Let the great boundary rejig commence

[minionofmidas]

So... this is fine, except for some local gripes of the type that may be rectified and a lot of names... and for Mid Glamorgan and Cardiff. I played around with that, and it's complex. Merthyr, Cynon (which becomes Pontypridd & Cynon) and Rhondda can all be extended southward... but Cardiff+Penarth is 3 1/2 seats, and Caerphilly is the obvious place to add, and that leaves you with a remnant seat that makes the Commission's Newport W & Sirhowy look sane and compact by comparison. One might try at least not splitting the Cynon Valley three ways next; or one might try three very closely-cut Cardiff seats shedding those northwestern suburban wards, plus an east-west division of the Vale (with Penarth) + adjoining territory to the north, or maybe my old idea of Rhondda & Maesteg can be restituted by combining it with YL's suggestion of running Aberavon south along the coast.
I don't want to revisit the Gower issue, except to maintain that the "Gower & Swansea W" name for a seat that includes less than half of the Gower needs to go. The alternatives are all equally bad.

[minionofmidas]

Given these issues, I like this approach, I think. I would need to recalculate the numbers and move some wards as a result.

http://syniadau.forumotion.net/t587-wales-30

Has the three Cardiff seats, the Vale split, the southern extension to Aberavon, and pairs Pontypridd with Rhondda, Merthyr with Cynon, and Blaenau Gwent with Rhymney. It may well be the solution. (His northeast is worse than the Commission's though.)

I also like the solution to the Gower naming issue - "Swansea Gower" and "Swansea Tawe". Neat.

[minionofmidas]

The official report has only just been launched on the Boundary Commission's site "because the person who maintains the site has only just come into work" (and that's from a Boundary Commission telephone operator). They have also published the schedule for public hearings

The locations, venues and dates of the 5 public hearings to be held across Wales are:

15-16 February 2012: Sinclair Suite, The Liberty Stadium, Swansea
22-23 February 2012: Millennium Lounge, The Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
29 February - 1 March 2012: Catrin Finch Centre, Glyndwr University, Wrexham
7-8 March 2012: Menai Room, Celtic Royal Hotel, Caernarfon
20-21 March 2012: Main Hall, The Pavilion, Llandrindod Wells

Wtf is this sh!t? Only one hearing in the populated half (by population) of the country?

[doktorb]

I've gone for "Colwyn and Conwy", and "Flint and Delyn" for the two coastal seats.

(or, if required, their Welsh translations, not that anyone in the North speaks Cymraeg but I have to heed the Welsh Language Act after all...)

[minionofmidas]

I've gone for "Colwyn and Conwy", and "Flint and Delyn" for the two coastal seats.

(or, if required, their Welsh translations, not that anyone in the North speaks Cymraeg but I have to heed the Welsh Language Act after all...)

Actually not so - the laws specify that every constituency has only one name which may be drawn from either language but should be used as the official term in both.

Delyn is an artificial word that basically was supposed to mean Deeside & Alyn when it was first coined. It's not even Welsh at all (and couldn't be, really, given the rules about word-initial sounds in that language. It'd have to be Telyn. Which means harp.) and it doesn't describe the areas added from Vale of Clwyd. (One out of Flint or Holywell) & (one out of Rhyl, Prestatyn, and "Vale of Clwyd") is probably the best that can be come up with.

I'd go with simply "Conwy" for the western coastal seat, but Colwyn & Conwy is fine by me.

[doktorb]

Cheers for that, useful, I can amend my submission beforehand

"Flint and...East Clwyd....No, West. No.....North Clwyd"?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Don't use Clywd, unless you're referencing the river.

[doktorb]

Gotcha.

Right....maybe Delyn is the best 'compromise' then?  "Flint, Rhyl and Prestatyn" sounds like an Arriva Trains Wales platform announcement.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Delyn really ought to be avoided as well.

All three towns are in the historic county of Flintshire, if that's any help. They weren't all in the old West Flint constituency though; Flint was in East Flint.

[YL]

I was thinking West Flintshire too.  The old constituency of that name was once represented by Sir Anthony Meyer of 1989 stalking horse fame.

