Let the great boundary rejig commence

[minionofmidas]

I wish there was a program like Dave's Redistricting App for the UK so I could join in on the fun

Kids these days. Don't know what a pdf and a pocket calculator are for.

Where do I find the required information? That's my only problem.

http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm70/7032/7032_iv.pdf
(And the same thing with iii instead of iv for the Metropolitan Areas) has maps. The current ward electorates we're working with are at http://www.boundarycommissionforengland.org.uk/electoral-figures/electoral-figures.htm
And in a few areas you'll need additional info for which you'll just have to shop around on the net. Wikipedia is sometimes quite helpful in explaining what area a place name belongs to exactly, though sometimes it's not. In some new unitaries, the wards listed in the lower document won't add up with those listed on the map.

[minionofmidas]

In West Yorkshire, Calderdale and Kirklees will be minimum change maps. However, Halifax and Huddersfield are both too small and Colne Valley is marginally too large. And wards are, of course, huge - we're on metro territory after all.
Halifax 70,622+x
Calder Valley 68,425+x
The split ward is Hipperholme & Lightcliffe (8644, currently in Calder Valley). Though the wiki article claims that the two places (described as "villages", which I wouldn't call such places) run into each other, but from maps it doesn't look that way at all and it should be very easy to transfer only Hipperholme. Funny sounding name btw. There would appear to be a third, smaller settlement in the ward - Norwood Green. The map'll look better if that's also transferred, though one would have to check the population totals - if Lightcliffe has fewer than 3500 inhabitants, then Norwood Green will have to stay in Calder Valley.

A ward will also have to be split in Kirklees. They have 13,000 inhabitants on average (the usual boundary commission solution to such situations was, of course, to just have some constituencies include one fewer ward than others, as Huddersfield in this case, but the new narrow population targets rule that out.)

Huddersfield 66,206+x
Gains part of Lindley ward (13,678) which is part of the built-up Huddersfield area anyways - as is half (by population) of the current Colne Valley, so it's quite a misleading seat really.
Colne Valley 66,247+x
Loses part of Lindley yadda yadda yadda
Dewsbury 78,610
unchanged
Batley & Spen 76,619
unchanged

[minionofmidas]

Across Bradford, Leeds, and Wakefield, I intend to abolish one seat and have the resulting 15 seats still be 2% sub-quota on average (14.68 is the entitlement). Yet at current seats are undersized mostly on the western end of the area - after all, a seat was eliminated at the eastern end at the last review. In fact, the Normanton Pontefract & Castleford and (just barely so) Leeds Central seats are currently too large. Bradford must lose a seat and drop off territory into Leeds, elsewhere electorates just have to be brought into line (although that means most Leeds electorates, as most of them are too small right now). Wakefield is already shedding about the right amount into Leeds, though maybe I'll add another half-ward.

[minionofmidas]

In Bradford, currently five constituencies are made up of 6 wards each, and it seems fairly obvious to draw four constituencies of 7 wards each and lob off two wards onto Leeds. It's also only commonsense not to use Bradford proper wards - the obvious candidates are Wharfedale and Ilkley. It's also fairly obvious that the "Shipley" constituency is destined for the drop. I also took the opportunity to mess with the uglyshaped Bradford South.
Below are two ward maps for the remainder, chose one.
Bradford West 71,521
Current constituency plus Queensbury ward.
Bradford South East 73,389
Current South, minus Queensbury, plus Little Horton and Bowling & Barkerend
Bradford North East 75,994
Current East, minus Little Horton and Bowling & Barkerend, plus Windhill & Wross, Shipley, Baildon
Keighley 80,382
Current constituency minus Ilkley plus Bingley and Bingley Rural.
Yes, I know that's mismatched - wards in Bradford proper are smaller on average than in the suburbs - so part of Bingley Rural would go into Bradford West.
Or we can avoid the ward split, but have a less sensible map, by amending to:
Bradford West 75,179
Current constituency plus Queensbury and Bingley Rural, minus City
Bradford North East 74,026
Current East, minus Little Horton and Bowling & Barkerend, plus Windhill & Wross, Shipley, City
Keighley 78,692
Current constituency minus Ilkley plus Bingley and Baildon.
Bradford South East is not affected.

