Let the great boundary rejig commence

[YL]

I still have some hope that the Tories will see sense on this (or that the Lib Dems will persuade them to) and go for something like a 10% tolerance retaining the rule which allows it to be ignored in exceptional cases (e.g. Wight, Orkney and Shetland, Na h-Eileanan an Iar).  If not there are going to be a lot of controversial recommendations, and see the response to the Boundary Commission's absurd proposal of a cross-Mersey seat in the last review to see the sort of reaction they're likely to get.

[YL]

Let's have a look map by map...

Gwent & Mid Glamorgan: overall impression... urgh, but I've seen worse. Some of the constituencies make a degree of sense (putting all of Nye's old seat in one constituency is something I approve of, of course) but some are very odd. Their Caerphilly would not survive the hearings process. Also, stupid names... they don't seem to be aware that Tredegar is actually in Blaenau Gwent already.

South Glamorgan: overall impression... ghastly. Words don't exist to describe the utter stupidity of 'Vale of Ely'. The overall map like a desperate attempt to keep a LibDem seat in Cardiff with less seats to play with and I don't have any nicer words for it than that.

West Glamorgan: overall impression... these people should never be allowed to have anything to do with drawing electoral boundaries ever. A clear attempt to draw a non-Labour constituency in the Swansea area. There are not words. Vile. And they don't seem to know what the Gower actually is. Idiots.

Dyfed: this is just insane. I know Mid Wales quite well and I think you'll find that transport links make severl constituencies there impossible. I also don't know what the hell they think they're doing with Llanelli.

Gwynedd: surprisingly reasonable, though I don't think there's any way that Gwynedd & Machynlleth would survive hearings.

Clwyd: again, better than other areas though I don't like it. I would have to question whether the interests of the people of Chirk have much to do with those of the people of Llanrwst, though will admit that interior NE Wales is a problem.

Powys: DIAF

I imagine that if the proposal really is a rigid 3.5% tolerance either side of the quota then you'll have a lot of similar concerns about a lot of the proposals, and not just in the obvious places like the Isle of Wight and the Highlands and Islands.

[YL]

Those boundaries don't generally seem too bad, although I remain sceptical about the merits of such a strict size criterion.  I can't see anything obviously wrong with the way you've crossed the metropolitan county boundaries, and the boundaries in the north of the area seem neat.

I don't know north Manchester well enough to know whether crossing the Manchester/Bury boundary like that is a good idea.

"Wirral West" seems more descriptive of 62 than just "Wirral".

20 could be "Crosby and Burscough".

17 could be "Pendle and Bowland": I like naming constituencies after hills.  Quite a bit of it is of course really in Yorkshire...

[YL]

Based on today's announcement and the December 2009 electorate figures, a target size of 600 gives a quota of 75,701, with a target window from 71,916 to 79,486.  (I guess it may be slightly higher if the target is 598 excluding Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar.)

Conveniently, this gives Sheffield almost exactly 5 quotas.  Wards would need to be split, though.  (I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing.)

Cornwall and Scilly seem to come out at 5.5 quotas, so it looks like there'll be a "Devonwall" constituency, which could provoke an interesting reaction.

[YL]

Nicholas Whyte discusses the review in Northern Ireland at http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1471864.html

[YL]

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!)

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.

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.  (Putting Stannington in Hallam last time was a mistake IMO: the urban parts of that ward, where most of the population is, are a western extension of Hillsborough and don't really have anything to do with Hallam.)

Otherwise your thoughts are similar to mine.  I'd rename South-East back to Attercliffe (or "Attercliffe and Mosborough" if you want to give a better description of the area it covers), though, and I'd try to find a non-compass point name for what you've called "North East".

[YL]

Ecclesfield?

Burngreave is hardly "Ecclesfield".  I don't mind using two names, so I'd go for "Burngreave and Ecclesfield"; that way the whole constituency is either in one of them (as long as Ecclesfield is taken to mean the parish rather than the place) or clearly between them.

The SW seat I suggested could be "Ecclesall", reviving a name used in the first half of the 20th century.

[YL]

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.

Well, they have some similarities (except Stocksbridge, which is really a separate town) but in practice Sheffield's geography makes it a very "radial" city: if you look at services people use (things like schools, shops, buses) Ecclesall and Nether Edge have more in common with each other than they do with Stannington and Hillsborough respectively.  The ideal boundaries would run along the valleys, but I don't think you can get anywhere near the quota that way.