[doktorb]

Thanks guys. Always useful.

[YL]

Llanfairfechan can go into NWC (which should not be called that, and neither should "Dee Estuary" be called that, as Prestatyn and Rhyl are on the North Wales Coast and not the Dee Estuary as far as I'm concerned. Both seats should very much be drawn, however.) The two remaining rural Conwy Valley wards can go into Gwynedd. Ynys Mon & Bangor (as I would have named it) then needs to be brought up to population, and Llanberis seems like the obvious choice.

Looks good to me.

[doktorb]

So far I have five alternative names going in my submission.

"South Pembrokeshire" (or maybe "De Penfro" which I like the sound of, if for no other reason).
"Colwyn and Conwy"
"Flint and West Flintshire"
"Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare"
"Newport"

[minionofmidas]

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This is my proposal, in full. I am leaving it here for 48 hours minimum to address any issues before emailing it to the Commission. Because yes, I will. I didn't for Northern Ireland because I approve of the proposal. I didn't for Scotland because given all those split wards, I lacked the necessary data to submit alternatives to the areas I disapproved of. I didn't for England because it's such an incredible mess that I literally didn't know where to start; it's as bad as Torie's first draft of Arizona.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You might want to mention that the historic links between Rhymney and Tredegar extend to the fact that they were in the same constituency for ages (at least 1918-1983 and maybe before then; can't remember at the moment). Also that Llanberis has overwhelming CoI ties with Deiniolen.

Anyway I'm going to have a closer look at the mess around Wrexham later to see if things can be improved without altering the general pattern.

[minionofmidas]

Also that Llanberis has overwhelming CoI ties with Deiniolen.

Are there any further places beyond Llanberis that really ought to be in the seat? There is nothing further outside Gwynedd that can be reasonably added to the Gwynedd seat, but there's still some wiggle room within the quota. Also, Llanfairfechan can still be placed in the Menai constituency if that is held to be sensible.

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Do that. I really can't judge around there; the map looked okay to my untrained eye.

[YL]

This is my proposal, in full. I am leaving it here for 48 hours minimum to address any issues before emailing it to the Commission. Because yes, I will. I didn't for Northern Ireland because I approve of the proposal. I didn't for Scotland because given all those split wards, I lacked the necessary data to submit alternatives to the areas I disapproved of. I didn't for England because it's such an incredible mess that I literally didn't know where to start; it's as bad as Torie's first draft of Arizona.

You could always submit something for the later stages in England (preferably to support my submission ).

[minionofmidas]

Just occurred to me, but in the alternate proposal, there is no need to link Rhondda and Cynon - you can instead link Rhondda to Tonyrefail etc, Aberdare to Merthyr much as in the Commission proposal, and Mountain Ash and points south to Pontypridd. Probably slightly nicer.

[Harry Hayfield]

Just a reminder to Minion that the Commissioners don't want "I don't like that ward in that constituency" (in fact when I spoke to them about how the consultation will happen they suggested that those submission will be ignored), they would much rather have "I don't like that ward in that constituency, so here's an alternative suggestion"

[minionofmidas]

Just a reminder to Minion that the Commissioners don't want "I don't like that ward in that constituency" (in fact when I spoke to them about how the consultation will happen they suggested that those submission will be ignored), they would much rather have "I don't like that ward in that constituency, so here's an alternative suggestion"

As you'll notice, mine is a full proposal for all of Wales. It's just ordered by constituency, as ordered in their report.

[minionofmidas]

Al? Wrecsam?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The internets just ate my post. Fyck. So this will be even less useful than would have otherwise been the case.