Leeds constituencies are made up of four or five wards. That's stark barking insane. I haven't touched it yet. Although I will.

In Wakefield borough, currently Wakefield constituency has 71,111 inhabitants and includes Ossett and most of Wakefield city; Hemsworth has 73,195 inhabitants, a bit of Wakefield city and lots of old pit villages, and Normanton Pontefract & Castleford has 82,834 inhabitants and four towns of which Knottingley is not mentioned in the name, while Outwood (23,518) is in a mostly Leeds-based constituency.
We will have to split a ward or three here anyways, but we could either go the cautious reforming route, which means splitting off some old villages southwest of Normanton (in Normanton ward) and southeast of Pontefract (in Pontefract South ward) and hope the figures somewow magically add up. If the problem is with Wakefield only - and the areas by Normanton, which could go in there, look of lesser magnitude - then obviously that can be solved by splitting the Wakefield South ward currently in Hemsworth, or better yet move it wholly into Wakefield and split the Wakefield Rural ward currently in Wakefield instead (and then perhaps move the people by Normanton into Hemsworth instead - or possibly not at all if the Pontefract area alone is enough people, which I strongly doubt, however).
It's also possible that these areas are just not enough to get Normanton etc below the maximum, in which case we're well & truly fucked. Which all told is quite likely.

Or we could take a more radical approach. The two Ossett wards can go into Leeds instead of the Outwood seats - they have marginally more people to them (24,647), which is good coz we'll be treading a fine line in Leeds. All the Wakefield wards (Wakefield) plus the rural ward immediately east of them (Crofton, Ryhill & Walton) is too few people: 69,174. The remainder of the current Hemsworth constituency plus the two Pontefract wards (Pontefract & Hemsworth) is 74,581, and the remaining Normanton & Castleford seat, including Outwood (which was in Normanton til 2010), is still too large at 82,256 but here the solution to both this and Wakefield is now much more obvious: the Wrenthorpe part of Wrenthorpe & Outwood West ward should be large enough to put the two seats within the corridor, though possibly not by much.

I prefer the more radical approach. Anyone who knows the area and disagrees, speak now or be silent forever cause I'll need to know before I tackle Leeds. Which wont be today. I'm also putting the two Bradford proposals up for discussion, though that doesn't affect anything else.

[minionofmidas]

Great Grimsby 69,991+x
While here a split ward couldn't be avoided, at least not without lopping off random parts of Grimsby (I didn't check all possible options, but I did check a few and found no solution). Current constituency plus Sidney Sussex and part of Croft Baker (8625) wards
whatever. Brigg & Immingham 68,174+x
Current constituency minus Sidney Sussex and part of Croft Baker; plus Brigg & Wolds and Broughton & Appleby.

The issue, of course, is that that splits Cleethorpes town right down the middle. There's a reason why Great Grimsby constituency isn't any larger than it is at current.
So... it's not cool, but... what if we split Grimsby down the middle instead of Cleethorpes? We can avoid the split ward that way.

Grimsby East & Cleethorpes 74,556
Sidney Sussex, Croft Baker, Haverstoe (ie Cleethorpes), Humberston & New Waltham, and in Grimsby East Marsh, Heneage, Park, Scartho and South wards
Grimsby West, Immingham & Brigg 72,234
West Marsh, Yarborough, and Freshney wards in Grimsby, and Waltham ward and points west of the Brigg & Immingham described above.

This is really quite unnecessary. Better to breach the UA/Lincolnshire County Council borders.

[minionofmidas]

Leeds.

