And it's back again (Shrinking the House : Take Two)

[YL]

This gives 10 seats to Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale without splitting any wards, but is, um, nuts, in several ways.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just loving Bradford Central & Bingley...

[Kevinstat]

Minimum electorate* of new constituencies (outside Northern Ireland): 71,031
The "quota": 74,769.19, or just 74,769 (doesn't matter here, even when calculating the below fractional quotas to four decimal places)
Maximum electorate* of new constituencies: 78,507
Electorate* of "Devon, Plymouth and Torbay": 852,765 (11.4053 quotas, within 5% of both 11 and 12)
Electorate* of "Cornwall & Isles of Scilly": 393,874 (5.2679 quotas)
   this number ÷ 5: 78,774.8 (267.8 electors too many, darn.  But wait...)
Electorate* of Cornwall "proper" (not including the Isles of Scilly): 392,223 (5.2458 quotas)
   this number ÷ 5: 78,444.6 (62.4 electors below the maximum)
Electorate* of the Isles of Scilly: 1,651 (0.0221 quotas)

*as of 1 December 2015

Devonscilly anyone?

You know, if it actually meant they could find a way of covering Cornwall "proper" with five constituencies I wouldn't put it past the BCE to do that; they could put them with Lundy in a "North Devon and Atlantic Islands" constituency or something.

I just e-mailed the Boundary Commission for England asking for a breakdown of the Clovelly Bay ward (in the Torridge district, and on the opposite side of Westward Ho! and all that from the North Devon district (which does have a convenient 0.9796 or 0.9795 quotas, depending on whether you round the quota to the nearest integer or not), between Lundy and the mainland.  I strongly hinted at your "North Devon and Atlantic Islands" idea, without mentioning you beyond that my quandy was partly inspired by something a fellow interested party who I thought lived in England (unlike me) had mentioned.  You might not have known that Lundy was in the Torridge district (in a ward with a part of the mainland not adjacent to North Devon) though.

Heard back from the BCE today:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

British government folks who field inquiries like to use the word "trust" when making replies, don't they.

[YL]

The Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland tweeted a link to the ward electorate data: http://tinyurl.com/hpdz88k

Have fun!

[Kevinstat]

The Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland tweeted a link to the ward electorate data: http://tinyurl.com/hpdz88k

Have fun!

Thanks.  I've (for the time being at least) lost my interest in doing NI redistricting myself (I started to try a 5-constituency Cornwall minus Scilly but didn't like the things I would have to do - there's very little margin for deviation there), although I did enjoy looking at Nicholas Whyte's proposal (for Northern Ireland, not Cornwall) at http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2622625.html .

[YL]

My attempt at Northern Ireland with a 4 seat Belfast:


Belfast zoom:


Basically East Belfast expands to include Holywood and North to include the rest of urban Newtownabbey; South and West are adjusted slightly to get within quota.  Lagan Valley is abolished and carved up between Strangford (which I'd rename Mid Down as it's much less focussed on the Lough) and South Antrim (which I'd rename Lisburn & South Antrim).  North Antrim loses its northern parts to East Londonderry (renamed Causeway Coast) and is renamed Mid Antrim.

There are a few rough edges but I don't think it's too bad.

[ObserverIE]

Off-hand:

1. Places part of the southern shore of Lough Foyle in with Tyrone(!?!).
2. Splits towns like Bangor, Lurgan unnecessarily.
3. Newtownards left almost as an exclave of the seat to which it belongs.
4. The Glens of Antrim get lumped into a seat with Carrickfergus.