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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.
[/quote]

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, presumably on the grounds that the southern part of the seat (Mosborough et al) is nowhere near Attercliffe.  (Those areas have been in the seat since 1983, I think.)  I think of Darnall as more NE than SE, though.

[YL]

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.

The bit I've bolded is what I'd do.

[YL]

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

The part of Westmorland in Eden district seems to be Long Marton, Kirkby Thore, Eamont and Askham wards, the part of Ullswater ward around the head of the lake (Glenridding and Patterdale), and everything in Eden to the south of those.

[YL]

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.

The closest approximation to Westmorland using whole wards has an electorate of 73,554 according to my calculations, which is within the target range, but given that Cumbria as a whole is a bit over five quotas it's not going to be possible to do the rest of the county, so it's going to need a bit more territory from somewhere.  Here's what I ended up with:

1. Westmorland and Alston (77831): from South Lakeland Ambleside and Grasmere, Arnside and Beetham, Burneside, Burton and Holme, Crooklands, all the Kendal wards, Lyth Valley, Milnthorpe, Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale, both Staveleys, Whinfell, the Windermere wards; from Eden Alston Moor, the Appleby wards, Askham, Brough, Crosby Ravensworth, Eamont, Hartside, Kirkby Stephen, Kirkby Thore, Long Marton, Morland, Orton with Tebay, Ravenstonedale, Shap, Ullswater, Warcop.  [Staveley-in-Cartmel is Lancashire, but has to go here to get the numbers right.  Sedbergh is Yorkshire of course.]

2. Barrow and Furness (78432): the rest of South Lakeland; all of Barrow district.

3. Whitehaven and Workington (79542): all of Copeland; from Allerdale Clifton, Harrington, Moorclose, Moss Bay, St. John's, St. Michaels, Seaton, Stainburn.

4. Penrith, Keswick and Maryport (78152): rest of Allerdale; rest of Eden; from Carlisle Burgh, Dalston.

5. Carlisle and North Cumberland (76421): rest of Carlisle.

(I hope I haven't made any blunders here.)

[YL]

Fair enough on the Cumbrian names.

I thought I'd have a look at the can of worms that is Northern Ireland.  As I mentioned before, Nicholas Whyte has a post on his blog on the subject, and some of my thoughts are similar to those there (including in the comments).

The first question is how many Belfast seats:
(a) 2, covering most of the city council area, with the rest of the urban area distributed between the surrounding seats.  I'm not convinced by this, given Belfast's tightly drawn boundary.
(b) 3, covering a similar area to the 4 seats now.  The trouble with this is that you end up with a controversial South-West Belfast seat; apparently this was proposed before and there was an outcry.
(c) 4, extending the existing seats even further into the surrounding area.  The trouble with this is that the urban area doesn't go much further in most directions.

Anyway, I had a go with (c).  The electorate numbers I used were July 2010, which is clearly somewhat higher overall than December 2009, so I couldn't keep all 15 seats below 79,655.  Some of this may need adjustment.

1. East Belfast and Newtownards.  Gains the Newtownards and Comber areas of Ards DC, loses a couple of wards in inner Belfast.  I don't think you can do (c) without doing something like this.

2. South Belfast.  Gains a couple of wards from East Belfast (I used Ballymacarrett and The Mount), the Dunmurry area transferred from Lagan Valley to West Belfast in the last review, and the remaining part of the Dunmurry area that stayed in Lagan Valley.  Probably also needs the rural Moneyreagh ward of Castlereagh.

3. West Belfast.  Loses Dunmurry, gains the rest of the Shankill and about 5 more wards from the south of North Belfast.

4. North Belfast and Newtownabbey.  Loses its southern areas, gains the parts of Newtownabbey district it doesn't already contain.

5. North Down.  Gains the Ards peninsula.

6. East Antrim (possibly needs a new name).  Loses the Newtownabbey bit, gains eastern wards from Ballymena district and most of Antrim district.  This is pretty ugly; maybe it'd be easier if North Belfast went towards Carrickfergus rather than Ballyclare?

7. North Antrim.  Loses areas east of Ballymena, gains Portrush and Portstewart (otherwise the western seats are in danger of being oversized) and probably also a handful of wards in the NW of Antrim district.

8. Lagan Valley.  Extends both north, to take southernmost three or so wards from Antrim district, and east, taking the parts of Strangford I haven't put anywhere else.  Has to lose the Dromore area.  I don't like this one much.