Wharfedale (probably Wharfedale, Ilkesley & some other random place, if a boundary commission gets its way, but I don't care) 70,748+x
The Adel & Wharfedale and Otley & Yeadon wards currently in Leeds NW, the Guiseley & Rawdon ward currently in Pudsey, and in Bradford the Wharfedale and Ilkesley wards; and part of the Craven ward included in Keighley in the above description, pop. 12,159, to make up the numbers. (I strongly prefer the first description for Bradford above, btw. The portion of Bingley Rural in Bradford West could be fairly small.)
Leeds North West 64,698+x
Headingley and Weetwood from the current constituency of the same name, Kirkstall from the current Leeds West, and Horsforth and part of Calversley & Farsley (17,435) from the current Pudsey. The ward split would be broadly by the Farsley Ring Road.
Leeds West 68,443+x
The Armley, Bramley & Stanningley and Farnley & Wortley wards of the current constituency, and the Pudsey ward and the remainder of Calversley & Farsley from the abolished Pudsey constituency.

I tried to be similarly creative further east at first, but couldn't come up with anything looking this decent quickly so will be going with a minimum change approach instead.
Leeds North East 67,489+x
Current constituency and anywhere between 4580 and 5789 of the electors of Harewood (14,768), so expanding to the borough limits
Elmet & Rothwell 63,090+x
Current constituency except said portion of Harewood
Leeds East 64,479+x
Current constituency plus about the northern half of Burmantofts & Richmond Hill ward (14,822)
Leeds Central 64,874+x
Current constituency except the northern half of Burmantofts & Richmond Hill. As that would have to be ridiculously finely sliced (37 persons not spoken for, lol), the constituency will also expand southward to take in the eastern part of Ardsley & Robin Hood (16,625) - Robin Hood (the name made me think it's probably a late 20th century council estate, but apparently it's a pit village; wtf?) and possibly Ouzlewell Green (would look better on a map to include that too, but might take the next seat below target. It's not as if the area belonged in something called "Leeds Central", anyways.).
Morley & Ossett 58,991+x
The Morley North, Morley South, and the bulk of Ardsley & Robin Hood ward of Leeds; and the Ossett and Horbury & South Ossett wards of Wakefield.

EDIT: Hmm, by Ouzlewell Green I meant the separate cluster of houses south of Robin Hood, but apparently the suburban-gridded northern part of the cluster I called Robin Hood also uses the Ouzlewell Green name for its addresses. That area was certainly intended in Central.

[minionofmidas]

Great Grimsby 69,991+x
While here a split ward couldn't be avoided, at least not without lopping off random parts of Grimsby (I didn't check all possible options, but I did check a few and found no solution). Current constituency plus Sidney Sussex and part of Croft Baker (8625) wards
whatever. Brigg & Immingham 68,174+x
Current constituency minus Sidney Sussex and part of Croft Baker; plus Brigg & Wolds and Broughton & Appleby.

The issue, of course, is that that splits Cleethorpes town right down the middle. There's a reason why Great Grimsby constituency isn't any larger than it is at current.
So... it's not cool, but... what if we split Grimsby down the middle instead of Cleethorpes? We can avoid the split ward that way.

Grimsby East & Cleethorpes 74,556
Sidney Sussex, Croft Baker, Haverstoe (ie Cleethorpes), Humberston & New Waltham, and in Grimsby East Marsh, Heneage, Park, Scartho and South wards
Grimsby West, Immingham & Brigg 72,234
West Marsh, Yarborough, and Freshney wards in Grimsby, and Waltham ward and points west of the Brigg & Immingham described above.

This is really quite unnecessary. Better to breach the UA/Lincolnshire County Council borders.

Actually, no it's not. That results in a weird Gainsborough seat curving around Sc**nthorpe to the Humber, a Cleethorpes & Louth seat that's not so bad actually, and a perfectly weird South Lindsey seat snaking along from Mablethorpe all the way to the area between Lincoln and Gainsborough. To which I say "no. Just no." (I had a pretty Grimsby seat of the current constituency plus Immingham and Wolds wards. Sc**nthorpe had to stay as it was if I didn't want to split wards; I couldn't drop the Ridge ward like I would have liked to.)