Basically the problem is the old Denbighshire Coalfield; the way it's been cut up is deeply unsatisfactory (even more so than the current split, which is far from logical) and none of it belongs with Mid Wales. Accepting that there's no way round this big issue without redrawing the map from scratch, the very worst thing is the inclusion of Rhosllanerchrugog in the Welshpool-to-Denbigh horror story. I don't think that's acceptable. I also don't like it being split from Ruabon. Cefn in that seat is also bad (because although there are ties to Llangollen - not that Llangollen is really the magical centre of that seat or anything - the Dee there is a natural barrier, which is why they built the aqueduct. That was also the boundary between the Denbigh and Wrexham constituencies on the old political map of Wales) but is a slightly lesser sin. Chirk isn't good either, but it presumably unavoidable (and easier to argue for if required; it was in Glyndwr DC, for what little that matters).

That's probably deeply unhelpful. One possible crazed solution is a dash for the English Maelor, maybe (that area is always a problem as it belongs with nowhere). You'd have to do an absolutely ridiculous split of Penycae & Ruabon South (to include a small area where basically no one lives) and probably of Marchwiel as well (maybe even just to include Erbistock), and then work from there. Which would still be obviously absurd, but there would be a degree of deranged logic lurking somewhere (i.e. that constituency as rural north borderlands or something), probably. Maybe.

Btw, this is the reason why I hate that proposed constituency. It is two wards wide at one point; actually doubly so, but I'll just draw attention to the Powys half of that. Maps of the wards in question:

https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/maps/700/1308631485.aspx

https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/maps/700/1308631486.aspx

sigh

[YL]

Tinkering a bit in that area to see whether it's possible to produce something which at least looks better on a map:

Wrexham Maelor has plenty of electorate to spare.  The 3,199 electors of Ruabon could be transferred from it to G&NP (hereafter referred to as the monster), reducing WM to 75,154 (so indeed a bit more territory could in principle be transferred).  That at least gives the monster a more coherent-looking element in Wrexham borough.

Adding Ruabon takes the monster to 77,753, which is big enough to start thinking about whether it can be trimmed down to make it slightly less monstrous.  Unfortunately I can't see how trimming it in Montgomeryshire is actually going to improve it, but it could lose the three Conwy wards (3,821); Gwynedd has room for all of them, and at least around Pentrefoelas that doesn't seem like such a bad idea (though adding all of them would make Gwynedd geographically very large), or Llansannan could go into Conwy if that makes more sense.  That would at least mean it only covered parts of three council areas rather than four.

I'd also prefer a different name.  Berwyn?  Denbigh and Welshpool?

To really deal with the problem of the virtually disconnected Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire components, I think you'd have to take a different approach to Powys, which would have knock-on effects in both the north and the south.  The electorates of Alyn & Deeside and what I'd call West Flintshire are both near the upper limit, so in principle the former could lose some territory to Wrexham, compensated if necessary from the latter.  Then more of Wrexham borough could be transferred to the monster, and you then might have enough electorate to remove the Montgomeryshire element (which is around 20,000 electors) altogether.  Once you've done that, the Powys seat is going to be too big, so some areas in Brecknockshire will need to go into South Wales constituencies...

[minionofmidas]

I don't consider the inclusion of all of the Mynydd Hiraethog in the Glyndwr seat so very problematic (despite the extra local government boundary split). Keeping the Conwy seat coastal makes sense to me, and I'm not sure I want to extend Gwynedd that far east.

But yeah, the real problem at Wrexham is that it can't cover all of that area (and all of Wrexham). The Maelor Sasnaig actually hasn't enough people (besides that I don't think you could ever convince the commission to do it) if you're going for Cefn as well as Rhosllanerchrugog - and that does seem like the "natural" place to put the boundary. The area makes almost 20% of the proposed constituency populationwise. It's actually its biggest population center, certainly so when you throw Chirk in.

But what could, actually, be done is at least not split that little conurbation there south of Wrexham, by also feeding the monster Ruabon. The commission's reasoning in drawing that particular line probably didn't extend beyond "let's not make the geographically large seats be the overpopulated ones as well". (Librultyke had the same idea. God, I need a name to refer to him with. I don't like the look of "YL".)

Would you consider that an improvement worth recommending?

[minionofmidas]

And I sort of like the Glyndwr name. If Britain is to start having constituencies named after people like Quebec or Australia, Owain Glyndwr and Shane Crosagh O'Mullan are just the kind of people I want constituencies named after.