9. South Down.  Extends back north, taking in the four southernmost wards of Strangford.

10. Upper Bann.  Largely unchanged, but gains Dromore and thus may need to lose a couple of fringe wards to Newry and Armagh.

11. Newry and Armagh.  See Upper Bann

12. Fermanagh and South Tyrone.  Regains the Coalisland area lost in 1997.

13. West Tyrone (or possibly Mid-Ulster, or possibly something else).  Loses northern fringe of Strabane district, gains Cookstown district.

14. Foyle.  Gains northern four wards of Strabane district, regains Banagher and Claudy lost in 2010.

15. East Stroke County.  Loses Banagher and Claudy and the Portrush/Portstewart area, gains Magherafelt district.

Mid-Ulster, Strangford and South Antrim are abolished.

I'm sure there'll be some better ideas!

Edit: I tried to do this "blind" to the effects on the sectarian divide, and haven't calculated them, but I suspect Unionists won't like what I've done to East 'Derry, and it's not clear that they get much compensation elsewhere.

[YL]

Cambridgeshire North East (if that's still the right name. Kind of tempted to call it "Ely". ) 75,637
Loses Elm & Christchurch and points north, gains Ely town wards, Ramsey

I'd quite like to revive the old "Isle of Ely" name, which would make slightly more sense if Haddenham were in it too.  "Ely" is better than "Cambridgeshire North East", though.

[YL]

Better, I think. Unless you now go spoil my fun and teach me that Ramsey is historical Isle of Ely too and a big reason why you suggested it. That would be not cool if that were the case. (Yes, yes, I know Wisbech is Isle of Ely.)

Ramsey is Huntingdonshire, both historic county and modern district.  I tend to think of "Isle of Ely" as meaning the low hill (island in the fens) which Ely itself is on, which is much smaller than the old administrative county with the same name and doesn't stretch as far as Wisbech, but does include Haddenham.  (People from Wisbech probably get altitude sickness if they visit Haddenham.)  The "Isle of Ely" seat should possibly include Stretham too; it looks like SE Cambs can just about afford losing that.

Wilts/Glos: I'd suggest looking at crossing the Wilts border with Glos CC in the Cirencester/Cricklade area and also crossing the Glos CC/S Glos border; assuming the numbers work without any nasty town splits it should be less ugly than Wilts/S Glos.  The northern parts of the existing Stroud and The Cotswolds would then be merged.

Any comments on Northern Ireland, by the way?

[YL]

OK, here's an attempt at Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.  I'm not sure it's much better to be honest.

1. Kingswood (77,826) gains Staple Hill, Boyd Valley.

2. Sadly Broke and Sodding Chipbury (79,528) compared with current F & BS, loses Almondsbury, Patchway, Pilning & Severn Beach, Staple Hill; gains Westerleigh, Dodington, Chipping Sodbury, the Yate wards.

3. Thornbury and Dursley (79,115) rest of South Gloucestershire; Stroud district except the Stroud area itself.

4. Stroud and the Cotswolds (77,290) from Stroud district: Amberley & Woodchester, Bisley, Cainscross, Central, Chalford, Farmhill & Paganhill, Minchinhampton, Nailsworth, Randwick et al, Painswick, Rodborough, Slade, Stonehouse, Thrupp, Trinity, Uplands, Upton St. Leonards, Valley; from Cotswold district: Beacon-Stow, Blockley, Bourton OTW, Campden Vale, Chedworth, Churn Valley, Ermin, Fosseridge, Moreton in Marsh, Rissingtons, Sandywell, Three Rivers.

5. Forest of Dean, 6. Cheltenham, 7. Gloucester, 8. Tewkesbury as in previous proposal

9. Cirencester and North Wiltshire (77,595) Rest of Cotswold district; from Wiltshire Brinkworth, Cricklade and Latton, Lyneham, Malmesbury, Minety, Purton, Sherston, the Wootton Bassett wards.

10. Chippenham (76,827) gains Box and Colerne, By Brook, Kington; loses Hilperton, Winsley & Westwood (part).

11. Devizes (75,580) gains Calne; loses Bulford et al (part), Durrington & Larkhill.

12. Salisbury (75,495) gains the wards that Devizes lost.

13. SW Wiltshire (78,547) gains the wards that Chippenham lost.

Split wards otherwise assigned to the constituency which the largest part was with.