Another attempt trying to minimise unnecessary disruption:





Fermanagh and South Tyrone (73,455) As before, except for tidying up of ward boundaries.
Newry and Armagh (71,959) Loses Loughgall and Tandragee to Upper Bann.
Upper Bann (73,471) Gains Loughgall and Tandragee, retains Aghagallon (which comes into Lurgan town), but loses Banbridge and the west Down wards along the A1.
South Down (72,705) Follows the boundary between the council areas in the west, losing Rathfriland, but gains Ballynahinch and Killyleagh from Strangford (you could reverse this swap to prioritise no change over maintaining council boundaries).
West Tyrone (70,686) Gains the most rural end of the old Derry council around Park and Claudy.
Foyle (71,814) Retains the Lough Foyle shoreline along the A2 (including Ballykelly from the old Limavady council).
Mid Ulster (73,777) Expands northwards to take Dungiven, Garvagh and Kilrea from East LondonDerry.
Causeway Coast and Glens (76,090) The remainder of the old East LondonDerry, supplemented by Ballymoney and the Glens from North and East Antrim.
Mid Antrim (77,159) A reworked North Antrim, taking Antrim town and points west from South Antrim, and losing its northernmost fringe.
East Antrim (72,904) Loses Cushendall in the north, but gains Ballyclare and sees an attempted tidying-up of wards on the northern edges of Newtownabbey (Jordanstown and Mossley).
North Down (73,444) Loses Holywood but gains the rest of the Ards Peninsula.
Belfast East and Newtownards (73,177) Belfast has to expand somewhere to retain four seats and adding in Holywood and Newtownards (Dundonald is already in East Belfast) seems logical. Loses a swathe of territory (Cregagh, Castlereagh proper) to South Belfast to compensate.
Belfast North (72,085) Gains territory from South Antrim around Mallusk and Glengormley and sees its southern border move north to the Crumlin Road, losing all of the Shankill and New Lodge to West Belfast.
Belfast West (72,135) Gains territory from North Belfast.
South Antrim and Lisburn (71,953) Pushed southward from Antrim town, Ballyclare and the north Belfast fringes, and takes Lisburn and the towns in north-west Down along the M1.
Belfast South (72,907) Loses Carryduff and Cairnshill to Mid Down but gains a swathe of south-east Belfast.
Mid Down (73,648) The leftovers. Contains Banbridge and Dromore along the A1, Carryduff and Saintfield along the A7, along with Comber and Ballygowan along the lough shore. Essentially outer commuter country and farming.

[YL]

Off-hand:

1. Places part of the southern shore of Lough Foyle in with Tyrone(!?!).
2. Splits towns like Bangor, Lurgan unnecessarily.
3. Newtownards left almost as an exclave of the seat to which it belongs.
4. The Glens of Antrim get lumped into a seat with Carrickfergus.

Yes, those are most of the "rough edges" I mentioned.  (Also I wasn't very happy with the boundary round Lisburn.)  I wasn't that bothered about the Glens/Carrickfergus thing as it keeps being proposed and some of the Glens are already in East Antrim.

Your plan looks good if it's OK with people in Newtownards to add them to a Belfast seat.

I think I can make mine look considerably better outside Belfast if I'm allowed to take one more ward currently in West Belfast and move it to South; East then no longer needs to go so far into North Down and so all of Newtownards can go into Mid Down, with knock-on benefits further west.  None of the options look very good, though: Falls? Twinbrook?

(It's also easier if I stop trying to get everything within 5% of the UK quota.  There's some ambiguity about to what extent this is necessary.)

[afleitch]

If you use the more variable quota, the seats formed are much more smooth.

In all honesty, I can see this review being abandoned once the provisional results are published. The government have an idea of what they think this review will be like and the rules it needs but the end result will always end up being not what they expected (with no lessons learned from the last review). If they go ahead with it, they will also presume that the following review will see a few wards moving here and there rather than the potential to have to redraw every seat every few years.

[doktorb]

The BCE has published the minutes of its meeting with representatives of the political parties. My summary is:

1. While the BCS and BCW will take into account the proposals from the Zombie Review, the BCE won't.
2. There is likely to be ward splitting
3. Wards will be split into polling districts
4. More use will be made of electronic communication over 'hard copy' communication
5. Provisional proposals will be released in the autumn
6. There would be public meetings as before
7. Allocated slots would be given at the public meeting to representatives of the Conservatives, Labour, LibDem, Green, and UKIP