 7.48 seats for Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens (which is impossible with a 5% tolerance).  You'll have to combine those areas somehow, and the larger ward sizes in Cheshire and the mets will make it difficult to do. 

[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.

[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.

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

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

[/quote]

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

(3) The second and subsequent constituencies shall be allocated in the
same way, except that the electorate of a part of the United Kingdom
to which one or more constituencies have already been allocated is to
be divided by—
where C is the number of constituencies already allocated to that
part.

— being C+1? That would be D'Hondt. — being C+0.5 would be Sainte-Lague except for an irregularity with the first seat that wouldn't have any practical effect.

Yeah, the equation is an image so it didn't copy over.

This sort of upsets all our maths, doesn't it?

The missing equation is 2C+1 as shown in the .pdf, not C+1.  The maths are Ste-Lague and as I posted.

[Incidentally the text of the pdf is in Palatino but the equations are in Times.  Clearly they don't use LaTeX.]

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

Hartlepool 75,378
Hartlepool UA, Blackhalls ward
Billingham & Sedgefield aka Necessary Evil 78,824
The remaining parts of County Durham (the area that used to be in both Sedgefield district and Sedgefield constituency, except Greenfield Middridge, plus some land on the southern outskirts of Spennymoor), and the Billingham wards, the Northern and Western Parishes, and also the Hardwick ward of Stockton. 52% of the seat is in County Durham.

Billingham and Sedgefield actually makes a fair bit of sense.  Sedgefield town is rather difficult to combine with anywhere else because (rather strangely) there are no north-south roads through it.

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The Yorkshire wards of Stockton basically break down into three units:
Yarm ward, based on the small old town of Yarm;
Thornaby-on-Tees, a middle-class town made by the Industrial Revolution which covers Mandale/Victoria, Stainsby Hill and Village wards.  From 1974 to 1983 Thornaby had a constituency of its own, so it seems a bit of a shame to split it up now.
Ingleby Barwick, an enormous private housing estate which has been entirely built in the last thirty years and is still growing.

It may be better in the long term to split up Ingleby Barwick rather than Thornaby given the population trends, as then the estate's population growth will hopefully be distributed between two constituencies rather than one.  That would also allow your "Middlesbrough South and Ingleby" to be renamed "Middlesbrough South and Thornaby", or even "Middlesbrough West" (haven't looked at the boundaries within Middlesbrough proper).  If you were to move Mandale and Victoria into Middlesbrough South, and Ingleby Barwick West into Stockton, would that take either seat out of tolerance?

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"Middlesbrough East" and "Redcar and Cleveland" might be better names.

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

If you were to move Mandale and Victoria into Middlesbrough South, and Ingleby Barwick West into Stockton, would that take either seat out of tolerance?

No, that would make virtually no difference at all and look nicer on an overview map. (I think Stockton gains 12 people net, or was it lose); the reason I used the other one was I was figuring that the one way I was splitting only Thornaby while the other way I was splitting them both; but I suppose Parkfield & Oxbridge is not Thornaby?

Thornaby was in the North Riding; Parkfield and Oxbridge was the other side of the Tees from Thornaby and therefore in County Durham.

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Yeah, I know, Eston the place is far smaller than Eston the former Urban District (which was very similar to the area described here, really just some warehousing land in Teesport missing), and I've no idea how well recognized that name still is. It's all continuously built up from Middlesbrough anyways. But was it ever in a Middlesbrough seat?
Only reason I used "East Cleveland" is because that's what the area is also called in the current Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland constituency name.
[/quote]

East Cleveland in this context is an anachronism as it refers to the defunct Cleveland county.  Cleveland and Teesside are really two distinct places, with Cleveland proper referring to the coast east of Redcar with its cliffs, and arguably the area between there and the North York Moors national park (towns like Saltburn, Skelton/Brotton and arguably Guisborough).  The local council is called "Redcar and Cleveland" to reflect this.  (Before 1983 there was a constituency called "Cleveland and Whitby".)

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

Meanwhile, a little tinkering has seen my "logjam" slightly shifted. Now I need to look at southern and eastern Lancs. Remember, I am NOT inlcuding Merseyside, which I appriciate causes a few issues in the West Lancs/Sefton area, but there you go.

Merseyside sans Wirral is 10.20 seats; I'd wonder if some wards on the Sefton outskirts can maybe be shifted into the W Lancs seat, but IIRC Andrew proposed something where Southport and Crosby (or whatever it was called) both expanded well outwards.

[/quote]

My dastardly plan was roughly (a) move Tarleton into Southport (b) draw a seat containing Crosby, Formby and the area that used to be Martin Mere (c) draw a seat containing Maghull and Skem (d) see where Ormskirk fits best.

doktorb, I'll be interested to see what constituencies you come up with crossing the Greater Manchester/Lancashire boundary.  There are a few possibilities that make sense, and some that don't; in particular, don't move Norden (the northernmost Heywood/Middleton ward) into Rossendale, it looks tempting on a map, but there's a large hill in the way.

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Lol.
[/quote]

If it's this single track country lane, that's the Trough of Bowland which I warned you about.

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

Billingham and Sedgefield actually makes a fair bit of sense.  Sedgefield town is rather difficult to combine with anywhere else because (rather strangely) there are no north-south roads through it.

Sedgefield has about 5000 inhabitants, and I've never understood why it's a constituency name of such long standing. By far the largest place in the Durham part of the seat is actually Newton Aycliffe.

I think it's mostly because this area of rural SE Durham has always ended up being the seat of bits left over once you take out the Pools, Stockton and Darlington.  Newton Aycliffe didn't exist before WW2 - it's a New Town - and there aren't many other large towns in the area.

Back in 1935 there were 11 county seats in Durham: Barnard Castle, Bishop Auckland, Blaydon, Chester-le-Street, Consett, Durham, Houghton-le-Spring, Jarrow, Seaham, Sedgefield and Spennymoor, plus Darlington, Gateshead, The Hartlepools, South Shields and Stockton-on-Tees which were borough seats, and Sunderland which was a two-member borough seat.

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

So what area should I try next?

Don't think anyone's talked about Yorkshire yet.

[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.