[YL]

I see your proposal and I raise you:

Thornbury and Dursley (75,801) as in your proposal except minus the Stanleys ward (because it looks to me like it ought to be in Stroud, and now it fits in too)

Stroud and the Cotswolds (79,198) from Stroud district: Amberley & Woodchester, Bisley, Cainscross, Central, Chalford, Farmhill & Paganhill, Minchinhampton, Nailsworth, Randwick et al, Painswick, Rodborough, Slade, the Stanleys, Stonehouse, Thrupp, Trinity, Uplands, Upton St. Leonards, Valley; from Cotswold district: Chedworth, Churn Valley, Ermin; from Tewkesbury district: Badgeworth, Brockworth, Churchdown Brookfield, Churchdown Saint John's, Hucclecote, Shurdington.

Tewkesbury (77,812) Remainder of current constituency; Sandywell, Bourton on the Water, Rissingtons and points north in Cotswold district.

Anything else as you described (didn't have a second look at Wiltshire or South Gloucestershire actually).

Yes, that looks better, except I'm not sure about the Stroud name now.

[YL]

Does anyone have current NI electoral figures? The ones on the commission's website are february 2007.

Same thing with Scotland, except it's July 2007.

I used http://www.eoni.org.uk/index/statistics/electorate-statistics.htm for my attempt (a few pages back now).

[YL]

Foyle 76,337
Regains the Claudy and Banagher wards (the rural part of Derry's local authority) from East; gains the Slievekirk, Dunnamanagh, and Artigairvan wards from West Tyrone
Fermanagh & South Tyrone 78,206
Gains the remaining portion of Dungannon district.
Mid & West Tyrone (or whatever) 79,503
West Tyrone constituency excluding Slievekirk, Dunnamanagh and Artigairvan; Cookstown district
Coleraine, Limavady & Magherafelt 75,403
East excluding Claudy, Banagher, and Dundooan, Dunluce and all of The Skerries to the northeast; Magherafelt district from Mid Ulster
North Antrim 79,226
Gains The Skerries, Dundooan and Dunluce, loses Grange and Kells wards to the south
East Antrim 77,272
Gains all of the Macedon electoral area (or whatever the STV constituencies of Northern Ireland are actually called?) from Belfast North and the remainder of the University electoral area from South Antrim. Makes for an oddlooking boundary as the rural Ballynure ward just north of that remains in South Antrim, but I need these people in South.
South Antrim 73,208
Loses those four University wards to East, gains almost all of the Antrim Line electoral area (two wards are currently in already - Mallusk on the rural western edge of Newtownabbey, Burnthill right between the areas its losing and the ones its gaining), Grange and Kells wards from North Antrim, and the Ballinderry ward from Lagan Valley
Upper Bann 74,727
unchanged
Newry & Armagh 74,364
unchanged
South Down 78,222
Regains Ballymaglave, Ballynahinch and Kilmore, gains Killyleagh. Still doesn't include all of Down district, though.
Lisburn 79,467
Loses Ballinderry, remainder of Dunmurry (Seymour Hill and part of the sole split ward of Derryaghy); gains Carryduff East and West and Moneyreagh in Castlereagh, the Ards West electoral area in Ards, and the Saintfield and Derryboy wards in Down.
I didn't feel a constituency extending to Strangford Lough could continue to be named "Lagan Valley". Lisburn remains the dominant town, if not quite as completely as in the old Lagan Valley.
North Down 79,318
Loses the Holywood electoral area, gains Newtonards town (not including the partly rural Bradshaw's Brae and Ballyraine wards), Loughries and the Ards peninsula.
Belfast East 79,063
Regains Hillfoot and Wynchurch, gains Galwally from Belfast South; to the east, gains Holywood, Bradshaw's Brae and Ballyraine. (53% outside Belfast city limits, up from 37%.)
Belfast South 78,027
Loses Hillfoot, Wynchurch, Galwally, Carryduff; gains all of Dunmurry and the southwest Belfast wards of Ladybrook, Andersonstown, Glen Road and Glencolin. (34% outside Belfast city limits - which is, randomly, unchanged from right now.)
Belfast North West 75,653
Remainder of Belfast West and Belfast part of Belfast North. (Wholly within the city.)

Broadly speaking the Mid Ulster, Belfast West, and Strangford seats are abolished. That includes two of the seven Catholic-majority seats... but Belfast North (now North West) obviously flips and then some, and I'm quite confident that South (which is already Catholic held despite a Proddy majority) flips too, making for 8 Protestant and 7 Catholic seats.

I think "Coleraine, Limavady and Magherafelt" must be very close to flipping too.  (The three districts combined have a narrow Protestant majority, but the area of Coleraine district you've taken out is certainly contributing to that.)