So... to restore my sanity...
Great Grimsby 70,221+x
Current constituency plus Immingham and coastal part of Wolds (5714) ward.
Cleethorpes & Brigg 75,411+x
Remainder areas of North and North East Lincolnshire; Yarborough and Caistor wards of West Lindsey (4556 electors) just to connect the donut parts. Sigh. Using Kelsey too would make a nicer map, but I'm not sure how the population in Wolds is distributed, so...

In Lincolnshire... since I've been looking at it anyways now... the number of constituencies is alright, but Boston & Skegness needs to grow so I'm adding the current Louth & Horncastle wards of Spilsby and Halton Holgate for 75,241 inhabitants, reducing Louth to 72,942, and Sleaford & North Hykeham needs to get smaller while after removing those two wards Gainsborough needs to grow again. And Lincoln is also far at the low end. Besides, the rural parts of North Kesteven district have been rewarded. I worked it out that if Lincoln gains all of North Hykeham and drops the non-Lincoln parts it currently includes, its population inches up to 73,924; if Gainsborough gains Skellingthorpe and the new enlarged Eagle, Swinderby & Witham St Hughs ward it's population momentarily rises to 74,688 - so I can drop off that single East Lindsey ward of Wragby and reduce it to 72,879 again while Louth rises back to 74,751; and the thus amended Sleaford is at 77,131.
I recommend no changes to Grantham & Stamford (77,694) and South Holland & the Deepings (76,529).

[minionofmidas]

South Yorkshire... I have decided to try and avoid the ugly Nottinghamshire pairing. That means Nottinghamshire is the next project after this, just to see if I can do it there too. It's not going to be a stable map - it might work now but it probably won't be working next year. But hey, these are the relevant population totals.

Doncaster North at 72,040, this has dipped barely below the threshold.
Doncaster Central is at 73,189 and
Don Valley is 72,880... so using some minor northern or northwestern part of Edenthorpe, Kirk Sandall & Barnby Dun ward (10,688, currently in Central) to get Doncaster North into line. The area belongs there anyways - though the whole of the area that belongs there (the northern half or so of the ward) would be far too much, of course.

Rother Valley is currently fine at 72,168
Rotherham 72,178 gains Wickersley
Wentworth & Dearne 72,586 loses Wickersley and gains the North East ward in Barnsley. This is ugly on a map but more immediate choices like adding Darfield, or exchanging Dearne for Hoyland (Rockingham, Hoyland Milton, and either Wombwell or Worsbrough wards) fell short of the population target. And it doesn't change the constituency's character (of odds and ends between Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster) much, I should think.

My first map for two seats from the remainder was
Barnsley West & Penistone 74,104
Current Barnsley Central except Royston and Monk Bretton, plus Barnsley portion of Penistone & Stocksbridge
Barnsley East 74,851
Current constituency except North East, plus Royston and Monk Bretton
But that East constituency is really quite ugly.

So how about
Barnsley North & Penistone 74,924
Current Barnsley Central except the actually central parts of Barnsley in it, ie Central, Kingstone, and Old Town wards, plus Barnsley portion of Penistone & Stocksbridge, plus Cudworth ward currently in Barnsley East
Barnsley South 74,031
Current Barnsley East except North East and Cudworth, plus Central, Kingstone, and Old Town.

This turned out a lot easier than I thought it would be.

[minionofmidas]

Oh right, Sheffield. Sheffield has 28 wards, and currently five constituencies à 5 wards plus three wards in a cross-borough constituency, all of which are too small now. It is now to be wholly drawn into five constituencies, so I guess two split wards, four constituencies à 5.5 wards, and eking out a six-ward constituency below the threshold somewhere?

