Let the great boundary rejig commence

[doktorb]

I am trying to fathom out what to do with Lancashire and Gtr Manchester, although if the average electorate will be below 80,000, I will have to undo some of my more radical suggestions

(I think my proposal of "Fleetwood, Bispham and Thornton Cleveleys" will have to be redone =)  )

[doktorb]

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...

[doktorb]

Cheers for that.

I am a bit stuck in the Fleetwood area. I want to stop Fylde being linked with Preston, so it's caused a logjam around the awkward bit of Lancashire where Blackpool/Thorton Cleveleys/Poulton-le-Fylde/Carleton all meet.

I'll post my map of progress so far at some point. I've got an idea....but it does mean quite an interesting combination of towns.....=S

[doktorb]

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

[doktorb]

Yeah I am going to use your maps and description as a guide   I'm actually going to stick to my plan of only combining Lancashire with Gtr Manchester, which may end up being part of the cause of my problems! I'm going to undo the four seats I have tried to create in the Blackpool area and try again - start with a decent sized "Blackpool South" and work from there.

[doktorb]

Cheers Harry, I'll have to actually finish them first, but yeah that'd be fantastic.

[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.....

[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....

[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...

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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!

[doktorb]

2010 electoral figures, from the Boundary Commision themselves, has the West Midlands at 1,921,952. So dividing by the new quota has an entitlement of 25.335, down from 26.867.  A loss of 2 seats then?

[doktorb]

You'll like this...

David  Boothroyd in "another place" has pointed out that allocations of seats this time round will NOT be simply county-by-county....


This is Section 9 of the Act:

""The allocation method
8 (1) The allocation method referred to in rule 3(2) is as follows.
(2) The first constituency shall be allocated to the part of the United
Kingdom with the greatest electorate.
(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.
(4) This rule does not apply to the constituencies mentioned in rule 6,
and accordingly the electorate of Scotland shall be treated for the
purposes of this rule as reduced by the electorate of those
constituencies."


So....that's the d'Hondt method......Confused? I certainly am......

[doktorb]

(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?

[doktorb]

I hope the Boundary Commission are reading this...

[doktorb]

I am to restart my Lancs/Gtr Manc attempt this afternoon, once the lasagne is done in the oven

[doktorb]

That is a very neat solution given the awkward geography and numbers. Think your two Middlesborougs are the best that can be done, sure a little tidying could be suggested but that's pretty good going.

[doktorb]

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.

For northern Lancashire, then, it looks like I'm pretty much sorted as follows:

South Ribble (76,429)
Regains Lostock Hall, Farington, Tardy Gate, a removal I never did agree with. Keeps only one ward from Chorley borough, and loses any links with West Lancs borough, so becomes far more compact than currently.

Preston (74,807)
The existing constituency, though it loses Ingol. I really wanted to Ingol, but its shape and size made other constructions very difficult. With Preston being so tiny (fewer than 55,000 voters I believe) I expand it to include the whole of Bamber Bridge, Walton-le-Dale, Salmlesbury and Coupe Green.  I know from my own experience that this is "commute to work" world so it's a feasable seat.

Wyre and Preston North (76,733)
It pains me to keep this seat, but I have no choice, the other combinations just would not work for me (I groaned out loud when I saw my Excel spreadsheet turn from "under quota blue" to "over quota red" when I tried adding Fylde to Preston).  Anyway, this is not quite the seat as we know it now, I've added Wyresdale ward, and the Pilling/Hambleton bits too, which I think are in Lancaster and Fleetwood now. Loses the connection with Poulton-le-Fylde, which wasn't really valid/legit anyway.

Blackpool (74,074)
The existing Blackpool South, this has been extended up the Golden Mile to just miss out Bispham. If I were a Scottish Boundary Commissioner, I would call this "Blackpool South and West", but I'm not, so I won't.

Fleetwood and Bispham (72,765)
JUST in quota, but good God am I glad to see the back of this. Fleetwood, Cleveleys, and the eastern suburbs of Blackpool all the way down to Stanley Park.  I could see no other way to undo the tangle here, this works very well.

Fylde (76,339)
The borough plus Poulton-le-Fylde and Carleton. This has been my idea from the start, stop Fylde from being tagged onto Preston (or the other way round).  Yes, Wyre is split three ways but THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE.

Valleys of Ribble and Lune (74,761)
The borough of Ribble Valley, plus everything that isn't in the Lancaster and Morecambe seat I discribe below. Yes, I've checked Street View and Google Earth to confirm that there IS a single track country lane linking adjoining wards, so all is well.

Lancaster and Morecambe (78,808)
The city of Lancaster, inc. its Uni, plus Morecambe and Heysham. Can't get more sensible than that.

===

Work now in progress = what to do with West Lancs (it's a bit high but I can't now go and carve up South Ribble. What to do with Wigan (currently paired with West Lancs, but at 82,000, something has to give. And I don't know how to find out specific population figures to enable split wards so it's all or nothing......

[doktorb]

LOL. But it IS a direct road! I tried adding Rural North but that messed the figures up. This is the only way I've been able to solve my Fleetwood issue =<

[doktorb]

[shudder]  I would not like to give Yorkshire a go. I'll stick with Lancs. And I will remember to look out for any mountains in the borderlands

[doktorb]

I use these figures - http://www.boundarycommissionforengland.org.uk/electoral-figures/electoral-figures.htm


www.election-maps.co.uk


and Google Earth and StreetView to make sure wards really do join up

[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