Your "west" is essentially the same as mine.  Comparing your "east" with my attempt at keeping a 4 seat Belfast, I think yours is probably better, although the South Belfast remap may still be controversial

The redrawn West Tyrone may actually get renamed "Mid Ulster", as it's similar to the seat which had that name before 1997.

[YL]

I think "Coleraine, Limavady and Magherafelt" must be very close to flipping too.  (The three districts combined have a narrow Protestant majority, but the area of Coleraine district you've taken out is certainly contributing to that.)

Uh oh. A Catholic gerrymander was not my intention.

In that case it isn't a gerrymander...

What's the alternative?  It's probably just about possible to make four seats in the west within the target range using the territory of the existing five seats, but you wouldn't have much room to play with.  The map above also works well with the district boundaries, and you'd lose that.

I suppose part of south-east Tyrone (the Blackwater electoral area) could be transferred from FST into Newry and Armagh as an alternative way of trimming the west, but there would be knock-on effects...

Anyway, the DUP might well hold the seat even if it did have a small Catholic majority.

[YL]

The government has decreed that the Isle of Wight will be given two constituencies entirely on the Isle of Wight. Given the general direction of policy, I don't quite see how that can be justified on anything other than partisan grounds.

People on the Island that I can see when I stick my head out of my window will probably be less than amused.

I think it would be reasonable to say that the Isle of Wight should be divided into the whole number of constituencies which makes the average closest to the quota, which I think would have more or less the same effect as the amendment passed, even if automatically giving it two seats is a bit silly.

I think this change does actually improve the bill - a half Wight/half mainland Hampshire constituency would have been a real monstrosity - but other monstrosities (e.g. one spanning the Tamar) still seem likely.

[YL]

Ward figures for Northern Ireland can be found via http://www.eoni.org.uk/index/statistics/electorate-statistics.htm

So, here's a first go at a 16 seat map, trying to avoid thinking about the sectarian split.  I started off by noticing that the three south-eastern seats are all OK already.

1.  South Down (72,092).  Unchanged.

2.  Upper Bann (76,209).  Unchanged.

3.  Newry & Armagh (75,856).  Unchanged.

4.  Fermanagh & South Tyrone (76,337).  Gains the three Coalisland wards and Washing Bay.

5.  West Tyrone (72,887).  Gains two Dungannon and five Cookstown district wards from Mid-Ulster.  The name just about still works as it doesn't touch Lough Neagh.

6.  Foyle (72,573).  Regains Banagher and Claudy.  I would call this Derry City but that's not going to happen.

(now things get messy)

7.  Limavady & Mid Ulster The Sperrins (75,083).  Compared with current Mid Ulster, loses territory to seats 4 and 5 above; gains the whole of Limavady district and three southern wards of Coleraine district.  Anybody fancy naming this?

8.  Coleraine & North Antrim (75,568).  That part of Coleraine district not in seat 7, all of Moyle and Ballymoney districts, five wards of Ballymena district (currently Portglenone, Dunminning, Craigywarren, Cullybackey, Glenravel).

9.  Ballymena & East Antrim (78,256).  All of Larne and Carrickfergus districts, those parts of Ballymena district not in seats 8 or 10.

10.  South Antrim (71,838).  Loses Glenavy and Crumlin wards to Lagan Valley, gains two wards of Ballymena (Grange, Ahoghill) and those parts of Newtownabbey district currently in East Antrim.

11.  North Belfast (74,783).  Gains three Shankill Road wards from West Belfast.

12.  South-West Belfast (74,408).  Current West Belfast except Shankill Road wards, plus all of Balmoral electoral area, plus Stranmillis ward.  This would not, I think, be popular.

13.  East Belfast (72,569).  Loses five easternmost Castlereagh wards; gains all of current South Belfast inside the city boundary except those bits in seat 12, plus Galwally, Hillfoot and Wynchurch.

14.  Bangor & Ards (77,524).  Ards and North Down districts except those parts in seat 15.

15.  Mid Down (72,018).  Castlereagh district excluding those wards in seat 13; Holywood electoral area and Crawfordsburn from North Down district; Ards West electoral area and Ballyrainey and Bradshaw's Brae from Ards district; Down district wards currently in Strangford.  A bit of a mess, as indicated by the name, but I didn't really like anything else I thought of in this area either.

16.  Lagan Valley (72,634).  Regains Glenavy; also gains Crumlin ward from Antrim district.

I'm not sure I like this; it'd be interesting to see other ideas (excluding sectarian gerrymanders).