[minionofmidas]

Sheffield Heeley 77,138
gains Manor Castle ward. Heeley is one of the smaller constituencies, and Manor Castle is an undersized ward and fits in well geographically, so that got that issue out of the way. Of course that means Central gets even more of a West Central than it already had at the last review.
Sheffield South East 67,559+x
gains the southern (Brightside) part of Shiregreen & Brightside ward (13,432)
Sheffield Central 67,864+x
loses Manor Castle, gains Hillsborough and the eastern (urban-gridded) part of Crookes ward (13,565)
Sheffield Hallam 67,002+x
loses part of Crookes, gains Stocksbridge & Upper Don ward
Sheffield North East 69,491+x
Loses Hillsborough and the southern part of Shiregreen & Brightside, gains West Ecclesfield and East Ecclesfield
I drew this from the map. How I laughed when I noticed that the areas I wanted to remove from Brightside & Hillsborough were, well, Brightside and Hillsborough (I'd actually kinda hoped they'd include one of them so I could use the other as the name!)

[minionofmidas]

The easiest way to do a ten-seat Nottinghamshire was to give Nottingham the Derby treatment... two city constituencies with some wards lopped off. The surrounding county could then be done in a minimum changey way. (Though Rushcliffe is quite redrawn. Ken Clarke won't like it.)

Bassetlaw 78,332
unchanged gains Rampton
Mansfield 79,415
Mansfield was too large, and the obvious solution was to lop off Warsop (the Birklands and Meden wards). That made it too small, though, and after experimenting with villages to the east I eventually just added Sutton in Ashfield North ward (8457) because what I decided to do with Broxtowe suggested that, and was done with it. Given the exact population tallies involved, it may be possible to use only part of the ward.
Ashfield 74,322
Loses Sutton in Ashfield North ward, gains Greasley (Guiltbrook & Newthorpe) ward. Greasley is already divided by the current boundary and remains so.
Broxtowe 78,259
Loses that G(G&N) ward, gains Bulwell ward in Nottingham. This was a fairly random ward to remove, unlike Clifton to the south.
Sherwood 77,241
Yeah, as I got to here I noticed an error; I still had an earlier pop. figure where this gains Warsop but lost a more rural ward to Mansfield instead, but the map I was trying to describe had it gaining Warsop but not otherwise changed. Which is above target. So I had to drop Broughton ward, and because that moved Newark above target I had to move another smaller ward from there to Bassetlaw... which I had previously described as unchanged.
So yeah, gains Warsop, loses Broughton.
Newark 78,385
In the north, loses Rampton, gains Broughton. In the south, gains Wiverton and Nevile from Rushcliffe.
Gedling 78,068
Gains Trent and Manvers from Rushcliffe
Rushcliffe 80,770-x
Loses Wiverton, Nevile, Trent and Manvers. Gains the huge Clifton estate which is across the Trent from Nottingham but included in the city limits. I was stuck at this point for a while because this Rushcliffe was too big - I had dropped Cotgrave (itself a very interesting place; the things you learn on wikipedia when you do redistricting projects...) but it couldn't go into either Gedling or Newark. I could have dropped the rural Wolds ward but that would have looked stone cold ugly (and after catching my Sherwood mistake, the alterations I made to Newark in the north mean it's no longer possible population wise now, either). Cotgrave was obviously not a place suitable for dividing.
Then I notice that Clifton North ward (9681) also includes a quite distinct neighborhood called Wilford, by the banks of the Trent in the northeast part of the ward. And I'm reasonably confident it has between 1105 and 2633 electors and thus fits my bill here nicely.
Nottingham South West 77,022+x
Current Nottingham South except Clifton South and most of Clifton North plus Dales ward from Nottingham East and Aspley and Bilborough wards from Nottingham North.
Nottingham North East 79,488
Current Nottingham East except Dales ward, plus the Basford, Bestwood, and Bulwell Forest wards of the dissolved Nottingham North.