[YL]

According to your blog regional boundaries can't be crossed, is that correct?

They can be, but the Commission doesn't want to cross them and is consulting on not doing so, and allocating seats to the regions via Sainte-Laguë.  I can see why they're doing this, given that the whole of England would be a bit unwieldy and smaller divisions like counties (whichever definition of county you want) are too small to have a whole number of constituencies allocated under the Act, but personally I'd prefer that the current regional boundaries (particularly the one that perpetuates the ghost of "Humberside") be used for as few things as possible.

They also really, really, don't want to split wards.  I doubt they can avoid that in Sheffield, where most of the wards have electorates around 14,000.

See their newsletter issued today:
http://www.boundarycommissionforengland.org.uk/docs/newsletter2-040311.pdf

The electorate figures to be used are also available now (at least for wards; where wards are to be split they'll use polling districts) on the Commission's website.

[YL]

My Cumbrian proposals from earlier still seem to work; here they are with the new electorates:

1. Westmorland (77,474): from South Lakeland Ambleside and Grasmere, Arnside and Beetham, Burneside, Burton and Holme, Crooklands, all the Kendal wards, Lyth Valley, Milnthorpe, Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale, both Staveleys, Whinfell, the Windermere wards; from Eden Alston Moor, the Appleby wards, Askham, Brough, Crosby Ravensworth, Eamont, Hartside, Kirkby Stephen, Kirkby Thore, Long Marton, Morland, Orton with Tebay, Ravenstonedale, Shap, Ullswater, Warcop.

2. Barrow and Furness (78,312): the rest of South Lakeland; all of Barrow district.

3. Whitehaven and Workington (79,500): all of Copeland; from Allerdale Clifton, Harrington, Moorclose, Moss Bay, St. John's, St. Michaels, Seaton, Stainburn.  [On reflection, I still prefer this name.  People have actually heard of those places, unlike "Copeland".]

4. Penrith and Maryport (77,800): rest of Allerdale; rest of Eden; from Carlisle Burgh, Dalston.

5. Carlisle and the Border (77,284): rest of Carlisle.

However, there's actually no need to put the historically Lancashire ward of Staveley-in-Cartmel in the Westmorland seat on the new figures: it could go into Barrow and Furness.  Making this change takes Westmorland down to 75,912 and Barrow and Furness up to 79,874.

[YL]

7.  Limavady & Mid Ulster (75,083).  Compared with current Mid Ulster, loses territory to seats 4 and 5 above; gains the whole of Limavady district and three southern wards of Coleraine district.  Anybody fancy naming this?

The Sperrins (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperrins).

I thought of that, but wasn't sure whether it was accurate enough.  However, it's quite a nice name, and the other one is horrible, so I'll adopt it for now.

Any comments on the rest of it?

[YL]

I can do Sheffield with only one split ward, though it's quite finely tuned and probably at least three of the city's current MPs wouldn't like the outcome very much.  If split wards are to be avoided altogether then I'm pretty sure it's not possible to stay within the city boundary: there just aren't enough wards with electorates significantly more than a fifth of the quota to make two five ward constituencies.

Heeley (79,790): Arbourthorne, Gleadless Valley, Nether Edge, Graves Park, Beauchief & Greenhill, Dore & Totley.  Similar in some respects to the pre-1974 marginal Heeley.  Nether Edge is a bit out of place.

Hallam (73,016): Ecclesall, Fulwood, Crookes, Broomhill, Central.  Uses the large electorate of Central ward to get a five ward grouping into the target range.

South-East (78,338): Mosborough, Beighton, Birley, Richmond, Manor Castle, Woodhouse.

Hillsborough (c. 78,028): Walkley, Hillsborough, Stannington, Stocksbridge & Upper Don, West Ecclesfield, part of East Ecclesfield (Chapeltown).  Similar to the 1983-2010 Hillsborough.

Brightside (c. 77,340): Darnall, Burngreave, Shiregreen & Brightside, Firth Park, Southey, part of East Ecclesfield (Ecclesfield village and points south).

If you want to avoid split wards, instead of bits of Ecclesfield give Hillsborough Penistone (from Barnsley) and Brightside Brinsworth & Catcliffe (from Rotherham).  Then Ecclesfield has to be dealt with with the rest of South Yorkshire, and then there are lots more problems to deal with (especially when you get into West Yorkshire and the huge wards in Leeds).