[minionofmidas]

An east/west split makes the western seat a string of communities along the western edge of the city which aren't well connected to each other and don't really have that much in common. 

I noticed the obvious transportation issues, but as someone who doesn't live there I got the impression that they (the populated bits anyhow, I guess there must be some very outlying bits that are quite different) had a lot in common structurewise - basically affluent inner suburbs along the edge of the city and along the edge of the Pennines.

But I'll try and see what your suggestion will end up looking like.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Remind me why they changed that, again. I seem to dimly recall there's an area called Attercliffe that isn't in it anymore, but I'm not at all sure of it.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Certainly has to be done if Southeast's renamed, yeah. (Ecclesfield is probably the best you can do if you want to go with just one word, but it's the outer edge of the seat and people in Burngreave may not like it.)

[minionofmidas]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

As someone who lives there, I think it's better to split west Sheffield north/south rather than east/west: a north-west seat with Stocksbridge, Stannington, Hillsborough, Walkley and enough bits of the wards to the south to get it up to quota, and a south-west seat based on Ecclesall, Dore and Nether Edge.

Sheffield Hillsborough
69,230 for the four wards you listed plus Crookes; plus the northern parts of Broomhill (12,347)
Sheffield Ecclesall
69,640 for the three wards you listed plus Fulwood and Central; plus the southern parts of Broomhill.
The graphically most pleasing solution would probably be to split both Broomhill and Central wards, with the southern two thirds of both going into Ecclesall.
Yet another option would be to leave Crookes in the southern constituency (which would then be quite similar to the pre-2010 Hallam and should probably retain that name), put the Central ward in Hillsborough, and split Broomhill east-west.

[minionofmidas]

We seem to be making rapid progress. These are based on the 598 seat electorate calculations correct?

Yes.

And don't forget that for me to calculate these seats, express them as %ages o the old seat (for instance 65% of Leicester South, 17% of Leicester East)

Given the problems with that simplistic method of calculating, which I could anyways do just as easily myself anyways I think I'll pass. Now... if you could calculate notional general election results for each ward in the areas that held local elections on the day of the general election... that would be a worthwhile enterprise!

[minionofmidas]

Attercliffe is in Darnall ward, which they were going to take out at the last review before there was a fuss about splitting Handsworth.  So they had to come up with a new name, and stuck with it even when Darnall was put back in.

Ah. Yeah, that's just the way they roll. The renaming was probably just not made an issue of in the local hearing because the issue wasn't actually Sheffield Attercliffe people complaining about what had happened to their constituency, so the provisional recommendation remained unchallenged on this point, and thus passed into the final recommendations even as the reason for it evaporated.

[minionofmidas]

Cumbria is the only northern area still missing. Cumbria needs to lose a seat and have quite oversized seats as a result, so this ought to be a lot of work for five seats. We'll see how it goes. All six constituencies are currently undersized, Workington worst of all.

[minionofmidas]

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.

[minionofmidas]

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

Westmorland & Lonsdale 76,005
South Lakeland District except for the new Broughton, Conistoke & Crake Valley, and Ambleside & Grasmere wards, which is identical in territory to the old Broughton, Coniston, Lakes Grasmere, western (ie, the side on which the town is) half of Lakes Ambleside, and northernmost parish (Lowick) of Crake Valley wards. Yeah, this is not just shifting Ulverston in  but also shifting a considerable bit of Lake District out - figures wouldn't add up otherwise. Not if the Mid Furness ward (rough equivalent of the old Crake Valley, but shifted south) was to move along with it.
Barrow-in-Furness 77,473 (yeah well, the "and Furness" part was a reference to Ulverston, wasn't it?)
Remainder of district, whole of Barrow borough, and the five southernmost wards of Copeland as far as Bootle.
Whitehaven & Workington 78,214
Remainder of Copeland district, southern coastal parts of Allerdale district as far as Dalston inclusive, Broughton St Bridget's exclusive, Ellen inclusive.
Carlisle and the Border 79,535
All of Carlisle district except Great Corby & Geltsdale and Hayton wards
Penrith & Solway Firth 79,133
Remainder of Allerdale, all of Eden, two wards of Carlisle

[minionofmidas]

I'm stuck in Blackburn now. If I keep Burnley and Accrington, which I want to keep because Pendle is such a nightmare, then that leaves chunks of Hyndburn in need of a partner. Rossendale is just too.....Daley......and I have plans to involve Bury.....so I'm stumped. How much of "Blackburn"  IS "Blackburn" ?

Everything that isn't Darwen AFAIK.

[minionofmidas]

Blackley and Failsworth 79748-x.  Charlestown, Cheetham, Crumpsall, Higher Blackley, Hulme, Moston, Failsworth East and Failsworth West.  This is slightly too large so the southern half of Cheetham ward (the area around Victoria Station and Strangeways Prison) will be shifted into Manchester Central.
Manchester Central 64542+x.  Ancoats/Clayton, Ardwick, Bradford, City Centre, Harpurhey, Miles Platting/Newton Heath and southern Cheetham as above.

Which leaves you with just 152 persons' leeway. Better to see if you can identify some area in a neighboring seat that can also be put into one of these two.

[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
The huge obvious problems here are already being pondered by others, so I'll leave it for now.

Since we now have 26 seats for Greater Manchester (plus North Turton), we'll need just 14 seats for Lancaster (minus North Turton). Good luck.

3.93 4 Bury & Rochdale
3.09 3 Wigan (except your excluding one ward as at current, taking you to 2.95)
5.05 5 Stockport & Tameside
2.11 2 Oldham (except you treated part with Manchester, dropping this to just 1.90)
6.60 7 Manchester & Trafford (and part of Oldham, taking you to 6.81)
4.74 5 Bolton & Salford (and a wigan ward and a tiny part of Lancashire, taking you to 4.93 and your Lancashire total to 14.50)

Is Doktorb on track to 14 seats? If not, this may have be reworked, seeing as not only have we a 5% corridor, but we also have a fixed total of England-wide seats. (Or else I have to revisit London, see if I can eliminate a seat somewhere somehow. That's the third option.) But just off these figures... what I'd suggest trying for is finding some other, smaller Oldham area to drop into Manchester - although this part is optional; treat Salford with Manchester/Trafford instead of Bolton; draw some kind of Bolton N & Darwen monstrosity. [Actually looks at a map] Or possibly Bolton W and Bits of Chorley is actually slightly less monstrous? The reason I'm suggesting Bolton as the place to breach the county line is just that it's the only Greater Manchester Borough by it to need a partner; I understand it's geography doesn't really lend itself to the suggestion. So maybe breach both the Bolton-Wigan line (to a larger extent than it is now) and the Wigan-West Lancs line just as Doktorb said (or since the area he was saying is also apparently to small in and of itself, use that and North Turton, leaving you with 14 slightly less oversized, and thus now more obtainable, seats in Lancashire?

[minionofmidas]

Actually looking through this thing on the detailed map now (will finally do the same with the proposed Lancs seats right after, I promise!), and
1) I understand the reasoning around Oldham / Failsworth. Consider that suggestion withdrawn.

Blackley and Failsworth 79748-x.  Charlestown, Cheetham, Crumpsall, Higher Blackley, Hulme, Moston, Failsworth East and Failsworth West.  This is slightly too large so the southern half of Cheetham ward (the area around Victoria Station and Strangeways Prison) will be shifted into Manchester Central.
Manchester Central 64542+x.  Ancoats/Clayton, Ardwick, Bradford, City Centre, Harpurhey, Miles Platting/Newton Heath and southern Cheetham as above.

You got Hulme and Harpurhey mixed up. As a result the populations are actually 80,420 and 63,870; although as the two constituencies share a ward anyways it doesn't actually change the game in any relevant ways.

[minionofmidas]

As it goes, my current state of play in Lancs is:

1) Lancaster and Morecambe
2) Valleys of Ribble and Lune
3) Fleetwood and Bispham
4) Blackpool
5) Fylde
6) Preston
7) South Ribble
West Lancashire
9) Chorley
10) Pendle and Burnley North
11) Burnley and Accrington

Which leaves me with

1) The whole of Blackburn borough
2) The whole of Rossendale borough
3) Most of Hyndburn borough

Out of which to get....3....seats? Or 4? I will begin again tomorrow....

Are you sure that's* all that's left? Even with the whole of Hyndburn, that's actually slightly too small for three seats.

*well that and a bit of W Lancs, we know that.

[minionofmidas]

Notes in teletype because too many quotes look messy.

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.
74,671, actually; not that it matters in the slightest (or else we both have the same suming error for Lancaster... no wait, I never summed Lancaster, I summed the wards removed just to get an exact listing of which they were. All of the at all territorial wards 'cept Overton, btw, in case anyone's wondering. And it looks much prettier if you keep Overton ward with Lancaster & Morecambe.)

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

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.
Claremont and Warbreck added (what the description sounds like) is 74,283. As none of the other possible combos give 74,074, I have no idea what happened. Doesn't really matter, though.

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.
Yeah, maybe these kinds of errors just happen a lot with the way you work this? Maybe rely less on excel and more on scrap paper, it's what I swear by. (do smileys even work in teletype? I'll find out when I hit post.) I work it out at 74,673, defining Cleveleys as the part of Wyre in the current Blackpool N & Cleveleys and Fleetwood as the part of Wyre in the current Lancaster & Wyre 'cept the three rural wards. Very nicely drawn constituency, btw; I like it.

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.
76,335... without Staina and Norcross wards. Much too large with them.

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.
74,408 on my maths. I've assumed Lea (which you didn't list) and Ingol are here. (Hambleton is part of the ward called Preesall, which basically includes the two and some much smaller hamlets.) See also below at Fylde (figure includes Staina and Norcross). Now that I think of it... I guess that's what you meant by the ugly threeway split of Wyre, cause if it was just the rural parts I couldn't see what the problem was. I would suggest moving the four eastern rural Fylde wards (Newton, Medlar, Elswick, Singleton) here and Staina and Norcross to Fylde, giving 74,274 here and 76,469 in Fylde. And without any part of the urban part of Wyre, it might then be better called Preston N & Garstang (after the former RD). Though the Valley of the Wyre is still here, of course.

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.
75,015. Should probably be renamed Preston South & Bamber Bridge.

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.
I have this as just 69,386, what am I doing wrong?

Pendle and Burnley North (78,931)
I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW. Just hold on. I didn't want to split Ribble Valley, the wards are too awkward, so I looked at the boroughs of the East, realised they were all fairly undersized, so have tried to work out what best to do by taking wards in-and-out, and this was the best result I could draw (for now). This takes three Burnley wards - Lanehead, Queensgate, and Daneshouse. I didn't go for Briercliffe, my first option, because that closed down options for other seats.

Burnley and Accrington (77,316)
The rest of the Burnley borough, all of it, plus Accrington ('cept Church ward, which I will assume looks towards Clayton-le-Moors........doesn't it?)
As far as Spring Hill and Baxenden, inclusive? That gives your pop. total.
I see the reasoning for the strange boundary in Burnley now; since Briercliffe is oversized, you could have used only two wards, and that would have forced a stranger split in Accrington as a knock-on.

I have a perfectly sized West Lancashire....but only if two wards are taken out and put into Wigan (this was when I thought the new Electoral Quota was going to be closer to 80,000).
Upholland and Brightington? That gives 76,497 for the resulting West Lancashire seat.

[minionofmidas]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

To which your reply is that there usually should be no need to split wards in a county/district council area because their wards are smaller, but that it is unavoidable in the Metros and some UAs.